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iPod nano flashing and switching evangelism

My iPod nano does draw some comments. Since I got the nano lanyard and started wearing the nano around my neck, people have stopped me and asked what it is – the reaction is much like the iPod nano TV add. But since the nano can be used to break the ice – it’s a good opportunity do some switching evangelism.

For instance…

Yesterday a guy stopped me when I was leaving the Ungemesse 2005. He had eyeballed my nano, and wanted to hear more about it, like price etc. After talking to him about the nano, I began pitching switching. Being an educated man – obviously working with music and photography – he did of course know about Macs, but his main complaint is that Macs aren’t SU (Statens Uddannelsstøtte – a Government grant for education) friendly.

But he also complained that one of his buddies – a Mac user – had problems exchanging documents with him. The problem, as usually, being the use of the de-facto standard, the Microsoft Word document format. So I told him about OpenOffice.org, that it runs on both Mac and Windows, and that it can handle Word documents.

There is so much to be done pushing OpenOffice.org as the credible alternative it is these days. Needless to say, the guy I talked to, was using a “Jolly Roger” copy of Microsoft Office on his PC.

I also tried to push Linux, but the reputation of being too difficult/neerdy seems to run rampant.

Conclusion – people are warming up to Mac, but since they have lots of problems exchanging Microsoft Word documents, they end up buying PCs and they run stolen software.

Picthing Linux however, is a different case – nobody believes that it is a credible alternative. Let’s hope that projects like the Linux powered MIT $100 Laptop will help improving the public interest in, and spread of, Linux, and ultimately shed it of it’s undeserved geeky reputation.

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