Subject: Re: [lojban] Marketing lojban

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2001 19:10:28 -0500 (EST)

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:

> At 05:06 PM 03/21/2001 -0800, seidensticker wrote:
>
> >I would think that there
> >would need to be an effort to get the word out. The discussions here are
> >often interesting and I'm sure they're educational to the participants, but
> >I haven't seen anything about ways to market or advertise lojban's
> >existence.
>
> I welcome such, but observe that as yet we have limited means with which to
> advertise, beyond word of mouth, and limited ability to deal with response
> to advertisements.
>
> Advertising would just lead to more response than we could deal with.

The materials on the web are self-sustaining. The Draft textbook is
sufficient, this mailing list is active, word lists are plentiful, etc.
I don't see what hassle a few more thousand web-savvy speakers would
produce. I lived off web resources alone for the first 2 years.

> >Is lojban supposed to be just a labor of love or a hobby, or is there a
> >consensus that we'd like to see lots more participants to really give the
> >language a trial run?
>
> We'd like the latter, but getting from here to there is a trail that is
> unblazed. With Cowan and myself, who have historically done the bulk of
> the work to produce marketable "product", both tied up with parenting, we
> need more. xod's efforts to set up a webring and a Lojban-only online
> 'zine are good starts, but more is needed.

Certainly, more is needed to attract and support bigtime attention, but
only big(ger) time attention can create the material needed to attract...

> >If its premature to issue press releases
> >or otherwise try to spread the word,
>
> People are doing this.

I'd be interested to hear what ideas seidensticker has.

> And that is probably the biggest problem we have - long term continuity of
> time on the part of people in order to sustain the projects that need to be
> done to completion.

Interest in Lojban seems to be short-lived in most people. They appear,
get intensely interested, invent many ideas for software projects or such,
and within 3 months they vanish into obscurity. I suspect there is a
factor that would keep them interested for longer periods, but I'm not
sure what that is. I think it might be sense of community. There's not
much discussion in Lojban from which they feel excluded by not knowing
enough to participate. My last call for IRC chat got one interested
respondent. That's an increase from the previous call.

There is not much original text written in Lojban. Most of the content in
Lojban is translated from other languages, so reading it has only
education value. (Plug: this is why I think it important to create a body
of original Lojban content, like Balvi.) There is sufficient educational
material already in existence to support the sort of person dedicated and
eccentric enough to bother trying to learn Lojban.

Once Lojban is learned to an expert level, the student is on their own to
go forth and create with it. Not everybody has a personality that is
comfortable developing material in bleak environments, with such a small
audience and even fewer peers.

-----
"The trees are green, since green is good for the eyes". I agreed
with him, and added, that God had created cattle, since beef soups
strengthen man; that he created the donkey, so that it might give
man something with which to compare himself; and he had created
man, to eat beef soup and not be a donkey.