Marketing Team/Elevator Pitch

Building the Perfect Pitch

We need to be able to describe, in 75 persuasive words or less, to any possible listener, why Sugar matters. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it. :)

The goal of the elevator pitch is to elicit the magical words: tell me more.

Rules

Here are the rules:

• Got a pitch that's 75 words or less? Put it under "current elevator pitches", note the word count, and associate your wikiname with it.
• Like a pitch? Put a +1 under it with your wikiname attached. For now, PICK ONLY ONE.
• Want to reword a pitch? Great! Copy it and add your changes. DO NOT just change the pitch in place. Create a new one.
• Don't +1 multiple pitches. That's cheating. If there are two you like, munge them into one. :)

Making good pitches

• The best pitches start with a hook aimed at some concern of the person listening. For liberals, save the world. For hard-headed business types, talk about creating new markets. For social conservatives, talk about home schooling. Better still is a pitch that invites the hearer to express a concern that you can follow up on. We will need a whole Frequently Expressed Concerns list.
• Examples of some favorite pitches are up at Talk:Marketing Team/Events/Sugarcamp Boston 2008/Marketing.

Current Elevator Pitches

• Sugar- Allowing children to learn through active engagement (8 words)-JT

• Sugar – in any package – we need it. Children need it (10 words) User:Ptdrumm

• SUGAR LABS is about being SMART (Sensible, Measurable, Accessible, Relevant, and Timely). (6–12 words) --doxsoup

• “Sugar a Gift to the Nation: Global learning that works for every child.”(13 words)

A gift? It’s Free! Global learning? Allows children to be an individual learner in a Global setting! Nation? Should be usable wherever you live. As soon as they start asking Questions-The Floor is Yours-Use it Wisely! User:jt4sugar

• Sugar is a computing environment for school kids. Kids learn by doing, and Sugar is designed for doing, together: chatting, sharing web pages, building stories, teaching one another. Sugar is built by a community of volunteers, which means that anyone who cares about education can help. 500,000 kids worldwide are already using Sugar on the OLPC. Sugar is unique and will change how kids learn. (65 words) User:Gdk

• Investing locally in learning that works for every child (9 words) User:Walter

• Investing locally in collaborative learning that works for every child (10 words) User:Walter

• Investing locally in global learning that works for every child (10 words) User:Walter

• How will it affect you when we can educate every child in the world? (14 words) User:Mokurai

• How will it affect you when there is no more poverty? (11 words) User:Mokurai

• Imagine a system designed for learning, exploring, creativity, and collaboration! Sugar doesn't leave you at the desktop, it opens a window to the world through interactive activities. Be part of it and invent the future of learning. (37 words) User:Ritafreudenberg

• What did you hate most about school? (7 words) User:Mokurai

• Did you ever have an experience as a kid that opened up your world and made you feel like you could change it when you grew up? That's the kind of moment we want every kid to have - except we think that, with the right tools and opportunities, they don't need to wait to grow up to be able to change their world. (64 words) User:Mchua

• Did you have a moment as a kid that opened up your world and made you feel able to change it? (What was it?) We want every kid to have that kind of moment, so we make tools that let them build those moments for themselves. Sugar is an open-source computer-based learning platform created and used by a community of thousands of volunteers, including educators on 6 continents and over half a million children. (74 words) User:Mchua

• Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day. Give a child a toolbox and teach her how to invent fishing poles... (25 words) User:Mchua

• We are in the midst of one of the most profound intellectual revolutions of all times. Recent advances in technology are making it possible to give a computer to every child. The educational benefit of computers in the classroom is boundless. Sugar Labs is at the forefront of this revolution. User:Dfarning

• Have you heard of the One Laptop per Child project? Sugar is the learning platform developed for OLPC. It was developed by the MIT Media Lab and was developed especially for collaboration and creative learning and elementary aged children. We are putting it on machines everywhere, netbooks, desktops, even on bootable USB sticks, so that every child can learn use Sugar anywhere. User: CarolineM

• We're making a world where makers make themselves. (8 words) User:Mchua

Brainstorm results

At Sugar Camp, we went through a brainstorming exercise in which we wrote down a long list of traits that make Sugar unique. We then voted on the traits that resonated most strongly with all of us. The following list was the result. We can use this as a tool to help build the elevator pitch.

• Collaboration (13)
• Community (8)
• Anyone can jump in (8)
• The only OS designed for small children (5)
• Children are not stupid (4)
• Portfolios (4)
• Allows engagement for all learning styles...(3)
• Equal opportunity and stretches the student... (3)
• Low floor, no ceiling (3)
• Fulfillment of hope (2)
• Learner & developer (2)
• Momentum (2)
• Journal (1)
• Part of OLPC (big and well organized) (1)
• MIT Media Lab... Papert, Kay, Dynabook... Engelbart (1)
• Free as in beer (1)
• Clay Christiansen (“disrupting class”) classic disruption tech. (1)
• Helps kids in developing countries /participation gap (1)
• Logo/Scratch/Squeak
• Not real :(0)
• XP on XO :(0)
• “We are the change...” (0)
• perception that it is only for developing world (0)
• Sugar is complete (0)
• Internet access/digital divide
• Ending poverty

Wordsmithing

Some helpful snippets of wordsmithery.

• solve more problems because more people will be freed from the chains of ignorance
• think about computing, not operating systems
• Sugar enables change
• end ignorance through expression
• cooperative discovery
• cooperation is based on trust
• more learning
• learn to challenge the status
• learn to question every... including Sugar
• the path from helplessness to empowerment is one way
• we learn by doing
• Love is a better master than duty
• You learn through doing, so if you want more learning, you want more doing
• Knowledge is a noun, learning is a verb
• "Technology is anything invented after you were born"
• built by a global community of volunteers that anyone can join
• Sugar was designed for children for learning, not office workers.
• Sugar is owned by its users
• Learning doesn't end at the door to the school
• Sugar Labs provides the community of support for Sugar users
• do, reflect, learn, share.