Convincing a school district to migrate from OS X to Ubuntu or Edubuntu

[Bart Silverstrim]

Allen Meyers wrote:

>> I have followed this thread with interest with no intention of contributing
> because while I have a great deal of experience with school food service I
> have had minimal exposure to administration, superintendents, business
> manager and the like. That being said the decision to change any on going
> process in a public school setting rests with administration.
> In its early stages when I was endeavoring to get school food service to
> implement HACCP "Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point" I experienced an
> almost insurmountable  administrative wall. While Food Service Directors saw
> and appreciated the extreme importance it was ultimately an administrative
> decision hence I had to brave the lions den so to speak. Please take my word
> for this I am articulate and was passionate about food safety to a fault.
> Plus I have an aggresive in your face persona which did not sit well. In
> short I had to change my approach and win over administration and ultimately
> it was more cost effective to implement HACCP and they made the switch.
> Incidentally I am talking Texas and 1086 districts. Finally your attitude
> and your ability to win over administration is the Key
> and believe it or not your body language.
> I hope this helps somewhat

You might want to trim your post a little more in the future...that was 
a lot of scrolling!

Another point that you probably learned is that you can't go 
steamrolling in with the the end-all solution to their problems if they 
"would only do XYZ everything would be rainbows and gummy bears!"

"Linux is your salvation!"

Yet if you have no idea of the other forces at work or other issues, why 
should they listen?

Do most people who bitch about food service even KNOW about things like 
HACCP? Or the certifications for food safety involved in serving foods 
in cafeteria, or costs to store goods vs. trucked in at certain 
intervals? But no...it's simpler to just bitch because the macaroni and 
cheese isn't the same as the box kind they like from the supermarket.

If someone with actual knowledge or experience knows the subtleties of 
the problem has an opinion, it's good to listen to them. People who just 
know one aspect of an issue...not so much.