Small-scale Street Outreach Actions ("Vigil", "Minidemo", "Nanodemo")

Purpose

• Two persons at a focal point of traffic near some swpat-related site doing the following
  • arousing attention
  • distributing leaflets/stickers on software patents and Europarl elections

Current Actions

• Minidemos in Berlin, Muenchen, Wien

• Brussels Nanodemos

• Paris NanoDemo

• Minidemos in Warszawa (interest is there)
• Minidemos in Praha on Vaclavske Namesti

• May Action Weeks

Things to do for FFII

• provide the leaflets/stickers
• help provide means of arousing attention
  • banners
    • we have paid 500 eur for 10 banners in Brussels, but they are bulky and sending them elswhere is costly (UPS 150 eur/piece, normal mail ?cheaper? but slow)
  • list places where such items can be produced decentrally
  • list possible slogans
• ensure that there is no problem with permits/police

• reach out to supporters, enlist people using the FeedbackEn script system, have someone instruct the volunteers who sign up

Leaflets/Stickers

see PR Materials and PrmatEn

Means of Arousing Attention

idea 1: monitor helmet

proposed by Benjamin Henrion

computer screen helmet on the head

idea 2: captives

proposed by Robert Osfield

captives tied to some heavy object

Name of the Game

• A well-established term for this kind of small-scale street action is "vigil" (german "Mahnwache"), known especially from the pacifist and environmentalist movements
• "Nanodemo" sounds scientific, but upon closer look it means that we are so small that nobody will ever see us: 1,000,0000,000 times smaller than a normal demo, visible only with electron microscope. It is to be questioned why such a size should have any particular impact. Minidemo OTOH means that we are miniaturising in order to be more flexible.

Doubts about minidemos

Attempts in Berlin seem to have shown that

1. not many people are willing to spend as much time as needed to make minidemos successful
2. those who are willing are mostly core activists whose time is better spent on the phone (tasks listed above).
3. there are even concerns that minidemos give us the wrong public image.
4. it may be more effective to raise the issues as a citizen at europarl elections question rounds