Pradeep Padala, Pramode C E, and the other guys at that engineering school
     in India. I can go through the authors directory and say which are the
     most promising prospects.

     [Thomas] I'm wondering whether it is something more than a campaign ad.
     With the vast amount of literature already out there in the form of
     howtos, web forums, IRC, etc -- people are not only able to fix their
     problems with relative ease, but also experiment for themselves much more
     easily.

     We've actually already created ourselves an indirect target audience --
     the complete clueless. :) Gone are the days of "The Answer Guy" when
     e-mails were coming in by the sackful. Those people that know how to do
     something are not going to be interested in using the LG as a resource,
     since they can do it.

     The quality of questions coming in has dimnished greatly as well. I can
     only put this down to resource availability -- if something has been done
     and documented (assuming a person reads it) then they'll use it. This is
     also true of articles. But then as I now have lots of time to spare, I can
     get cracking on that.

     It's interesting to note therefore, that LG is actually self-perpetuating
     its own demise in a way. The more we document things (in terms of articles
     and TAG, etc) the less we actually need to answer since it has already
     been answered.

     I partly blame the move from SSC for this -- it was done with great haste
     - certainly something that could not be avoided, but I wonder just how
     many people know of the original us?

     [Ben] Anyone who's got advice or can offer help on this point is more than
     welcome to step up to the line.

   Luckily we have a little stash of backlogged e-mails. The only danger with
   these though is that some of the information may well be out of date, but
   that's something that we can either correct, or ignore. Depends. :) 

   Maybe we need to "advertise" more somehow? 

     [Ben] I'll need to get together with Heather again and go over the ideas
     that she had, which ranged from good to terrific, and toss money and
     effort  at the problem. Anyone willing to share in the effort part,
     particularly those who have some experience and/or knowledge in it, would
     be welcomed with relief and joy.

     [Sluggo] That's a good idea, but I don't know how you reach people who
     don't read LWN or [24]Slashdot. If SSC had been willing to put reciprocal
     links to the other zine it would have helped enormously, but that was
     nothing we could control. It looks like we need a "marketing task force".

     [Thomas] But I think you missed my point -- it's not so much a decline as
     such, since there are people moving to linux everyday -- but that is
     perhaps more true on a corporate level.

     [Ben] By 'decline', I meant a decline in our readership. There's certainly
     none in the adoption of Linux, which is what's setting off my alarm bells;
     I'd like to see somewhat of a parallel between the two, which seems like a
     reasonable goal to me.

     [Thomas] It's these people (businesses) that are going to now capture the
     interest of Linux. But then corporations are going to be out-sourcing
     people to train their staff (one hopes) so it probably won't be more of an
     individual-basis as it was when Linux was very much a curio for people to
     "try" out. But you never know -- if it may well encourage people into
     looking at it from a personal viewpoint as well.

     [Ben] Y'know, that may well be a very strong point to consider. "Newbie"
     doesn't have to mean "non-professional"; it may well be that we need to
     put some thought into connecting with the segment of the business world
     that wants to jump on the Linux bandwagon. Well spotted, Thomas.

     [Thomas] It is a valid and worthy opinion to consider -- especially when
     that  is how a lot of news about Linux (via radio, columns, etc) is
     covered; it's done from a business angle.

     [Ben] I've contacted a friend of mine who did graphic design for Apple for
     a number of years, and he's agreed to do a column on it - the main thrust
     of it is to teach people how to present a professional appearance in their
     products, whether Web pages or UIs. It's not specifically Linux, but it's
     a strongly relevant issue, and I believe that it's a pretty good move
     toward adding a bit more professionalism to LG.

     [Thomas] Oooh, I like this idea. Sounds like just the kind of wedge that
     might set a trend. Unfortunately, what I cannot do is focus upon that
     aspect since as you all know, business just is not my area.

     However, what I can do is seriously look, cover, divulge information and
     articles about how Linux is being used in education, specifically within
     the  UK.  This  is a really hot topic at the moment. I am on a tiny
     mailing-list ([25]SuSE-Linux-Schools-UK) that was originally setup as
     means of sysadmins to ask their problems. I joined it, since I was one of
     the admins at school at the time.

     Now though, they have evolved much more such that we're seeing a serious
     consideration for Linux in schools (not quite dual-boot for the students
     alas, but rather server-side) <www.schoolforge.org.uk>.

     [Thomas] What we need to do, is to make LG (as I have been saying) more at
     the forefront for information and appealing to any target audience,.