How Can We Attract More People to Esperanto?

I have been thinking about this for a little while. First a little background information. I am a Television Writer/Producer, so that is the angle of vision I used on this particular question. If I were to try and film a promotional piece or commercial, so to speak, I would come at it in a way that presents Esperanto as slightly subversive, or revolutionary. For example: Two alternatively dressed youths are riding the city bus. They are talking about a party they both plan to attend later that evening. The catch, they are speaking in Esperanto. When asked what they are speaking about, either with distaste, or genuine interest, one responds with,"Learn Esperanto, and you'll know" then of course the web address for Lernu.net comes up and the the Esperanto speakers laugh their way off the bus. Of course that is a television commercial. A simpler method would be to simply create flyers, like you see for concerts or rave postcards, but make the subject Esperanto. Use images of past workers movement propaganda with a catchy slogan, "Esperanto. The language that works. The language for Workers!" or something. Then just leave them around at different venues and shops. Stick them into your free weekly newspapers box on the corner or whatever. Then, once you have done that for say a month or two. Put one out inviting people to an Esperanto meeting at a coffee shop or something and see who shows up. Just an idea.

You have to make it attractive for people to follow their interest. I don't know about where you live, but here in the Pacific Northwest, the whole, subversive, revolutionary, stick it to the man, kind of thing would interest quite a few social groups and would have a decent chance of taking hold. I may try this and let you know what happens.

This question has divided the Esperanto community for a generation and has different answers in different times and places. There are a couple of patterns of answers, however, that are worth exploring.

On the one hand, some people devote themselves to transforming the public perception of Esperanto. As long as the general public uses the word "Esperanto" to denote either a utopian failure or something incomprehensible, relatively few people will learn Esperanto and those who have learned it will be afraid to even admit it for fear of being labeled a crackpot. The term "finvenkismo" is sometimes used to describe the idea of trying to reach out the larger community with the goal of convincing people to learn Esperanto (after "La Fina Venko" -- the final victory, the mythical time when everyone has learned Esperanto as their second language and solved the "language problem").

On the other hand, some people devote themselves to improving Esperanto culture: writing and translating literature, organizing symposiums and conferences, creating websites and videos, etc. By adding value to the Esperanto community, they believe people will inherently come to see learning Esperanto as a worthwhile activity in order to gain access to an interesting and vibrant culture. This pattern of activity is sometimes called "Raŭmismo" after the "Manifesto de Raŭmo".

The labels sometimes get used as sticks in arguments about how the Esperanto community should invest what resources it has: do we use our time, money, and effort for outreach or to add value to the community itself? At a personal level, I think most people who identify with the Esperanto community do some of both.