I think we need an actionable plan. We brainstorm lots, we record ideas and action items on the wiki, but there are no deadlines, no dates by which it would be good to have things done, no way for a new person coming in to know where to start.
I think if we developed a marketing plan that included not only our goals, our audience and our strategy but also a timeline from now until the release of 3.0 and what we'd like to see happen each month, then people could see what they could sign up for ... Stormy On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:03 AM, Sriram Ramkrishna <s...@ramkrishna.me>wrote: > > > On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 5:27 PM, Brian Cameron <brian.came...@sun.com>wrote: > >> >> Sri: >> >> On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Brian Cameron <brian.came...@sun.com >>> <mailto:brian.came...@sun.com>> wrote: >>> >>> - Many public television, radio stations, etc. will play free ads >>> for non-profits. Wouldn't it be interesting to put together some >>> advertisements that we could use to get the message out there? >>> While it would require some work to coordinate such things, the >>> cost would be low once the content was created. Perhaps we could >>> find volunteers to help with creating the content as well. Some >>> people who do graphic design or video work might be interested in >>> volunteering their time on a project that would receive a lot of >>> airplay and therefore be a boost their resume or portfolio. >>> >>> We had talked about a GNOME youtube channel I think that is still a good >>> idea and I'm looking into how to work that in my copious spare time. >>> >> >> As you say, I think this is probably a bigger job than one person could >> reasonably do. Perhaps we should focus on developing the GNOME >> Marketing team so that such big jobs can be shared by subgroups of >> interested people, as Stormy suggested. > > > My frustration is that we've been trying to do that for the past couple of > years. It's been difficult. It might be that it's hard for one person to > do but it's precisely why it's good that we start. Momentum is what we > need. Also developing GNOME marketing requires some kind of plan, end goal > and so forth. I haven't had time to actually develop this as I've been > really busy with school and been pretty quiet the past couple of years. I"m > hoping that is at end as I finish up. But this and gnome journal have been > my two biggest areas that I would like to work on. > > >> >> >> Right now, I think we are in brainstorm mode, but hopefully we can >> narrow down these ideas to a reasonable set of things we could do. > > > We are always brainstorming and it seems to end there. :-) We can point > out any number of threads with this kind of thing. It's time to get real > and really do something and mean it. The momentum of doing GJ has really > help me move forward on marketing as well. > > >> >> >> Although GNOME Journal is a great way to get the message out there, >>> can't we do more to try and get the message out in more mainstream >>> press? We are mostly preaching to the choir via GNOME Journal, I >>> think. >>> >>> I think GNOME Journal can still do this. See the message previously in >>> this thread regarding sharing articles with other magazines. If we can >>> land our articles in mainstream magazines that is going to be a big >>> win. Secondly, we have in fact had articles from GNOME Journal >>> published in foreign language magazines I think in eastern europe if my >>> memory serves. >>> >> >> That's great news. Perhaps we should be asking ourselves what we have >> done right in the past and see if we can use that information to build >> upon such past successes. > > > Indeed. > > >> >> >> For example, I have heard that it costs thousands of dollars to make >>> a Windows machine support the sorts of disabled users who get free >>> support in GNOME. Perhaps an interesting marketing angle would be >>> to better highlight exactly the cost benefits of using GNOME. How >>> much, exactly, do you save? This might be of special interest to >>> U.S. organizations which need to meet Section 508 requirements of >>> the U.S. Disabilities Act. >>> >>> >>> This is an excellent point. Also, for developers we have gui testing >>> tools that cost thousands of dollars in the windows world. So that's >>> another thing we can hype up. >>> >> >> Exactly. >> >> A press team would be great, though I don't think we should limit such >>> a team to only think about the GNOME 3.0 roll-out. There are a lot >>> of messages we could be better at communicating. In the past year, >>> for >>> example, GNOME hasn't been very good about participating in things >>> like >>> the "Software Freedom Day" and other annual events that would benefit >>> from greater participation from the GNOME community. >>> >>> Only if there is interest. We already seem to have problems doing >>> things actionable here. >>> >> >> Yes, that is a significant problem. Getting more people interested and >> engaged in GNOME Marketing is perhaps job #1. > > > Perhaps we need to build some momentum and get some stuff done. Maybe we > need to just do one thing and build on that success. But the past couple of > years we've seen a stagnation in the non-coding parts of GNOME including > gnome-web, gnome-journal, and marketing-list. If we want to re-invigorate > these things we must grow the team and bring in fresh blood. Most of us are > old timers that have been around for a long time. > > Outreach is sadly lacking here and we need to shop around. I have some > ideas on how to do that.. that I should enumerate on live.gnome.org. > > sri > >
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