Hi all, For information, I'm still subscribed to the list, so no need to cc me :)
Peter Junge wrote: > Hi Louis, all, > > this triggers a topic I was planning to write about since one or two > weeks. I'm BCCing [EMAIL PROTECTED], because I think my intention is more > general. I hope I can win some of you guys to join this discussion. The > members of BizDev is a quite small circle. > > We first have to find out, what the community wants to do beside the > technical dimension of OOo. As well we have to count the resources and > ask ourselves, what *can* the community do in this direction. Let's for > example have a look at the professional contributers of OOo. I would > guess at least 98% of people being payed by their employer to join OOo > is technical staff. Really, you seem to be the only non-technician > working for OOo full time. Consequently, we have a significant shortage > of human resources at projects like BizDev. There is also a lot of work done in the native-language community on a non technical level and paid by some employers, but of course, it's not full time. But this is how we achieve localization, QA, documentation, etc. The difficulty I see is more on coordination and having good tools to ensure this coordination. > > In the past all the effort in this direction was mainly handled by the > marketing project with a one size fits all approach. Recently we saw the > education project finally breaking loose from marketing, which is IMHO a > big step in the right direction. Besides marketing, BizDev and education > we would also need projects for Public Relations and NGOs > (Non-Governmental Organizations), maybe more, to cover the whole > spectrum of different organizations to be targeted by OOo. Especially > the NGOs I would find very interesting, as there seems to be a lot of > benefit for them to use a free product. But, as I said, we have to find > out, where we find the resources for it. I know, there are a lot of > volunteers out there, but I think, they would really need some more > support of people working full-time on OOo. Hard to see, where they > should come from in the moment. Education project is settling a non for profit association, may be this is the way. > > Please find some direct remarks to your posting in-line. > > > Louis Suarez-Potts wrote: >> I am the supposed lead of this project and I am not leading it at all, >> unless one counts leadership by neglect. I would like to change that >> as much as feasible :-) > > Louis, as I stated above. You are the only one working full-time for > such projects in the OOo community. You cannot be all places all of the > time. You're the lead for several projects and jetting around the world > in between. I think you simply lack of time to manage all of this. But, > a solution is not easy to see. I hope I'll be able to help in the future. Make a clone of Louis ;) > >> >> The project has some problems: it's purpose is not clear and it >> maintains a large unwieldy database (actually just large list) of >> businesses. We have no real policy to filter this list and we ought to. > > There are basically two ways for us to do Business Development. First, > there is a passive approach like we're doing it in the moment. We give > companies, consultants and people, that base their business on OOo, a > platform to promote their business cases. Second, there is the active > way to do BizDev, by reaching potential customers etc directly and > promote OOo to them. But can the latter really be a goal for an FOSS > community? I think not. It needs a lot bigger effort to go this way. As > well it might create competition and redundancy with the companies > selling products based on OOo. We should leave active BizDev to them and > work on the platform for the SMBs. I think that we miss a lot of feedback from those companies. They are between the technical part and the users part. I know most of the companies that are listed on the FR project, but for most of them, they do not interact with the project. Why? - this is small companies that do not have resources to put in the project - they don't know how they could help and protect their business at the same time - they are not aware that they can give feedback and don't know how. I think the Extension project will give an opportunity for them to contribute when it's about code. But the UX project could have also a lot of to gain by having those companies on their side. They are in direct relationship with users and IT, they know what is needed for the product and its future. > >> >> I have been working on related issues: to see about creating a filter >> for consultants offering support and services for OOo. The idea would >> be that those who offer services of a certain quality get listed; >> those who do not are not, at least not by OOo. As you may imagine, >> that's not been so easy. > > Do you have a link, where I can see the result? I'm not sure, if I > understand you. I remember that we discuss about charging to be listed, is it still an idea to develop ? > >> >> Still, I think it's a worthwhile goal. We need to make it easier for >> users--gov'ts, companies, individuals, education--to find and buy >> support and services. > > OK, we should support this as business cases filed by the consultants. > >> >> (Disclaimer: my employer, Sun, offers support and services for OOo; >> but my goal is not to promote that company but the ecosystem.) >> >> So: two things. >> >> * let's create a database for the consultants' directory. Several of >> you over the years have volunteered. If you are still interested in >> helping, please step forward again. > > How do we assure, if the entries in the database are up-to-date? Currently for what I do in my project, it's a real pain. You have to check every now and then if the company still exist and is listed with an accurate adress, if it still provides OOo services on their site, etc. It's a lot of work and very time consuming. > >> >> All names would be transferred over. >> >> * let's work on the certification process. The Community Council last >> year (and year before) agreed that OOo can and should come up with >> criteria for support. Not much happened; a boring subject for many. >> Last September, we moved this forward, and since then, there has been >> work. Sophie Gautier (cc'd here) has stimulated work to build on this >> certification syllabus [0]. Discussions are on >> [EMAIL PROTECTED], and you can see the >> archives. [1] > > Setting up certifications seem to be a clear topic for the documentation > project, I would agree on that. But again, we see the lack of full time > non-technical staff. BizDev can of course promote the consultants > offering certification services, but only if we get the training > material done. Be sure that I try :) But there is no other way to push the initiatives than when we have time for them. Even if we (non technical members part of the community) spend a lot of time and energy on the project, we are only volunteers that need to have a day (or night) job ;) > >> >> My interest again is in promoting the consultants. But the current set >> up makes it nearly impossible. Yet these consultants are key members >> of the OOo ecosystem, and we need to grow that. Thanks Louis and I agree with you that's a very difficult task for the moment. Kind regards Sophie --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
