Hi Adam, One of the real successes of the conference was getting you more involved. We need more people like you because you can present a credible professional face to the project. We really don't have too much money and I suspect what is available might start getting rather difficult to distribute because of different views of how it should be spent. For example, the Association for Free Software has a few thousand pounds in its coffers but its incredibly difficult to allocate it to projects *because* its such a small amount and so many possible ways of spending it. There is a danger that AFFS ends up putting so much scarce volunteer resource into debating and deciding how to spend trivial amounts that its really counter-productive. I remember the debates about not for profit set up etc for OOo a while back which is why I dreamt up the INGOT idea. Its also why I did it as part of my company - I did think about setting it up as a separate not for profit with a board made up from teachers from the academies, community members etc. In theory this would have been more democratic etc but in practice it would have slowed things down and made it very difficult to get going, not least because I can apply for some specific grants to help fund things as a private enterprise etc. Not for profits are better when you have income to not pay tax, at start up its less useful because you have no income to tax! So I have control and I'll decide how any money generated is spent which might give me too much power, but I promise to be a benvolent dictator ;-). Seriously, I still think more effort needs to be made to exploit what Ryan rightly says is the infrastructure of a Fortune 500 company with merchandising etc to raise money for professional marketing. While I can afford to fly round the world to San Diego, for many volunteers its just not realistic and we have some oustanding talent in the volunteers that is being squandered for the sake of a ha'peth or tar. This needs to start yeaterday because the lead in times are non-trivial. Its over two years since I first had the INGOT idea and while its looking promising, its still costing me more than its making at present. I think it might be at least a year or two more to break even and a point where I can really put significant amounts of money into the project but if I was starting now that point would be 4 or 5 years off. The project should be exploiting every fundraising angle if we are to really aspire to being the best.
Sorry for the length of this - really must start a BLOG when I get back home! --- Adam Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: Adam Moore <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 08:34:55 -0800 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Marketing] Ethos of SpreadOpenOffice.org > My question is more along this line: We are the LARGEST open source > project IN THE WORLD. There is no reason we *can't* afford a HIGH > QUALITY setup, instead of a bunch of banners. The way people percieve > our booth setups will directly effect how they percieve us. We need a > professional look, if we want to reach professionals. A few simple > banners are NOT professional. Jason is right here professionals want a professional looking product and business to work with. I can't count how many times we were asked at the booth who is your director, or who is the CEO. If openoffice can't really put one professional looking person as the head of the project then we need to put a professional looking community behind the project. > > > As far as the novell and AMD stands they are extremely nice but I > > don't think the funds of this project would allow for something as > > intricate as that. I think a banner, set of nice looking flyers and a > > machine or two for people to play with would be nice. I will research > > the cost of a banner and I *might* be able to donate one to the > > project. That would be at least one that could be shipped through > > North America. > > I think the project could afford it, if we made it a priority. Sorry being new I really don't know the financial aspects of this project. Truthfully I don't know where you guys get your money at all. > > > We also gained alot of partners while we were there. Maybe one of > > them would be willing to donate a banner to our project. The banner > > could even have supported by logos on the bottom for people who want > > to donate. This wouldn't just be so we can get money having other > > logos on our banner, especially large corporations can benefit us > > because it would show other businesses that we have a strong backing > > by other companies. Also maybe if we can get alot of companies to get onto our banner maybe that can fund our design of our booths. > preferably one of each OS that we run on. > +1 Adam --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
