On 28/06/06, Jan Vancura <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I don't want to say that we do all the things that help spread Ubuntu that no one else picks up... but, basically, yes :)
That's a nice overview.
> SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound) > objectives.
I can't agree on this one. It reminds me of planned economy, with which we in the eastern half of the old world have bad experience ツ. I'm more in favour of a free, supply and demand regulated economy model within the team.
My feeling is that free market capitalist economies probably couldn't function as well as they do unless the businesses within them planned properly to meet the needs of the market. Setting SMART objectives is part of that planning process. As I understand it, you're saying you want the marketing team to meet the needs that are present. That's what I'm saying too. To better meet those needs, we should be prepared to debate what we believe the needs are. Setting objectives for the team just means that we're agreeing on what the needs are and agreeing some ways to measure our success. We shouldn't confuse planning, which can make us more effective, with centrally planned economies.
The objective is simple, gaining a 50% user share - from there, the battle is fair.
That's not an objective, it's an aim, an eventual goal. As a side issue, is that an aim that you've set? Bug #1, which we've been referring to, seeks a world where: "A majority of the PC's for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu". I've not seen a 50% share mentioned elsewhere. There's no problem with people having individual aims for the project, but as a team we need to debate and agree on this sort of thing. It isn't as simple as saying, "50% user share" and taking that as a given from that point on. Back to aims and objectives. As you say, we need to be focused as we have limited resources. Let's say we take Bug #1's eventual aim of a majority of PC sold with free software only, as our overall goal. Or we could take a 50% share as an overall goal. Either way, we need to break that down into manageable chunks; neither are trivial goals. Those become the objectives for Ubuntu as a project. As a marketing team, we're not really in a position to agree objectives for the entire project. However, we could agree objectives (or stages of the process) that we, Canonical and other interested members of the community are happy with. Then, we agree the different marketing activities we need to undertake to achieve those. And so on, until we have mangeable chunks of work. The difference between that and a planned economy is that: a) we maintain an entrepreneurial attitude within the team that enables anyone to decide they want to become involved, come forward with ideas, suggest that our objectives are rubbish, or whatever b) we set realistic metrics by which we can test whether or not we're activing effectively c) we start out, and continue, by finding out what is needed, and understand that we'll almost certainly have to change that as we go along. It's not about control, it's about getting as much bang for our buck as possible. If it were about control, then I'd suggest that we set immutable goals and plan down to every last bit of activity. What I'm actually suggesting is that we understand what is required of us, agree it and then do our best to fulfil it. I've not replied to the other parts of your message just yet as I really want to debate this point. To me, it's essential to the efficacy of our team. Also, I hope you appreciate that this is all written in a spirit of friendliness and debate, rather than confrontation :-) -- Matthew Revell www.understated.co.uk -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
