Question about our Brand

[Mike McGrath]

Do we have anything like an official brand book?  Could someone answer 
the following questions (and tell me how we're promoting others to do them?)

1) Should we refer to ourselves as "Fedora" or the "Fedora Project"?
2) When someone asks "What is Fedora" what is our official answer?
3) How do we know our ambassadors are sending a consistent message? Do 
we even want them to?
4) When someone asks about the Fedora Project's relationship with Red 
Hat what do we say?
5) When someone asks about Fedora's relationship with RHEL what do we say?

I'm sure I could come up with a whole list of questions but you get the 
idea.  I may be missing some history there too as I'm not normally 
active in marketing (because I have no background/training in it :)

    -Mike

[Matthew Miller]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 02:31:49PM -0500, Mike McGrath wrote:
>  2) When someone asks "What is Fedora" what is our official
> answer? 
Apparently, "my t-shirt is!".

Um.

Sorry.

-- 
Matthew Miller           mattdm(a)mattdm.org          <http://mattdm.org/>
Boston University Linux      ------>              <http://linux.bu.edu/>

[jan birsa]

Fedora is a Linux Distro. :)

On 9/17/07, Matthew Miller <mattdm(a)mattdm.org&gt; wrote:
>  On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 02:31:49PM -0500, Mike McGrath wrote:
>  > 2) When someone asks "What is Fedora" what is our official answer?
>
>  Apparently, "my t-shirt is!".
>
>  Um.
>
>  Sorry.
>
>  --
>  Matthew Miller           mattdm(a)mattdm.org          <http://mattdm.org/>
>  Boston University Linux      ------>              <http://linux.bu.edu/>
>
>  --
>  Fedora-marketing-list mailing list
>  Fedora-marketing-list(a)redhat.com
>  https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-marketing-list
>  


-- 
jan(a)fedoraproject.org

[Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams]

On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 21:51 +0200, jan birsa wrote:
>  Fedora is a Linux Distro. :) 
So are Ubuntu, Slackware, Mandriva, etc.

What is *Fedora*?

-- 
Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams <ivazqueznet(a)gmail.com&gt;

[David Nalley]

Mike McGrath wrote:
>  Do we have anything like an official brand book?  Could someone
> answer
>  the following questions (and tell me how we're promoting others to do
>  them?) 
In my opinion we do (at least in the US) a poor job of this. The
European Ambassadors are far more single-minded based solely on my
perception.
>  
>  1) Should we refer to ourselves as "Fedora" or the "Fedora Project"?
Depends on if you are talking about the distribution or the project.

>  2) When someone asks "What is Fedora" what is our official
> answer?
> From the wiki: What is Fedora? The Fedora Project is a collection of 
projects
sponsored by Red Hat (http://redhat.com) and developed as a
partnership between the open source community and Red Hat engineers. The
goal of Fedora is the rapid progress of free and open source software
and content. Public forums. Open processes. Rapid innovation.
Meritocracy and transparency. All in pursuit of the best operating
system and platform that free software
(http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/free-sw.html) can provide.

>  3) How do we know our ambassadors are sending a consistent message?
> Do
>  we even want them to? 
I think they should - but honestly we have little way of
controlling them.

>  4) When someone asks about the Fedora Project's relationship with
> Red
>  Hat what do we say? 
While I don't speak for anyone other than myself when I say
this - I'd
say that RH sponsors Fedora - is heavily involved in development
occurring under the Fedora umbrella.

>  5) When someone asks about Fedora's relationship with RHEL what
> do we say? 
Fedora is heavily linked - I would say Beta version - because the two
are really different. But even in officially sanctioned items we
acknowledge that Fedora is at least the proving ground for RHEL.


>  
>  I'm sure I could come up with a whole list of questions but you get the
>  idea.  I may be missing some history there too as I'm not normally
>  active in marketing (because I have no background/training in it :)
>  
>     -Mike
>

[Paul Stauffer]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 04:34:21PM -0400, David Nalley wrote:
>  Fedora is heavily linked - I would say Beta version - because the two
Argh.  Please avoid using the word "beta", or even terms like "proving
ground"!

Language like this just serves to further the widespread mistaken impression
that Fedora only exists as some sort of experimental test subject for RHEL,
and encourages the idea that Fedora is not a production-quality distro in
its own right.

Fedora is the major upstream source for RHEL.  As such, it has great value
to Red Hat, and so Red Hat supports it.  I think that should be the simple
summary of the relationship which any ambassador should be able to explain.

- Paul

-- 
Paul Stauffer <paulds(a)bu.edu&gt;
Manager of Research Computing
Computer Science Department
Boston University

[David Nalley]

Paul Stauffer wrote:
>  On Mon, Sep 17, 2007 at 04:34:21PM -0400, David Nalley wrote:
> > Fedora is heavily linked - I would say Beta version - because the two
>  
>  Argh.  Please avoid using the word "beta", or even terms like "proving
>  ground"! 
Quite right, I intended to say "wouldn't". That is what I get for typing
while distracted.

>  
>  Language like this just serves to further the widespread mistaken impression
>  that Fedora only exists as some sort of experimental test subject for RHEL,
>  and encourages the idea that Fedora is not a production-quality distro in
>  its own right.
>  
>  Fedora is the major upstream source for RHEL.  As such, it has great value
>  to Red Hat, and so Red Hat supports it.  I think that should be the simple
>  summary of the relationship which any ambassador should be able to explain.
>  
>  - Paul
>

[simon]

Am Montag, 17. September 2007 21:31:49 schrieb Mike McGrath:
>  Do we have anything like an official brand book? 
>  I'm sure I could come up with a whole list of questions but you get the
>  idea.  I may be missing some history there too as I'm not normally
>  active in marketing (because I have no background/training in it :)
>
>      -Mike 

Hi Mike some usefull links

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Conduct
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/AnswerQuestions
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityConduct
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/TalkingPoints

CU

-- 
Jörg Simon
jsimon(a)fedoraproject.org
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/JoergSimon
Key Fingerprint:
3691 0989 2DCA 58A2 8D1F 2CAC C823 558E 5B5B 5688

[Mike McGrath]

JoergSimon wrote:
>  Am Montag, 17. September 2007 21:31:49 schrieb Mike McGrath:
>    
> > Do we have anything like an official brand book? 
> > I'm sure I could come up with a whole list of questions but you get the
> > idea.  I may be missing some history there too as I'm not normally
> > active in marketing (because I have no background/training in it :)
> >
> >     -Mike
> >     
>
>
>  Hi Mike some usefull links
>
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Conduct
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/AnswerQuestions
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityConduct
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/TalkingPoints
>     
Some of these are pretty good, I came up with some more questions:

When talking officially about "The Fedora Project's" flagship product 
"Fedora", was our last release

"Fedora 7"
"Moonshine"
"Fedora 7 (Moonshine)" or
"Fedora Moonshine"

Where can I find a list of official colors we can use?

Should we have our web apps match the OS or does the OS change enough 
from time to time that its just not practical?

Do we have any testimonials?

Do we have anyone out there selling Fedora business to business.  I use 
the term sales there loosely as there's no compensation out there but 
aside from the ambassadors, whats the closest thing we have to a sales 
engineer?

How are we marketing / pushing the whole re-spin thing to try to get 
others to participate?

Has anyone given any thought to using the the Fedora OS as a gateway to 
becoming a contributor or is that more of a technical decision?

    -Mike

[Máirín Duffy]

Mike McGrath wrote:
>  JoergSimon wrote:
> > Hi Mike some usefull links
> >
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/Conduct
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Ambassadors/AnswerQuestions
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CommunityConduct
> > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/TalkingPoints
> >   
>  
>  Some of these are pretty good, I came up with some more questions:
>  
>  When talking officially about "The Fedora Project's" flagship product 
>  "Fedora", was our last release
>  
>  "Fedora 7"
>  "Moonshine"
>  "Fedora 7 (Moonshine)" or
>  "Fedora Moonshine" 
I'd personally recommend 1 or 3: "Fedora 7" or "Fedora 7
(Moonshine)"... 
I think for many n00bs the 'Moonshine' part would be confusing. You 
know, nothing wrong with using it on mailing lists and otherwise 
'internally' to the project, but in 'external' promotional and marketing 
collateral targeted at folks outside the project it would probably be 
better not to.

>  Where can I find a list of official colors we can use? 
This we have wrt the logo:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Logo/UsageGuidelines#head-7393075343a81afb1...

But there isn't a general color palette for collateral materials about 
Fedora other than those two colors. Oh wait, I just remember I came up 
with one a while back based on the logo colors:

http://mihmo.livejournal.com/37350.html

Maybe could be the start of an official one?

>  Should we have our web apps match the OS or does the OS change enough
>
>  from time to time that its just not practical? 
I think the OS's theme changes enough that it's not practical to try to 
keep up with it in a major way. Updating some banners and small graphics 
like that to correspond, okay, but the whole template - nah.

>  Do we have any testimonials? 
I don't know of any but we certainly could seek some out - I answer the 
logo request queue and a lot of people do pretty interesting things with 
Fedora and ask for the logo to put on their marketing materials... I 
could go through and cull through my logo request records and ask the 
folks with particularly interesting uses of Fedora if they'd be willing 
to give a testimonial.
>  
>  Do we have anyone out there selling Fedora business to business.  I use 
>  the term sales there loosely as there's no compensation out there but 
>  aside from the ambassadors, whats the closest thing we have to a sales 
>  engineer?
>  
>  How are we marketing / pushing the whole re-spin thing to try to get 
>  others to participate? 
I put together some banners a while back advertising the respinability 
of F7 but failed to come through with a plan for actually using them :(

http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/What-Fedora-will-you-make-57089131

http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/Spin-Spin-Fedora-56954387

>  Has anyone given any thought to using the the Fedora OS as a gateway
> to 
>  becoming a contributor or is that more of a technical decision? 
What do you mean?

~m

[Mike McGrath]

Máirín Duffy wrote:
>  I put together some banners a while back advertising the respinability 
>  of F7 but failed to come through with a plan for actually using them :(
>
>  http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/What-Fedora-will-you-make-57089131
>
>  http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/Spin-Spin-Fedora-56954387 
I loved these BTW, perhaps we can integrate them with ricky's templates 
that he's working on.  What sizes are we targeting?

    -Mike

[Nicu Buculei]

Mike McGrath wrote:
>  Máirín Duffy wrote:
> >
> > I put together some banners a while back advertising the respinability 
> > of F7 but failed to come through with a plan for actually using them :(
> >
> > http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/What-Fedora-will-you-make-57089131
> >
> > http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/Spin-Spin-Fedora-56954387
>  
>  I loved these BTW, perhaps we can integrate them with ricky's templates 
>  that he's working on.  What sizes are we targeting? 
I would advise to target sizes which are standard for web banners, so if 
someone is using a banner blocker based on the image size, our banners 
will be blocked by it.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro

[Mike McGrath]

Nicu Buculei wrote:
>  Mike McGrath wrote:
> > Máirín Duffy wrote:
> >>
> >> I put together some banners a while back advertising the 
> >> respinability of F7 but failed to come through with a plan for 
> >> actually using them :(
> >>
> >> http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/What-Fedora-will-you-make-57089131
> >>
> >> http://pookstar.deviantart.com/art/Spin-Spin-Fedora-56954387
> >
> > I loved these BTW, perhaps we can integrate them with ricky's 
> > templates that he's working on.  What sizes are we targeting?
>
>  I would advise to target sizes which are standard for web banners, so 
>  if someone is using a banner blocker based on the image size, our 
>  banners will be blocked by it.
>  
I agree, also we can link to a standard location like 
http://fp.o/images/current-banner-large.png  We can then link to it in 
all of our templates, without having change the links every time (we'll 
just link them to the get fedora page)

    -Mike

[Rahul Sundaram]

Mike McGrath wrote:
> >   
>  
>  Some of these are pretty good, I came up with some more questions:
>  
>  When talking officially about "The Fedora Project's" flagship product 
>  "Fedora", was our last release
>  
>  "Fedora 7 (Moonshine)" 
This one.

>  Where can I find a list of official colors we can use? 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ArtWork/FedoraColors

>  Should we have our web apps match the OS or does the OS change enough
>
>  from time to time that its just not practical? 
They should use Fedora colors but changing the theme of the web apps 
seems to unnecessary overhead unless you have some very dynamic and 
flexible system where changes can easily made every 6 months.

More importantly, we have atleast two current general releases that we 
maintain at any given point of time and we don't want to alienate either 
set of users not to mention users still using the older versions by 
appearing to only care about the very latest release.

>  Do we have any testimonials? 
Very few

>  Do we have anyone out there selling Fedora business to business.  I
> use 
>  the term sales there loosely as there's no compensation out there but 
>  aside from the ambassadors, whats the closest thing we have to a sales 
>  engineer? 
None. We do have a few OEM folks like Pogo Linux but our trademark 
requirements doesn't leave room for much value add-ons of any kind.

>  How are we marketing / pushing the whole re-spin thing to try to get
>
>  others to participate? 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CustomSpins. I have added various 
references there.  Mo came up with some banners which haven't been 
actually launched yet
>  
>  Has anyone given any thought to using the the Fedora OS as a gateway to 
>  becoming a contributor or is that more of a technical decision? 
No idea what you mean here

Rahul
>  
>     -Mike
>

[Rahul Sundaram]

Mike McGrath wrote:
> >   
>  
>  Some of these are pretty good, I came up with some more questions:
>  
>  When talking officially about "The Fedora Project's" flagship product 
>  "Fedora", was our last release
>  
>  "Fedora 7 (Moonshine)" 
This one.

>  Where can I find a list of official colors we can use? 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ArtWork/FedoraColors

>  Should we have our web apps match the OS or does the OS change enough
>
>  from time to time that its just not practical? 
They should use Fedora colors but changing the theme of the web apps 
seems to unnecessary overhead unless you have some very dynamic and 
flexible system where changes can easily made every 6 months.

More importantly, we have atleast two current general releases that we 
maintain at any given point of time and we don't want to alienate either 
set of users not to mention users still using the older versions by 
appearing to only care about the very latest release.

>  Do we have any testimonials? 
Very few

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/UserTestimonials

>  Do we have anyone out there selling Fedora business to business.  I
> use 
>  the term sales there loosely as there's no compensation out there but 
>  aside from the ambassadors, whats the closest thing we have to a sales 
>  engineer? 
None. We do have a few OEM folks like Pogo Linux but our trademark 
requirements doesn't leave room for much value add-ons of any kind.

>  How are we marketing / pushing the whole re-spin thing to try to get
>
>  others to participate? 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CustomSpins. I have added various 
references there.  Mo came up with some banners which haven't been 
actually launched yet
>  
>  Has anyone given any thought to using the the Fedora OS as a gateway to 
>  becoming a contributor or is that more of a technical decision? 
No idea what you mean here

Rahul
>  
>     -Mike
>