Moving the marketing team forward

[Max Spevack]

Hi Jon,

Great to hear from you.  This is an excellent email, and I thank you for 
writing it.

A few thoughts, inline:

> As things stand, it seems to me that the main activities related to 
> marketing Fedora are:
>
> * FPL's release interviews
> * Ambassadors events
> * Documenting media coverage on the mailing list
> * Occassional developer interviews
> * Occassional blog posts & articles pimping features/community
> * Responding to and correcting articles that are inaccurate Re: Fedora
>
> Of these, the marketing team, as a *team* are responsible for 3 
> (although this is largely done by Rahul) and now 6. Red Hat PR are 
> responsible for 1 and for the most part 5.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Documenting media coverage is important, and is done well on this list. 
In 2009, I see that as an activity that should be continued in the same 
way that it currently is, more or less.

I'd like to see the interview continue, as this is a big part of the 
"Folks/Friends" messaging point.

====

In terms of Ambassador events, I would categorize the marketing team's 
function as one of "information preparation".  The Fedora 10 talking 
points page was an excellent example of this.

I think the Fedora Marketing team should work with the Fedora Project 
Leader to produce a quarterly "talking points" page that gives 
Ambassadors (or anyone speaking in public about Fedora) several pieces 
of information:

(1) Details about the current stable release.

(2) Interesting information about the direction of the current 
development release (Rawhide).

(3) Talking points regarding the larger Fedora Project, as opposed to 
simply the Fedora distro.  Areas we are focusing on, goals, etc.

A quarterly page will allow the message to be refined a few times each 
year, but stable enough for Ambassadors to familiarize themselves with 
it.

>  * We should create a *time based* marketing plan that ensures we
> have things to be doing, promoting, throughout the release cycle

Yes.  The tasks of the Marketing Team are cyclical, and vary in priority 
depending on where we are in a release cycle.  As a release approaches, 
"features and first" are more important than "folks" for example.

> * We need to work closer with Red Hat PR.
>  * Not sure how this can work better, but a lot of stuff seems to
> happen that no one outside RH ever realises. (Correct me if I'm wrong)
>  * Have no idea if RH PR take advantage of work that the community
> does, is our work just going to waste?

Paul Frields continues to be the best conduit to Red Hat PR that we have 
for Fedora.  Members of the Community Architecture team can also help 
with this (Max, Greg, Karsten, Jack).  One of Jack's formal job 
responsibilities is to provide leadership to the Fedora Marketing team, 
so I'd encourage everyone to work with Jack and Paul on issues that sit 
at the intersection between Fedora Marketing and Red Hat PR.

> * We should record media coverage of Fedora on the wiki instead of
> just on the mailing list. Make a good historical archive and provide
> us with the opportunity to better track how Fedora is perceived
> outside of our own community across releases.

+1

================

Conclusion:

Jon's email (and my response) have presented several interesting tasks 
for 2009 in Fedora Marketing land:

(1) time-based marketing plan and schedule

(2) quarterly talking points

(3) fedora magazine

(4) meetings w/ more strategic focus

(5) key messaging points and themes

I'm going to ask Jack to begin the 2009 meetings with these five areas 
as the focal points, and also to take inventory of any remaining action 
items from 2008 that are still open and/or need to be carried over.

I am also going to commit myself to better attendance at the Fedora 
Marketing meetings.

--Max