Moving the marketing team forward

Jack Aboutboul jaa at redhat.com
Tue Dec 16 12:17:39 UTC 2008


Hey Jon,

Great to see you alive and kicking.  I am very pleased that you sent 
this email because over the last few weeks I have also given a lot of 
thought to re-invigorating the marketing team and we've spoken about it 
a few times at our last few meetings.

Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> Seems like we could be doing a lot more as a team.
>
> How can we improve?
> -------------------
>
>  * We made a marketing plan this year, it establishes what we want to
> be promoting and what we think the project is about
>   * We should create a *time based* marketing plan that ensures we
> have things to be doing, promoting, throughout the release cycle
>   
Agreed.  I think if we break down the cycle which occurs every release 
into certain discreet steps we might have a much easier time of making 
sure we hit each one every release, right?
>   * We need to do this asap to make sure that we have lots prepared
> for the F11 release cycle
>   
Nod.
>  * 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?
>   
See the thread about marketing classes.  I am trying to see if someone 
from RH PR can do an online seminar revolving around marketing 
principles and practice, tied into how we can further expand our ties 
with them.
>  * We need to work closer with the board, and all other parts of the
> project, to ensure that we're actually representing what people
> believe they're doing.
>   
Honestly, I think we are fine here, we converse with people on the board 
almost daily, especially Paul, and we know to communicate with them and 
vice-versa when things need doing.  Is there an alternative approach you 
are suggesting?
>   * Related to this, we should be working with websites and docs to
> shepherd the content on the static pages
>   
By shepherd what do you mean exactly?  To what extent?
>  * 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.
>   * Could even make a good static page and promotional material. On
> the front page, "Read what people are saying about Fedora. Click
> here."
>
>   
This is a BIG resounding yes, I've brought this up several times, I 
think it is crucial for us to have a repository of this stuff, not only 
for archival purposes, but also to actively draw content from...
>  * We should create a central location for people to come and learn
> about what's happening in Fedora and our wider community
>   
Fedora Weekly News?
>   * I still believe that a Fedora Magazine style project is the best
> way to do this
>   
I am totally on board for this.  I have many great ideas that I think I 
can contribute to the pool for Fedora Magazine.  Maybe we do one every 
release.
>  * We should consider establishing a more formal organisation for the
> project, as well as thinking about how to make the best use of meeting
> time.
>   
How about we talk about this at the next meeting?  I think it might 
serve some purpose to have people accountable and responsible for 
certain things, but beyond that, establishing a formal structure needs 
discussion and consensus...
>   * Having been out of the loop, I'm not really qualified to comment
> on the current state here, but that aside I beleive:
>    * Meetings should be less about tracking progress (this is easily
> done *quickly* on the mailing list)
>    * Meetings should be much more about exploring new tasks that we
> want to persue, goals, ways to achieve these.
>   
I don't think we cannot track progress during meetings but maybe to 
limit it more, and make it more of a forum for idea exchange regarding 
new initiatives.  I've spoken about this a number of times and now that 
the release is behind us, I think we can focus on this...

We have a meeting this thursday, I would appreciate it if you could make 
it, so that we can talk about setting things in a new direction.

Meanwhile, to summarize, I think we can break things down into the 
following topics and/or action items:

1. Define our release cycle milestones and what tasks need to be 
accomplished at each
2. Schedule something with an RH PR person to do a marketing primer and 
talk about how to improve further collaboration
3. Ask Paul and the board if there is any additional ways in which we 
should be engaging them
4. Set up a wiki page for aggregating fedora press and start populating 
and tracking it
5. Discuss the possibility and efficacy of creating a Fedora Magazine
6. Discuss the possibility of a new organizational structure for marketing
7. Begin to transform meetings into a forum for talking about new 
initiatives and moving forward, with only as much task tracking as necessary

If anyone would like to add their thoughts on any of these I would 
greatly appreciate it, I look forward to talking to everyone at the 
meeting this week.

Thanks,
Jack




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