Last month, Robyn sent out a brilliant email about how to frame our tasks into goals
centered around the Four Foundations:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-December/msg00...
This happened to be the day after FUDCon when a lot of us were totally exhausted, so I
think it got lost in the shuffle... but now is a good time to revisit it.
Greetings marketing friends,
As some of you have probably read, I've been doing some thinking on
not just our specific, measurable goals for F13, but also the
marketing team's wider objectives and mission. In other words, we may
have this list of fabulous tasks we've brainstormed for F13, but what
are our end goals?
I've come up with an idea I'd like to propose and/or get feedback on.
It may not be the perfect solution, but I think that it might get us
on the path to being more mission-oriented in future releases, if we
(a) decide to go down this route, and (b) decide at the end of F13
that it was a worthwhile effort.
The concept is to organize the tasks we work on around the four
foundations of Fedora - Freedom, Friends, Features, First (please see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Foundations if you want the big
explanation on all of these things - I know they are each
intentionally easy-to-grasp concepts, but the bigger picture behind
each one is worth reading). For our team, what this would mean is
that each of our tasks should be focused on furthering one (or more)
of each of these foundations. Not to pin us in, necessarily - ideas
of all types will fall into one of these categories, generally - but
to make sure we aren't forgetting to focus on anything.
Personally, I think this is a great idea - it immediately makes it clear how the things
we're working on tie directly into the larger mission and goals of the entire project,
points out a whole bunch of areas we could potentially expand into, and is (hopefully) an
easier way for new folks with marketing backgrounds to engage with the project (easier
than "look, a pile of potentially connected tasks - want to take one?" in any
case).
I've written a bit down about each foundation - this is of course
just
me brainstorming a bit, I would love to hear more ideas on solidifying
these if other team members think it is a good idea. (And by
solidifying, I mean into slightly more concise statements :D ) Under
each one, I've listed some of the tasks that might fall into that
category. (The task lists aren't comprehensive - I've just typed
things in here, so don't get mad if your idea isn't here!)
Freedom: Use FOSS tools as much as possible (or practical) in
production of Marketing materials, and do our best to support
solutions that may work in the future. (Side note: See mizmo's post to
the marketing list on making the fedora video - it wasn't entirely
practical, but bugs were filed, discussions are ongoing, this is GOOD!
And awesome video btw, I know you've heard it already but I'm just
sayin' it again :D.) Give marketing contributors the freedom and
knowledge to work on projects as they choose. Practice openness, and
give process more transparency.
- HOWTO's on how to make all Marketing deliverables
- translations and i18n workflow for marketing stuff
- Cross-training of team members for things like Zikula
Design does something similar, and there's been some conversation in the Docs team
about making that explicit in the Docs mission statement as well (see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Talk:Docs_Project_mission_statement) - I think making sure
that there's a FOSS toolchain with which *anyone* can do open source marketing is a
great idea and we should specifically call out the things in that toolchain at some point
- it might make a good presentation at a marketing conference, for instance.
Friends: Continue to develop and extend not only the Fedora
marketing
community, but also the Fedora community in general.
- Grow the number of marketing contributors
- teach Marketing classes in Classroom
to grow the depth of the Fedora community's knowledge about marketing, what it is, how
to do it, etc.
- Convert 100 users of non-Fedora distros to Fedora as their primary
desktop OS
Personally, I find the next goal far more interesting...
- Encourage 100 college students to sign up as Fedora contributors
and
each contribute at least one thing.
I'd love to get a marketing class working
on this - actually, I would love to see a case study (see
http://www.hbs.edu/mba/academics/casemethod.html) on Fedora.
- FUDCon
- Talk up Fedora at at least 20 different LUG meetings worldwide
This one's Ambassadors, imo - but the two groups should continue to find ways to work
more closely together.
- Marketing FAD
- RH Summit
Yep, we should find out what's going on with this - not having been to one of these
before myself, I'm not sure what the opportunities here look like, or how we fit in,
but I think it's definitely worth exploring. Mo and Paul and several others on this
list have been at the Fedora booth at RH Summits before (I think Mo and Paul went to the
one this past summer) but that's about all I know.
- Podcasts
Features: Enhance Fedora's marketing presence with new features,
and
ensure that Fedora distro features are highlighted in a timely way.
Bingo. Most of
Marketing's work in the past has centered around this area, but there's still a
lot we haven't explored (most of the things on the list below are brand-new or
haven't started yet).
- Spin Chooser
- Fedora Insight
- Develop a sustainable cycle / schedule of marketing materials.
Developer Interviews, In-depth features, etc.
- Improve cross-team communication between marketing, docs, and QA for
improvements in material
- marketing research - and eventually, when we get good at
it, how it can feed more directly into the feature process as another stream of input for
developers figuring out which itches they'd like to work on scratching.
First: Do New Things, and continually come up with New Ideas; review
their effectiveness when they are complete, and don't be afraid to
say, "That didn't work."
- Marketing Kits
- Fedora Print Magazine
- Time-Based Schedule
- Fedora Membership / Fellowship
- Keeping track of new ideas
- a brief History of Marketing (major Marketing
milestones for each release - when did we start doing X, when did we try Y and find out
that it didn't work, etc?) - this might make an entertaining story session during the
FAD.
Like I said - this is a brainstorm, of sorts, so I'd love to hear
feedback.
Cheers!
-Robyn
+infinity is my main comment here, honestly - this is great stuff.