[Mageia-marketing] Plan - stuff to do pre Beta 1 release

[Romain d'Alverny]

Hi there,

On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 22:38, Patricia Fraser <trish at thefrasers.org> wrote:
> You could check out the last time Yorick and the discuss list had a
> conversation, to get a really unmistakable feel for this - I should
> probably not need to point out that the shrinkage to not-quite-zero
> of the marketing team can be traced back to that conversation. A
> pity, because we were full of energy and working hard and well.

Yeah but the direction it was taking at the time was not in sync with
the project state - that is, going too far, too soon. Talking to
non-users as of today (especially those not aware of Mageia or even
Linux) is important, and growing our user-base - although this needs
to scale with regard to the amount of contributors we do need today.

>> What is the difference between an announcement to the community and
>> one going to the outside world? An Announcement has to say
>>  - who announces
>>  - what is tha subject of the announcement
>
> It's all in who you're talking to. If you're talking to a community
> of which you're part, you're talking to people who are already on the
> inside - there's an existing relationship of a kind, and they know
> the context and what's going on and who's who. If you're talking to
> people who aren't part of the community yet, you're extending an
> invitation. You want to present them with a picture of the community
> you're inviting them into (which the community doesn't need),

I'd say yes, it needs it. Because a community (especially an online
one) has a hard time figuring who/what it is I believe - and that's
where the inviting/human/friendly theme is common to both insiders and
outsiders of the project.

Representing the community to itself properly (far beyond the online
text-only interface we daily use) is a must to aim at. Through
stories, ad-hoc project online/offline activity visibility, and
probably other things.

> What I was wondering about, though, was: suppose we're successful in
> getting a TV spot? What then?

We'd do something. Not necessarily the best thing for the very but
something that promotes the core of the project: free software,
collaboration, commons - that's something that everyone can share,
geek or non-geek. Something focused more on the core values driving
the project than on a project specific.

I'm sure we can do it.

Cheers,

Romain