proposing a meeting [was Re: GNOME's Target Markets]

[Luis Villa <luis villa gmail com>]

[I hate to do this, but:

(1) can someone summarize the open/conflicting issues here, and
perhaps also the resolved ones, if there are any? I just finally
caught up on the wiki page, and thought there was more consensus than
this thread would seem to suggest.

(2) can we have a meeting in yarrr.gnome.org[1], perhaps weekly[2],
and perhaps restricted in attendance, until we hash some of this out,
at least at a high level? This seems like a critical question and one
worth handling in a more dynamic environment than this list, at least
until we get some of the high-level issues resolved.

Luis

[1] which allows us to have both IRC-style conversation, dynamic
collaborative editing of paragraph-ish statements (like 'our
prioritized list of markets is foo, bar, baz'), and eventually to
record it in a wiki.

To play, see: http://yarrr.gnome.org/wiki/index.php/MarketingTeam/

[2] or in the ongoing form which yarr allows, with weekly attempts to
get everyone in one place for a brief time.

On 7/11/05, Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com> wrote:
> On Sun, 2005-07-10 at 18:50 +1200, John Williams wrote:
> > On Sat, 2005-07-09 at 22:25 +0200, Murray Cumming wrote:
> > > > So, let's decide who our customers are (home users, corporates, distros,
> > > > ISVs IIRC) and then test our branding materials on some of them, and see
> > > > what they think.
> > >
> > > Our customers are all these people, but it looks like we want to target
> > > a few of them specifically:
> > > http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam_2fTargetMarkets
> > > (surely we want fewer primary targets?)
> >
> > It depends.  The accepted wisdom in marketing is to target the smallest number of market segments necessary in order to achieve well-defined goals.
> >
> > Segments are selected in decreasing order of "bang-for-buck", i.e.
> > maximum reward for minimum effort.  These considerations are based on
> > the assumptions that the marketing department/organisation has finite
> > resources, specifically, a finite marketing budget and number of
> > workers.  These assumptions may not be true for GNOME, due to the
> > volunteer nature of our organisation/community.  (OK, very large, not
> > infinite ;-)
> 
> While our manpower seems large, our conventional marketing resources are
> very small. Usually there'd be a budget for advertising pages/airtime,
> for instance.
> 
> > > Can you suggest concisely how our marketing might differ if we chose
> > > different primary targets? Will our image really be radically different
> > > or in conflict with other targets?
> > Sure.  If our primary market is ISVs, we may want to emphasise
> > stability, specifically API/ABI stability, and complete and
> > comprehensive API documentation.
> 
> If we did this, surely we wouldn't look any different to every other
> platform that does the same. Our ease of use is our differentiator.
> 
> > If our primary market was private end-users we may want to emphasise
> > exciting new features, ease-of-use, accessible technical help etc.
> 
> But if we chose system administrators and end users then there would be
> a large overlap of emphasised points.
> 
> > We would also use differing advertising and promotional media, and so
> > on.
> 
> Would we in this case, considering that we have a very limited range of
> media to choose from, because of our lack of budget?
> 
> > > I personally think we only need to target end users and system
> > > administrators and we'll get everyone else as part of that. But I'm no
> > > marketing expert so I'm happy to defer to any expert who actually gets
> > > the marketing moving.
> > I'm sort of an expert (I have a PhD in marketing, I should be!) and I can tell you this: I don't know.  I do know that we NEED RESEARCH before we can make any reasonable plans.
> >
> > In particular, I am thinking of what we in marketing call "gatekeepers".
> > These are people who actually make the purchase decision but who may not
> > be the actual end-user.  (The classic example is a parent buying
> > breakfast cereal for a child.)  In our context, these would be CIOs
> > and/or CEOs, perhaps?
> 
> Yes, that's why we often mention the system administators, who are often
> the decision makers.
> 
> > I have an idea that it may provide more bang-for-buck to tarket distros
> 
> I think it's a waste of time to target distros with marketing, because
> 1. We've got all the major distros already.
> 2. The distros are defined by their choice of desktop, and will never
> change.
> 3. We have never been able to influence distros.
> 
> However, we do want to create an image/brand that the distros can use,
> as used in the "Intel Inside" and "Powered by Windows" campaigns.
> 
> > and organisations (corporations, universities, public sector...) because
> > they in a sense make the decision to use GNOME or not for their users.
> > If people get used to using GNOME at work they will probably want to use
> > it at home.
> 
> Yes, and "Public Sector", "Enterprise" fall under this. "System
> Administrators" is just another way of referring to these large
> deployments.
> 
> > If they don't, this should send us a HUGE message!
> >
> > > > Potential new users are a tricky one.  What impression do they form of
> > > > GNOME when they see the logo?  If GNOME was a person, what would they be
> > > > like?  Male, female?  Young, old?  Straight, funky?
> > >
> > > Young, helpful, patient, anticipating your needs, not particularly male
> > > or female, just funky enough to be confident of itself.
> > That's what you think.  What do our target markets think?  Or is that what you want them to think.  Why?  Do others agree?
> 
> If this is a useful metaphor for you, then the wiki would be a good
> place to encourage people to brainstorm, if you can interpet the
> results.
> 
> > > Try to explain the issues to us, and suggest definite actions. There are
> > > many people here who would love to help to put a plan into motion.
> >
> > OK, I will try.  It is difficult to do this without access to
> > information.  The issues, as I see them from a top-level strategy point
> > of view, are this:
> >
> > 1. Concentrate on the low-hanging fruit.  What can we do with minimum
> > effort to get maximum results (number of users)?  Only people working
> > with distros, governments, corporates etc. can answer this.  I don't do
> > that.
> >
> > 2. RESEARCH!  Ask users why they do or do not use GNOME.  Include users
> > who have seen/used GNOME and also those who have not.  Measure the
> > results of marketing actions in the only terms that matter: number of
> > users.
> 
> 
> > 3. Manage the corporate culture.  We cannot simply order people to do
> > things.  Motivate the people who actually make GNOME (programmers,
> > documenters, usability team, accessibility team, translators, ...) in
> > terms they will respond to.  I am a marketing/market research person,
> > not an HR person.  (But I think if you treat people as people and not
> > pluggable production units you're probably on the right track.  Do unto
> > others and all that.)
> 
> 3. doesn't seem very related to marketing. It's also something that the
> community does well already.
> 
> > I find myself repeating myself in many fora.  The bottom line is that
> > you can't make rational decisions in the absence of information.
> 
> We don't have a complete absence of information. We know what our
> product is, and we know how it's meant to affect the lives of users, and
> why that should be attractive to them.
> 
> It's also a very non-specific product, but we've already seen similar
> products marketed by Microsoft and Apple, so it's not all new.
> 
> >   I do
> > not have access to the information at the moment.  I am working on it
> > though.
> 
> That's great. It'll obviously take some time, so surely we should plan
> to revise our brand/image periodically as we get more research and more
> feedback. It doesn't seem sensible to just wait on that research.
> 
> > If you want to help, visit the marketing space on live.gnome.org and
> > make some constructive comments.
> 
> Yes, and I'm gradually trying to help make that more coherent. As a
> start, we obviously need to choose just one or two primary targets from
> here:
> http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam_2fTargetMarkets
> 
> It would be madness if we didn't choose "End User", and it'd be a bit
> strange if we told the world we were more interested in "Public Sector"
> than "Enterprise", so I'd rather group these together under "System
> Administrator"
> 
> I'd understand why we'd want to split that up into "Public Sector" and
> "Enterprise" if it was obvious that our marketing would be significantly
> different for those two groups.
> 
> > Hot issues now are being discussed on the gnome-marketing list and the
> > #marketing channel on irc.gnome.org.  I try to summarise these
> > discussions, particularly at
> >
> > http://live.gnome.org/CountingUsers
> > http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam_2fSurveyUsers
> > and
> > http://live.gnome.org/MarketingTeam_2fSurveyDevelopers
> >
> > See also
> > http://live.gnome.org/GnomeFeedback
> >
> > That last link contains a new initiative to gather feedback about GNOME.
> > Currently we have none (on those pages).  Please give us some.
> 
> --
> Murray Cumming
> murrayc murrayc com
> www.murrayc.com
> www.openismus.com
> 
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