Re: Marketing, GNOME 3.0 and subteams

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Stormy:

A part of GNOME Marketing should be getting the message about GNOME
3.0 out there, of course.  However, marketing is also about selling
stuff.  Perhaps we should also discuss opportunities like:

- Finding new ways to bring in revenue for the GNOME project, perhaps
  through the GNOME Foundation.  Does GNOME 3.0 provide new
  opportunities to sell product, such as new t-shirts, posters, etc.?

- The marketing team has been helpful in finding new AdBoard sponsors,
  by doing things like creating a new brochure.  However, what can we
  do to get the marketing team more directly involved in working with
  identifying and working with new potential AdBoard members, or
  corporate sponsors?

- Many public television, radio stations, etc. will play free ads
  for non-profits.  Wouldn't it be interesting to put together some
  advertisements that we could use to get the message out there?
  While it would require some work to coordinate such things, the
  cost would be low once the content was created.  Perhaps we could
  find volunteers to help with creating the content as well.  Some
  people who do graphic design or video work might be interested in
  volunteering their time on a project that would receive a lot of
  airplay and therefore be a boost their resume or portfolio.

> With GNOME 3.0 in the works, I think it makes sense for us to come up
> with a GNOME 3.0 marketing plan.
>
> + Identify our target audience(s). Do we want to communicate with
> existing GNOME users, all free desktop users, or try to reach out to
> non-free-desktop users? (I think we can safely leave communicating with
> developers up to the developers themselves.)

Although GNOME Journal is a great way to get the message out there,
can't we do more to try and get the message out in more mainstream
press?  We are mostly preaching to the choir via GNOME Journal, I
think.

> + Identify our key messages. What's new/interesting/cool about GNOME
> 3.0. Who will it benefit? How?

The GNOME desktop already has some great messages, which I am sure will
be enhanced by GNOME 3.0.  Free software makes it possible to deliver
affordable (free as in free beer) desktop software that is accessible
and translated into many 3rd world languages.  However, I don't think
we have ever been very successful at getting the message across that by
supporting free desktop software, you support a desktop environment
that helps disadvantaged people around the world.

For example, I have heard that it costs thousands of dollars to make
a Windows machine support the sorts of disabled users who get free
support in GNOME.  Perhaps an interesting marketing angle would be
to better highlight exactly the cost benefits of using GNOME.  How
much, exactly, do you save?  This might be of special interest to
U.S. organizations which need to meet Section 508 requirements of
the U.S. Disabilities Act.

Many people support things like fair trade coffee and other fair-trade
products just because they like consuming in a way that helps others.
Perhaps we could do more to target such consumers by making sure that
places that sell fair-trade products also sell a variety of desktop
operating systems that are based on free-software.  To do this well,
we would need some marketing material that explains to people how
free software relates or fits in with the concept of fair trade.
While the two do relate in the sense that they help disadvantaged
people, they are not exactly the same thing.

From another angle, we could do more to get the message out there
to people who could benefit from the software.  Why not place
advertisements in periodicals (or whatever) that would better reach
out to the disabled and to people with an interest in helping
people in the 3rd world to let them know that they should be looking
more closely at our software solutions?

These suggestions focus on the more humanitarian aspects of free
software, but I am sure that with some thought, we could think of other
ways to target consumers who might be interested in trying out GNOME or
free software in general.

> + Press team. Maybe put together a small team of developers,
> documentation people and marketing people to roll out the messages and
> be key contacts.

A press team would be great, though I don't think we should limit such
a team to only think about the GNOME 3.0 roll-out.  There are a lot
of messages we could be better at communicating.  In the past year, for
example, GNOME hasn't been very good about participating in things like
the "Software Freedom Day" and other annual events that would benefit
from greater participation from the GNOME community.

> + Presentations. It would be really helpful to have some prepared
> presentations with slides and speaking points for people willing to help
> spread the word. They could use the presentations as given or they could
> use parts of it or adapt it to their audience. But by having something
> prepared, we have a better chance of communicating the message we want.

+1

Brian