FYI - Marketing Meeting scheduled for this week!
Timing: http://tinyurl.com/yzjbtmu
Agenda: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Meeting_2009.12.10
If you can't make it, please let me know so we don't wait for you 
Cc'ing Webcom just in case anyone there is also available to share ideas about
the website related parts of the agenda, trying to pick up where we left off
back in February meeting. I'll still ferry main points back to Webcom of
course.
I hope to make this meeting (I'll be on the bus with a flaky internet, so may drop out).
In thinking about marketing, I'm not sure we have a clear message as to WHY we are marketing.
In a conventional company this question is clear, they want to make more money, which they can do by selling more product, so the marketing focus is to convince consumers to buy product.
Closely followed on this question, is HOW are we going to resource the marketing? Through funds or volunteer labour. If we are relying on volunteer labour, then we need to very clearly describe the vision, and make it very compelling, otherwise the volunteers will do something else.
Here are some possible answers:
1. OSGeo wishes to attract sponsor dollars to cover essential running costs. In that case, we need to profile sponsors, and then provide marketing which is valuable for sponsors. Eg: Having a sponsor's logo on the website may drive sales to the sponsor. The sponsor will also be likely volunteer to contribute time to developing marketing material for OSGeo.
2. OSGeo wishes to promote the OSGeo projects under its umbrella. This will result in increased uptake of these projects, which results in increased sales of related services (support, code extensions etc). The projects will likely provide resources to create marketing material for their projects.
Related to this, OSGeo should be creating a specific OSGeo brand. We already have a brand name built around "Open Source" and "Geospatial". Less emphasised, but very important in the marketplace is "Quality", "Reliability", "Integration", "Commercial Support", "Training", "Documentation". These are criteria that software purchasers look for, and so should be emphasised. There are strong commercial reasons for addressing these "Quality" properties of OSGeo and so we should be able to find volunteers to address these components for most projects.
This marketing message leads into a comment [1] I made earlier on the incubation list:
* That in order to keep up with the market, and ensure that our OSGeo projects remain competitive, we should be gradually raising the bar for both incubation and incubated projects so that we strengthen the "Quality" message in the "OSGeo" story. Most projects are continually improving their sales story, and the OSGeo brand should be raised to match this.
I suggest that we as the marketing committee should do define exactly what we want from each project to incorporate into our marketing material:
Something like:
within 6 months: 1 page flier describing the project
within 12 months: Packaging of project into LiveDVD or debian, or osgeo4win
within 18 months: Tutorials on how to use core functionality for the project
within 2 years: Tutorials for all functionality
within 3 years: Training material incorporated into tertiary education courses / OSGeo reference book
[1] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/incubator/2009-October/001327.html
Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
FYI - Marketing Meeting scheduled for this week!
Timing: http://tinyurl.com/yzjbtmu
Agenda: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Meeting_2009.12.10If you can't make it, please let me know so we don't wait for you
Cc'ing Webcom just in case anyone there is also available to share ideas about the website related parts of the agenda, trying to pick up where we left off back in February meeting. I'll still ferry main points back to Webcom of course.
_______________________________________________
Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com
Cameron Shorter wrote:
In thinking about marketing, I'm not sure we have a clear message as to WHY we are marketing.
In a conventional company this question is clear, they want to make more money, which they can do by selling more product, so the marketing focus is to convince consumers to buy product.
>
Closely followed on this question, is HOW are we going to resource the marketing? Through funds or volunteer labour. If we are relying on volunteer labour, then we need to very clearly describe the vision, and make it very compelling, otherwise the volunteers will do something else.
Here are some possible answers:
1. OSGeo wishes to attract sponsor dollars to cover essential running costs. In that case, we need to profile sponsors, and then provide marketing which is valuable for sponsors. Eg: Having a sponsor's logo on the website may drive sales to the sponsor. The sponsor will also be likely volunteer to contribute time to developing marketing material for OSGeo.2. OSGeo wishes to promote the OSGeo projects under its umbrella. This will result in increased uptake of these projects, which results in increased sales of related services (support, code extensions etc). The projects will likely provide resources to create marketing material for their projects.
Cameron,
In my opinion the primary reason we are marketing (I prefer the world
promotion) is (2) - to increase the uptake of OSGeo projects (and
non OSGeo open source geospatial projects), primarily in the hopes that
it will drive additional contribution in various ways. That is the
key part of OSGeo mission.
I believe we should assume that sponsors are primarily supporting
us because they want open source geospatial projects to be successful
and grow.
I think promoting our sponsors should be relatively incidental,
though some effort should go into it where reasonable.
Related to this, OSGeo should be creating a specific OSGeo brand. We already have a brand name built around "Open Source" and "Geospatial". Less emphasised, but very important in the marketplace is "Quality", "Reliability", "Integration", "Commercial Support", "Training", "Documentation". These are criteria that software purchasers look for, and so should be emphasised. There are strong commercial reasons for addressing these "Quality" properties of OSGeo and so we should be able to find volunteers to address these components for most projects.
This marketing message leads into a comment [1] I made earlier on the incubation list:
* That in order to keep up with the market, and ensure that our OSGeo projects remain competitive, we should be gradually raising the bar for both incubation and incubated projects so that we strengthen the "Quality" message in the "OSGeo" story. Most projects are continually improving their sales story, and the OSGeo brand should be raised to match this.
I think we need to discuss quite widely whether we want OSGeo to
require and drive a higher level of quality in our projects before
we go to town promoting OSGeo as a quality brand. This is something
that will require fairly wide consensus in the community if it is going
to be a substantial push. I must admit the idea of OSGeo hounding me
(as a GDAL or MapServer developer) to meet it's quality standards rankles
at first.
I suggest that we as the marketing committee should do define exactly what we want from each project to incorporate into our marketing material:
Something like:within 6 months: 1 page flier describing the project
within 12 months: Packaging of project into LiveDVD or debian, or osgeo4win
within 18 months: Tutorials on how to use core functionality for the project
within 2 years: Tutorials for all functionality
within 3 years: Training material incorporated into tertiary education courses / OSGeo reference book
I think the marketing committee could explain that it wants to promote
OSGeo as a "quality" brand, and that the above would be very helpful
as steps towards that. But you need to avoid the impression that
the marketing committee sees itself as the pinnacle of command and
control, telling everyone what to do so that marketing can be more
effective and unified.
Certainly it is reasonable to ask that all projects cooperate in
preparation and maintenance of a one page flier.
I think it is reasonable to point out that the marketting committee
will be promoting some particular packaging solutions (perhaps the LiveDVD,
OSGeo4W, DebianGIS, etc) and that projects are encouraged to participate
in order to benefit from the marketing effort.
I think we can stress that tutorials and training materials are valuable.
But we need to be cautious about setting deadlines and setting priorities
for volunteer projects.
Best regards,
--
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam@pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
Frank,
some good comments from you below, in particular in attracting marketing contributions from projects (by offering to push the marketing through OSGeo marketing channels like conferences). This is much better than mandating through incubation criteria.
I do think we should be looking at promoting the "Quality" in OSGeo and institutionalising this in the incubation process, but I'll leave that for someone else to follow, or will wait until I have the capacity to follow through on the work required to support the process.
For the moment, I'll focus on marketing through helping create the next version of the LiveDVD, and hopefully also include project fliers as part of this. (I'll be looking for help to make the fliers work).
Frank Warmerdam wrote:
Cameron Shorter wrote:
In thinking about marketing, I'm not sure we have a clear message as to WHY we are marketing.
In a conventional company this question is clear, they want to make more money, which they can do by selling more product, so the marketing focus is to convince consumers to buy product.
>
Closely followed on this question, is HOW are we going to resource the marketing? Through funds or volunteer labour. If we are relying on volunteer labour, then we need to very clearly describe the vision, and make it very compelling, otherwise the volunteers will do something else.
Here are some possible answers:
1. OSGeo wishes to attract sponsor dollars to cover essential running costs. In that case, we need to profile sponsors, and then provide marketing which is valuable for sponsors. Eg: Having a sponsor's logo on the website may drive sales to the sponsor. The sponsor will also be likely volunteer to contribute time to developing marketing material for OSGeo.2. OSGeo wishes to promote the OSGeo projects under its umbrella. This will result in increased uptake of these projects, which results in increased sales of related services (support, code extensions etc). The projects will likely provide resources to create marketing material for their projects.
Cameron,
In my opinion the primary reason we are marketing (I prefer the world
promotion) is (2) - to increase the uptake of OSGeo projects (and
non OSGeo open source geospatial projects), primarily in the hopes that
it will drive additional contribution in various ways. That is the
key part of OSGeo mission.I believe we should assume that sponsors are primarily supporting
us because they want open source geospatial projects to be successful
and grow.I think promoting our sponsors should be relatively incidental,
though some effort should go into it where reasonable.Related to this, OSGeo should be creating a specific OSGeo brand. We already have a brand name built around "Open Source" and "Geospatial". Less emphasised, but very important in the marketplace is "Quality", "Reliability", "Integration", "Commercial Support", "Training", "Documentation". These are criteria that software purchasers look for, and so should be emphasised. There are strong commercial reasons for addressing these "Quality" properties of OSGeo and so we should be able to find volunteers to address these components for most projects.
This marketing message leads into a comment [1] I made earlier on the incubation list:
* That in order to keep up with the market, and ensure that our OSGeo projects remain competitive, we should be gradually raising the bar for both incubation and incubated projects so that we strengthen the "Quality" message in the "OSGeo" story. Most projects are continually improving their sales story, and the OSGeo brand should be raised to match this.I think we need to discuss quite widely whether we want OSGeo to
require and drive a higher level of quality in our projects before
we go to town promoting OSGeo as a quality brand. This is something
that will require fairly wide consensus in the community if it is going
to be a substantial push. I must admit the idea of OSGeo hounding me
(as a GDAL or MapServer developer) to meet it's quality standards rankles
at first.I suggest that we as the marketing committee should do define exactly what we want from each project to incorporate into our marketing material:
Something like:within 6 months: 1 page flier describing the project
within 12 months: Packaging of project into LiveDVD or debian, or osgeo4win
within 18 months: Tutorials on how to use core functionality for the project
within 2 years: Tutorials for all functionality
within 3 years: Training material incorporated into tertiary education courses / OSGeo reference bookI think the marketing committee could explain that it wants to promote
OSGeo as a "quality" brand, and that the above would be very helpful
as steps towards that. But you need to avoid the impression that
the marketing committee sees itself as the pinnacle of command and
control, telling everyone what to do so that marketing can be more
effective and unified.Certainly it is reasonable to ask that all projects cooperate in
preparation and maintenance of a one page flier.I think it is reasonable to point out that the marketting committee
will be promoting some particular packaging solutions (perhaps the LiveDVD,
OSGeo4W, DebianGIS, etc) and that projects are encouraged to participate
in order to benefit from the marketing effort.I think we can stress that tutorials and training materials are valuable.
But we need to be cautious about setting deadlines and setting priorities
for volunteer projects.Best regards,
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com