Catching up on the OSGeo Marketing meeting, which I missed, sorry. I'm still catching up from foss4g. The relevant parts from the logs: re OSGeo disk and co-branding:
http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2009-11-11.log
22:49:18 darkblue_B: Live Demo Disk
22:49:26 darkblue_B: when you are ready
22:49:27 TylerM: note live disk was handed out in conference bags.
22:49:46 wildintellect: we were aware, since some of us here helped build it
22:50:02 : * wildintellect actually made the final version
22:50:14 TylerM: right-o : ) I heard good things
22:50:30 TylerM: great work guys
22:50:40 darkblue_B: wildintellect: and cshorter and haymen were the champions
22:50:56 darkblue_B: but I managed to get pretty irritated with Haymen too
22:51:01 darkblue_B: so it goes
22:51:19 TylerM: the printed disk was branded with lisasoft + osgeo, which brought me a few questions.. even from a couple other sponsors :[
22:51:26 wildintellect: so how can we build for FOSS4G 2010 from marketing
22:51:42 wildintellect: I agree that issue needs to be worked out
22:51:45 TylerM: not sure who made that call.. but we know they did spend a good amount of time on it.
22:52:11 darkblue_B: wait - that LisaSoft print.. and the Arramagong name.. is that clarified Tyler
22:52:12 darkblue_B: ?
22:52:15 wildintellect: lisasoft was the lead on the whole thing - mild Conflict of interest on Camerons side
22:52:18 TylerM: mainly just want to get this into our agendas for upcoming months so we are ahead of the game.
22:52:47 darkblue_B: this is pretty important.. if there is some conflict brewing
22:52:48 TylerM: darkblue_B: not clear to me really
22:53:02 wildintellect: seems like we should make a plan with the Barcelona peeps including timeline of PR
22:53:07 TylerM: just some wondered why one company's logo and name were included on the cover along with osgeo
22:53:14 darkblue_B: .. I'll say as many times as I can - I think the Live DVD is one of the best things to come out of OSGeo in a ling time
22:53:17 darkblue_B: long time
22:53:32 darkblue_B: but, its *so* good, if LisaSoft is putting itself in front every time
22:53:43 darkblue_B: could be trouble
22:53:45 darkblue_B: not neutral
22:54:02 TylerM: this is a bigger issue as well, re: putting corporate info on osgeo marketing material..
22:54:08 darkblue_B: yep
22:54:11 TylerM: it is a right of some of the sponsorship levels.
22:54:18 TylerM: http://osgeo.org/sponsorship.
22:54:27 wildintellect: my agenda item for later was how make OSGeo more prominent on the Live Demo down the road
22:54:36 TylerM: ok fair enough
22:55:07 TylerM: i'd like to clarify the co-branding bit, but want to kick it around a bit.
----
I agree with Tyler, that I think the Marketing Committee needs to set some clear guidelines with regards to co-branding.
The current reality of the situation is:
* OSGeo doesn't have budget to pay for for a booth at every conference around the world
* Despite a perception to the contrary, conferences are an expensive way to find work. They are useful for more of a long term mindshare shift.
* A local OSGeo company, like LISAsoft, is interested in local conferences only, and prepared to pay to set up an OSGeo presence at the local conference. (We try to share costs with others, usually Autodesk has helped out).
* If a local (small) company is to be paying for an OSGeo booth, then they will need to be working behind the booth pushing OSGeo, but also needing to push their own company. They will need to be wearing two hats. We (OSGeo) should recognise that, and encourage supporting companies to include the company's marketing material, or banner at the booth.
With regards to FOSS4G and LISAsoft branding on the LiveDVD.
Yes, the LiveDVD is an excellent marketing tool for OSGeo, and a great branding opportunity for a sponsor of OSGeo. The FOSS4G conference was also great marketing opportunity for companies like LISAsoft, but it did come at a price. LISAsoft was hugely committed to both the LiveDVD and FOSS4G. Our direct wages bill for the conference exceeded $100,000, and there was twice as much volunteer time on top of that. To put it in perspective, the biggest FOSS4G sponsor was the Bureau of Meteorology, contributing $30,000 toward the OGC's Climate Challenge Integration Plugfest, and then our three Gold Sponsors contributed $15,000 each.
Getting the LiveDVD out was a major risk for the conference, and it only made it because of some super human efforts from a team of people, of which LISAsoft was part. The reason I was able to justify spending a significant amount of LISAsoft time on the Arramagong LiveDVD was because of the marketing potential to LISAsoft. (Hence the reason for LISAsoft's logo on the LiveDVD).
Other companies are promoted to a greater or lesser extent through their software which is installed on the LiveDVD. We could potentially improve this marketing by adding specific "Commercial Support" help pages for each project.
So in summary:
I think co branding is good and should be encouraged, and that the Marketing committee should be working toward some guidelines for how this should be applied (which extend to the local level, not just international).
--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Systems Architect
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