Hi all,
Thanks for the supporting messages! I really want this thing to be a successful process with a lot of consensus, so if at any time you feel I am missing the boat or ignoring relevant issues, please let me know immediately!
I had a lunch meeting on the topic again with the marketing/design people I work(ed) with. I tried to explain what I thought were some of the key objectives OSGeo should achieve in the coming year. I'll list those here for comments and further discussion/refinement. We agreed we'll get a first proposal together to assess what is reasonably achievable considering the available budget. I have indicated that in this whole process I need the community support and as such the implementation of the work will be different then when they deal with just me and a small GN community.
Here's what I put up as goals (as I see them, considering what we discussed in Victoria etc...)
- In rough terms we have two groups OSGeo serves. (1) the developer communities of the different projects, and (2) the user broader community of geospatial applications. Both have a business component to them; the first is to have a healthy community and thus product, the second is a good, professional image that helps drive business.
- We take fairly good care of ourselves for what the developer community concerns
I suggested we do not forget this part of the community, but not focus on it at this stage from the Marketing point of view.
- We have to transfer a message of trust and professionalism to the user community (the people, businesses and governments that buy the services/ use the tools)
Ingredients:
- Healthy, well established projects that work in a professional manner (PSC, workplans, release strategy, bug reporting and fixing, etc..)
- Intellectual Property issues are closely monitored and have been evaluated for all core projects
- High quality software, use of standards etc...
- Coherence and collaboration between projects
- Support and training from professional companies
- Free and Open Source Software is not just source code, it is about participation and true open collaboration. Hell with fake open source 
, OSGeo is about real Free and Open Source Software. Users have to be made aware of this in clear terms.
I may have forgotten some things now...
- We have to improve the visual identity that is reflected in the web site, OSGeo journal, articles, flyers and conferences. This goes beyond the OSGeo logo I think. (just to be clear, I will not try to touch the logo because it is very good already!).
Goals:
- Have a message we can deliver to users that is convincing and clear. They have to directly understand the benefits of using OSGeo software over other solutions 
- Be able to use the marketing materials to convince potential sponsors of the benefits of joining OSGeo as a sponsor. "This is what you get when you support in OSGeo", "Professionalism and quality that benefits your business".
- Be able to add at least 5 (!?) new, substantial OSGeo and/or project sponsors to the list in the coming year.
- Have a common visual identity (see above) with at least a folded A3 size flyer that gives the key messages/ overview.
- The materials will have to be available for translation by the different local chapters. We have to be able to maintain / update these materials.
OK, I talked for an hour on this, so I for sure miss things in this email, but I think I got the main components.
I have suggested that when we get started, they (Birgit and Ines) join the mailing list to participate in some of the discussion.
Once I have an initial proposal from them, I'll get this back to the list.
Ciao,
Jeroen