[Marketing] Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 16, Issue 10

Daniele1 · January 16, 2009, 6:43am

Dear Marketing committee,

We have started working on the website redesign.

Please share your ideas about the website TODAY on the bellow topics:

Content Design
Layout Design
Navigation Design
Visual Design
If you feel uncomfortable expressing your ideas to the group, please send a message to

daniele.ocu@gmail.com

Your name will not be mentioned.

Kindest regards,

Daniele.

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 2:00 AM, <marketing-request@lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

Send Marketing mailing list submissions to
marketing@lists.osgeo.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
or, via email, send a message with subject or body ‘help’ to
marketing-request@lists.osgeo.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
marketing-owner@lists.osgeo.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than “Re: Contents of Marketing digest…”

Today’s Topics:

Meeting in 30 minutes (Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo))

RE: Meeting in 30 minutes (Michael P. Gerlek)

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 22:25:30 -0800
From: “Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)” <tmitchell@osgeo.org>
Subject: [Marketing] Meeting in 30 minutes
To: OSGeo Marketing <marketing@lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID: <398C9E64-3E45-495C-99C0-93893B1AC94C@osgeo.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed

Just a reminder about this meeting in case you can make it:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Meeting_2009.01.15

Message: 2
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:10:16 -0800
From: “Michael P. Gerlek” <mpg@lizardtech.com>
Subject: RE: [Marketing] Meeting in 30 minutes
To: “‘Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)’” <tmitchell@osgeo.org>, OSGeo Marketing
<marketing@lists.osgeo.org>
Message-ID:
<C55473998E248B4DAEC5342D698DFE8523300B07@sea-srv-mail.lizardtech.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“us-ascii”

Nuts – I forgot about this and went to bed instead… Sorry!

-mpg

-----Original Message-----
From: marketing-bounces@lists.osgeo.org [mailto:marketing-bounces@lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 10:26 PM
To: OSGeo Marketing
Subject: [Marketing] Meeting in 30 minutes

Just a reminder about this meeting in case you can make it:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Meeting_2009.01.15

Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

End of Marketing Digest, Vol 16, Issue 10

–
Researcher @ Osaka City University
Graduate School for Creative Cities
http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends

Jason_Birch · January 16, 2009, 7:45am

I'm still somewhat (a lot) confused about how Marketing's budget includes something that is in WebCom's mandate, but that ship has sailed

All of my comments (which I still feel strongly about) and some follow-up from others are available at or around this post:

http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/2008-December/002086.html

Jason

________________________________

From: daniele.ocu ocu
Subject: [Marketing] Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 16, Issue 10

Dear Marketing committee,

We have started working on the website redesign.

ATT805368.txt (151 Bytes)

Frank_Warmerdam · January 16, 2009, 3:01pm

daniele.ocu ocu wrote:

Dear Marketing committee,

We have started working on the website redesign.

Please share your ideas about the website TODAY on the bellow topics:

    * *Content Design*
    * *Layout Design*
    * *Navigation Design*
    * *Visual Design*

Daniele,

As Jason mentioned, I hope you are accounting for the discussions in December.
I still have concerns about the breadth of the activity.

Are you collecting input to prepare a request for proposals from potential
contractors to do the actual work? Do you have any wiki page with the
summarized objectives of this effort so far? I think that would be
constructive. Certainly there is still confusion in the community about this
effort, what the objectives are and how it is hoped the effort will be
realized.

I note that "Design" is included in each of the above statements. Does this
imply that the project will be focused on the design (which I mostly
interpret as providing a roadmap for desired content, building styling, and
reworking the navigation) or is it also expected that significant meaty
content will be created (this is definitely beyond design)?

More than anything else, I wish the OSGeo web site had material more directly
supporting our slogan - "Your Open Source Compass". I see this as a
series of white papers, and guides for different sorts of visitors. Mostly
this should help provide guidance to people on which projects, and technologies
are appropriate for particular sorts of users/requirements/needs.

I would also like to see more pointers to various kinds of advocacy materials.
This could include stuff like:

1) Open Source and GFOSS in the news (ie. pointers to supportive and credible
articles in the press about open source, primarily in the geospatial sphere)

2) A good "introduction to open source" sort of document giving visitors
    who are pretty new to open source a solid introduction. This might actually
    be a pointer to a document on another site or someone elses document
    somewhat adapted to include some references to the geospatial sphere.

3) Case studies (as discussed in the past, and on which a somewhat modest
    start has been made in the wiki). These are basically short "success
    stories" from real user organizations focused on examples with high
    "credibility". A variety of case studies should be available supporting
    a variety of our projects, and not shying away from referencing projects
    which are not actually foundation projects.

Hmm, I thought I would have a few more items to justify the enumeration, but
I'm drawing a blank and running short on time so I'll leave it at that for
now.

I will note that much of this content generation requires a quite a deep
understanding of the field. In some cases it is also "politically sensitive"
(such as documents attempting to guide people to the right project for their
needs when there might in fact be several which could be applicable).

PS. I have taken the liberty of retitling the email since "Marketing Digest"
didn't communicate anything, and to cc: webcom where I'm sure there are
interested people.

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

Christopher_Schmidt1 · January 16, 2009, 3:10pm

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:43:32PM +0900, daniele.ocu ocu wrote:

Dear Marketing committee,

We have started working on the website redesign.

Daniele,

I'm concerned that this is being done without interaction with WebCom --
or if this interaction is happening, I'm not aware of it.

Currently, I've expressed some concerns about the current state of the
OSGeo website, but I do not feel that there is sufficient agreement in
what the website should *be* that we can discuss Content Design, Layout
Design, etc.

I have some strong ideas about what the OSGeo website should be -- or at
least, questions about what it should be that would need answering
before any redesign was attempted.

Additionally, I think that any website redesign effort can only be
undertaken if a sufficiently motivated set of developers in the website
technology are involved. I'm not convinced that that is currently the
case; I don't know how much experience you have with the current website
technology, but I didn't have the impression that you were comfortable
implementing possible changes in this regard.

At the moment, I would like to say that although Marketing can feel free
to create an advisory suggestion to WebCom about suggestions for the
website, I do ont feel that WebCom has suficient resources to implement
any possible suggestions, and I would consider the feedback from
Marketing -- except insofar as it relates directly towards marketing
tasks like management of branding -- to be advisory only.

Please take this into account in any decisions/investment placed in this
direction.

SOmetime in the near future, I will do my best to outline my hopes for
the OSGeo website to the members of the community; I expect the end
result will be a discussion (either on mailing lists or in a more
interactive forum) about what the OSGeo website should be. When I do
this, I will involve Marketing in that discussion as much as possible.

I appreciate the effort you want to go through, but I just feel at the
moment that it might be a wasted effort due to lack of general agreement
on the tasks needed for the website; if this is the result of some
larger discussion I'm missing, I apologize, and I look forward to
resolving my confusion. I don't want to stop the Marketing committee
from participating in website advisory positions, but I also don't want
to see anyone put forth effort which may be wasted.

Best Regards,
--
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

Tyler_Mitchell1 · January 16, 2009, 5:38pm

Daniele wrote:

We have started working on the website redesign.

I think she meant to include a link to the brainstorming page to collect thoughts:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Web_site_design

Webcom should have been cc'd

Jason Birch wrote:

I'm still somewhat (a lot) confused about how Marketing's budget includes something that is in WebCom's mandate, but that ship has sailed

Let's take a small step back for a second. This is just another example of the perpetual overlap in the two committee's responsibilities, but I still think we can make it work. From a branding and marketing angle the website is a very important public face, obviously part of Marketing's mandate. So that's the angle Marketing is coming at it from. I guess if it's a problem then Marketing can start http://spreadOSGeo.org (joking!)

Last month, I (as Marketing chair) was overwhelmed by interest within the marketing committee for putting a significant part of its budget towards website-related branding and design. We'll be spending effort on producing well branded print material, it's only natural to try to keep the website in line with that as well as improving usability were possible. There was also significant buzz on the lists about the topic (thinking of Chris and Jody here). Of course Marketing doesn't operate in a vacuum so I fully expected this to be a cooperative effort between Webcom and Marketing.

At the last Marketing meeting we looked for volunteers to help lead each major project identified in our budget. Daniele offered to oversee the website project and she has good marketing training and experience we can tap into - she is not going to be doing this alone but will be Marketing's point person on it. Please join in the effort to offer up your ideas, thoughts comments and, obviously, concerns.

Christopher wrote:

I'm concerned that this is being done without interaction with WebCom --
or if this interaction is happening, I'm not aware of it.

There has barely been discussion about it on the Marketing committee side either, we are all still just starting at the brainstorming stage. So don't worry, you haven't missed anything! Note that both Wolf and I are interested in supporting from a technical Webcom angle, plus we have enough budget to be able to hire some expertise when/if needed. But we're a ways away from doing anything at this point! Let's get our ideas out in the open...

Hope the helps,
Tyler

Daniele1 · January 17, 2009, 2:08pm

Dear all,

I am veryveryvery sorry If I seemed too hasty in the words I chose in the prior email. Of course that if any actual action in the website is taken, it will be of common desire both of the Marketing committee, of the Webcom and of other who are interested.

This is just the beginning, where gathering information is a crucial part.

Getting your ideas on what is good about the website and what might be object to change is an extremely important part of planning what can be done.

This is JUST AN EFFORT to get the OSGeo Community to start discussing and thinking of ways to gather more users, contributers, volunteers and sponsors to this vibrant community.

This is STILL Just a discussion, a place to set ideas.

Daniele.

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:10 AM, Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt@metacarta.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:43:32PM +0900, daniele.ocu ocu wrote:

Dear Marketing committee,

We have started working on the website redesign.

Daniele,

I’m concerned that this is being done without interaction with WebCom –
or if this interaction is happening, I’m not aware of it.

Currently, I’ve expressed some concerns about the current state of the
OSGeo website, but I do not feel that there is sufficient agreement in
what the website should be that we can discuss Content Design, Layout
Design, etc.

I have some strong ideas about what the OSGeo website should be – or at
least, questions about what it should be that would need answering
before any redesign was attempted.

Additionally, I think that any website redesign effort can only be
undertaken if a sufficiently motivated set of developers in the website
technology are involved. I’m not convinced that that is currently the
case; I don’t know how much experience you have with the current website
technology, but I didn’t have the impression that you were comfortable
implementing possible changes in this regard.

At the moment, I would like to say that although Marketing can feel free
to create an advisory suggestion to WebCom about suggestions for the
website, I do ont feel that WebCom has suficient resources to implement
any possible suggestions, and I would consider the feedback from
Marketing – except insofar as it relates directly towards marketing
tasks like management of branding – to be advisory only.

Please take this into account in any decisions/investment placed in this
direction.

SOmetime in the near future, I will do my best to outline my hopes for
the OSGeo website to the members of the community; I expect the end
result will be a discussion (either on mailing lists or in a more
interactive forum) about what the OSGeo website should be. When I do
this, I will involve Marketing in that discussion as much as possible.

I appreciate the effort you want to go through, but I just feel at the
moment that it might be a wasted effort due to lack of general agreement
on the tasks needed for the website; if this is the result of some
larger discussion I’m missing, I apologize, and I look forward to
resolving my confusion. I don’t want to stop the Marketing committee
from participating in website advisory positions, but I also don’t want
to see anyone put forth effort which may be wasted.

Best Regards,

Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta

–
Researcher @ Osaka City University
Graduate School for Creative Cities
http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends

Cameron_Shorter · January 18, 2009, 9:51am

Daniele,
No need to be sorry. It is excellent to see people taking initiative.

Re who is in responsible for what:

The beauty of OSGeo is that anyone can join any committee, so it is incredibly easy for us to restructure ourselves.

The marketing committee have collectively noted that Websites are important for marketing, and that $$ should be allocated to the website from the marketing budget. Only $20K (plus I think webcom had $10K already?) and that will not go far.

I think that Webcom should continue to be responsible for the website, and also responsible for spending the $20K budget. Any marketing people who want to have a say can join the webcom email list. (I suspect most of us are on the list already).

daniele.ocu ocu wrote:

Dear all,

I am veryveryvery sorry If I seemed too hasty in the words I chose in the prior email. Of course that if any actual action in the website is taken, it will be of common desire both of the Marketing committee, of the Webcom and of other who are interested.

This is just the beginning, where *_gathering information_* is a crucial part.

Getting _*your ideas*_ on what is good about the website and what might be object to change is an extremely important part of planning what can be done.

This is JUST AN EFFORT to get the OSGeo Community to *_start discussing and thinking_* of ways to gather more users, contributers, volunteers and *sponsors* to this vibrant community.

This is STILL Just a discussion, a place to set ideas.

Daniele.

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:10 AM, Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt@metacarta.com <mailto:crschmidt@metacarta.com>> wrote:

    On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:43:32PM +0900, daniele.ocu ocu wrote:
    > Dear Marketing committee,
    >
    > We have started working on the website redesign.

    Daniele,

    I'm concerned that this is being done without interaction with
    WebCom --
    or if this interaction is happening, I'm not aware of it.

    Currently, I've expressed some concerns about the current state of the
    OSGeo website, but I do not feel that there is sufficient agreement in
    what the website should *be* that we can discuss Content Design,
    Layout
    Design, etc.

    I have some strong ideas about what the OSGeo website should be --
    or at
    least, questions about what it should be that would need answering
    before any redesign was attempted.

    Additionally, I think that any website redesign effort can only be
    undertaken if a sufficiently motivated set of developers in the
    website
    technology are involved. I'm not convinced that that is currently the
    case; I don't know how much experience you have with the current
    website
    technology, but I didn't have the impression that you were comfortable
    implementing possible changes in this regard.

    At the moment, I would like to say that although Marketing can
    feel free
    to create an advisory suggestion to WebCom about suggestions for the
    website, I do ont feel that WebCom has suficient resources to
    implement
    any possible suggestions, and I would consider the feedback from
    Marketing -- except insofar as it relates directly towards marketing
    tasks like management of branding -- to be advisory only.

    Please take this into account in any decisions/investment placed
    in this
    direction.

    SOmetime in the near future, I will do my best to outline my hopes for
    the OSGeo website to the members of the community; I expect the end
    result will be a discussion (either on mailing lists or in a more
    interactive forum) about what the OSGeo website should be. When I do
    this, I will involve Marketing in that discussion as much as possible.

    I appreciate the effort you want to go through, but I just feel at the
    moment that it might be a wasted effort due to lack of general
    agreement
    on the tasks needed for the website; if this is the result of some
    larger discussion I'm missing, I apologize, and I look forward to
    resolving my confusion. I don't want to stop the Marketing committee
    from participating in website advisory positions, but I also don't
    want
    to see anyone put forth effort which may be wasted.

    Best Regards,
    --
    Christopher Schmidt
    MetaCarta

--
Researcher @ Osaka City University
Graduate School for Creative Cities
http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

--
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

Lorenzo_Becchi · January 19, 2009, 11:38am

Cameron Shorter wrote:

Daniele,
No need to be sorry. It is excellent to see people taking initiative.

+1

@Daniele: if you can please use a better subject than "Marketing Digest", we would appreciate.

Re who is in responsible for what:

The beauty of OSGeo is that anyone can join any committee, so it is incredibly easy for us to restructure ourselves.

The marketing committee have collectively noted that Websites are important for marketing, and that $$ should be allocated to the website from the marketing budget. Only $20K (plus I think webcom had $10K already?) and that will not go far.

I think that Webcom should continue to be responsible for the website, and also responsible for spending the $20K budget. Any marketing people who want to have a say can join the webcom email list. (I suspect most of us are on the list already).

I think this is a great initiative but remembers me some projects for the development I've seen here and there travelling around.
I guess that if you want to give $20K to webcom you should better ask them if they are interested in and what is their feeling about priorities (participative approach [1]).
Chris has sent a good list of objections and I have some more that I've posted [2] before.

regards
lorenzo

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participation_(decision_making)
[2] http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/webcom/2008-December/001937.html

daniele.ocu ocu wrote:

Dear all,

I am veryveryvery sorry If I seemed too hasty in the words I chose in the prior email. Of course that if any actual action in the website is taken, it will be of common desire both of the Marketing committee, of the Webcom and of other who are interested.

This is just the beginning, where *_gathering information_* is a crucial part.

Getting _*your ideas*_ on what is good about the website and what might be object to change is an extremely important part of planning what can be done.

This is JUST AN EFFORT to get the OSGeo Community to *_start discussing and thinking_* of ways to gather more users, contributers, volunteers and *sponsors* to this vibrant community.

This is STILL Just a discussion, a place to set ideas.

Daniele.

On Sat, Jan 17, 2009 at 12:10 AM, Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt@metacarta.com <mailto:crschmidt@metacarta.com>> wrote:

    On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 03:43:32PM +0900, daniele.ocu ocu wrote:
    > Dear Marketing committee,
    >
    > We have started working on the website redesign.

    Daniele,

    I'm concerned that this is being done without interaction with
    WebCom --
    or if this interaction is happening, I'm not aware of it.

    Currently, I've expressed some concerns about the current state of the
    OSGeo website, but I do not feel that there is sufficient agreement in
    what the website should *be* that we can discuss Content Design,
    Layout
    Design, etc.

    I have some strong ideas about what the OSGeo website should be --
    or at
    least, questions about what it should be that would need answering
    before any redesign was attempted.

    Additionally, I think that any website redesign effort can only be
    undertaken if a sufficiently motivated set of developers in the
    website
    technology are involved. I'm not convinced that that is currently the
    case; I don't know how much experience you have with the current
    website
    technology, but I didn't have the impression that you were comfortable
    implementing possible changes in this regard.

    At the moment, I would like to say that although Marketing can
    feel free
    to create an advisory suggestion to WebCom about suggestions for the
    website, I do ont feel that WebCom has suficient resources to
    implement
    any possible suggestions, and I would consider the feedback from
    Marketing -- except insofar as it relates directly towards marketing
    tasks like management of branding -- to be advisory only.

    Please take this into account in any decisions/investment placed
    in this
    direction.

    SOmetime in the near future, I will do my best to outline my hopes for
    the OSGeo website to the members of the community; I expect the end
    result will be a discussion (either on mailing lists or in a more
    interactive forum) about what the OSGeo website should be. When I do
    this, I will involve Marketing in that discussion as much as possible.

    I appreciate the effort you want to go through, but I just feel at the
    moment that it might be a wasted effort due to lack of general
    agreement
    on the tasks needed for the website; if this is the result of some
    larger discussion I'm missing, I apologize, and I look forward to
    resolving my confusion. I don't want to stop the Marketing committee
    from participating in website advisory positions, but I also don't
    want
    to see anyone put forth effort which may be wasted.

    Best Regards,
    --
    Christopher Schmidt
    MetaCarta

--
Researcher @ Osaka City University
Graduate School for Creative Cities
http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends

------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Marketing mailing list
Marketing@lists.osgeo.org
http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing

Frank_Warmerdam · January 19, 2009, 3:49pm

Cameron Shorter wrote:

The marketing committee have collectively noted that Websites are important for marketing, and that $$ should be allocated to the website from the marketing budget. Only $20K (plus I think webcom had $10K already?) and that will not go far.

Cameron,

I'd note that there is no $10K budget for webcom. There was an item in
the 2008 budget but that lapsed at the end of year unused.

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

Tyler_Mitchell1 · January 19, 2009, 10:30pm

Cameron wrote:

I think that Webcom should continue to be responsible for the website, and also responsible for spending the $20K budget. Any marketing people who want to have a say can join the webcom email list. (I suspect most of us are on the list already).

Lorenzo Becchi wrote:

I think this is a great initiative but remembers me some projects for the development I've seen here and there travelling around.
I guess that if you want to give $20K to webcom you should better ask them if they are interested in and what is their feeling about priorities (participative approach [1]).
Chris has sent a good list of objections and I have some more that I've posted [2] before.

To me, it doesn't matter "who" is spending the money as long as all those involved agree on where to go. I agree, let's move all discussions on this thread over to the Web committee mailing list.

Putting on my webcom hat, I was really motivated by Chris' email that he sent to the board last month:
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2008-December/002799.html

There weren't many responses to it, but at our next marketing committee meeting there was a marked increase in interest to review the website with marketing and targeting in mind.

I'm also encouraged by Jody's ongoing interest in helping target our message:
http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/marketing/2009-January/002099.html

I agree that a more targeted approach is needed and that the end result would be a simplified website that guides users, developers and business folks to the right kinds of tools and solutions that they need. I have more brainstorming I will put into a wiki page, but follows much of the same thought as Jody and Chris.

Many on the marketing committee are also interested in helping things improve, so I believe it is a good time to discuss general ideas and issues (and objections or concerns). No one is going to force a change if the rest of webcom (besides me) feels this is not an area of interest, but I hope we can recognise that Marketing and Webcom share the same goals: advance the mission of OSGeo!

Tyler