[Marketing] this issue of sponsorship for OSGeo presence at conferences

dear all,

I popped my head in meeting of the Marketing committee at a sad moment
earlier where Yves Jacolin et al are asking for supporting budget to
put up an OSGeo presence in an "Open Source Village" at a big vendor
conference in Tunis. They have matching funds even from one of the
french companies that is attending there.
But VisCom does not have a budget to dispose of right now.
http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2007-10-10.log

It could help out a bit in terms of making brochures and
liveCDs/installer CDs available for such ventures. There is a lot of
interest in this sort of thing and the measured response seems to be
"Organise with your local osgeo chapter, approach local companies..."
Perhaps the SPD could be used to help that happen?

I also note it seems to be in the finance committee's remit to set and
release a definite budget to the Marketing Committee, AFAIK we/it is/are
planning to meet within the next couple of weeks.

cheers,

jo
--

On 10-Oct-07, at 11:02 AM, Jo Walsh wrote:

I popped my head in meeting of the Marketing committee at a sad moment
earlier where Yves Jacolin et al are asking for supporting budget to
put up an OSGeo presence in an "Open Source Village" at a big vendor
conference in Tunis. They have matching funds even from one of the
french companies that is attending there.
But VisCom does not have a budget to dispose of right now.
http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2007-10-10.log

It could help out a bit in terms of making brochures and
liveCDs/installer CDs available for such ventures. There is a lot of
interest in this sort of thing and the measured response seems to be
"Organise with your local osgeo chapter, approach local companies..."
Perhaps the SPD could be used to help that happen?

This is a good time for the Marketing committee to re-group and discuss the focus of the committee and its budget. Last time the committee worked out a budget, there was consensus to use a portion to help support 'local' events - i.e. sending someone to an event or helping with minor donations to handle printing brochures, building a presence, etc.

Even when we do get our budget allocation there will still be the issue of how to best direct the funds for the greatest marketing benefit. For example, Arnulf has experience finding ways for events to self-fund their outreach, but do we want all local events to have to do this or not.

Over the past year, VisCom's was very much event focused. After the last board meeting I think it was clear that developing marketing material was seen as more of a priority and perhaps events will take a back seat to that now. If so, this refocus should probably be discussed further. Perhaps Jeroen's discussion thread hits on this enough and we need a plan.

Of course, there will always be questions about how to pick/choose events to help fund. And there will not always be local (geographic) chapters to help manage these kinds of decisions. But I don't want to just toss the idea aside without further discussion. We should have a policy so that folks like Yves know whether or not our committee will even consider funding local marketing events.

Sincerely,
Tyler

Jo Walsh wrote:

dear all,

I popped my head in meeting of the Marketing committee at a sad moment
earlier where Yves Jacolin et al are asking for supporting budget to
put up an OSGeo presence in an "Open Source Village" at a big vendor
conference in Tunis. They have matching funds even from one of the
french companies that is attending there. But VisCom does not have a budget to dispose of right now.
http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2007-10-10.log

Jo,

If VisCom (now the Marketting Committee?) wanted to fund this
conference, I would be fine with them spending out of next
years tentative budget.

It could help out a bit in terms of making brochures and
liveCDs/installer CDs available for such ventures. There is a lot of
interest in this sort of thing and the measured response seems to be
"Organise with your local osgeo chapter, approach local companies..."
Perhaps the SPD could be used to help that happen?

Local chapters collecting sponsorship or other funds for local
promotion is certainly a reasonable approach, though it does not
seem inappropriate to me to approach viscom for funding for strategically
important conferences. It would be up to viscom to prioritize how they
want to spend their budget.

I also note it seems to be in the finance committee's remit to set and
release a definite budget to the Marketing Committee, AFAIK we/it is/are
planning to meet within the next couple of weeks.

I believe the finance committee would be expected to propose a budget
to the full board for approval, and then monitor that the foundation is
operating within it.

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 | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org

Hi lists,

As far as I am concerned, I would like to give some details/reflexion. First
of all, OSGeo-fr will find a solution about the sponsorisation of this event.
Although this will not be easy, OSGeo-fr will be present (I don't know
exactly how we will but we will :slight_smile: ).

Secondly, Local Chapter could need some help (for funding, building etc) from
OSGeo. I don't know if the comparison is interresting, but Local chapter can
be seen like OSGeo project. Sometime, it could be interesting to get some
help from a supervisor like the project get one in the incubating process. In
my mind, OSGeo-fr is still in an incubating process although it has been
officialy accepted by OSGeo 3 weeks ago.

We have still some issues about organizing. This could be seem quiete far from
the initial topic, but the fact is we don't know exactly what are the
important steps before to begin project. Build a local community from almost
nothing is not easy and may be I failed to ask so help from OSGeo (Tyler is a
great help for this of course, I would like to thanks him for all the help is
bring to me). I would be really interesting to share information with all
local chapter about this.

Do you thing is important to begin by looking for sponsorship from companies
before to begin Promotion and Visiblity projet (aka Marketing) of OSGeo? I
think now that OSGeo-fr should focus on create legal organisation and find
some sponsorship before managing a booth at the trade show.

Sorry if my answer is too far from the initial topic.

Best regards,

Y.
(Yves Jacolin)
Le mercredi 10 octobre 2007 21:20, Frank Warmerdam a écrit :

Jo Walsh wrote:
> dear all,
>
> I popped my head in meeting of the Marketing committee at a sad moment
> earlier where Yves Jacolin et al are asking for supporting budget to
> put up an OSGeo presence in an "Open Source Village" at a big vendor
> conference in Tunis. They have matching funds even from one of the
> french companies that is attending there.
> But VisCom does not have a budget to dispose of right now.
> http://logs.qgis.org/osgeo/%23osgeo.2007-10-10.log

Jo,

If VisCom (now the Marketting Committee?) wanted to fund this
conference, I would be fine with them spending out of next
years tentative budget.

> It could help out a bit in terms of making brochures and
> liveCDs/installer CDs available for such ventures. There is a lot of
> interest in this sort of thing and the measured response seems to be
> "Organise with your local osgeo chapter, approach local companies..."
> Perhaps the SPD could be used to help that happen?

Local chapters collecting sponsorship or other funds for local
promotion is certainly a reasonable approach, though it does not
seem inappropriate to me to approach viscom for funding for strategically
important conferences. It would be up to viscom to prioritize how they
want to spend their budget.

> I also note it seems to be in the finance committee's remit to set and
> release a definite budget to the Marketing Committee, AFAIK we/it is/are
> planning to meet within the next couple of weeks.

I believe the finance committee would be expected to propose a budget
to the full board for approval, and then monitor that the foundation is
operating within it.

Best regards,

--
Yves Jacolin
-------------
http://yjacolin.gloobe.org
http://softlibre.gloobe.org

Re. Budget:

On 10-Oct-07, at 3:20 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:

I also note it seems to be in the finance committee's remit to set and
release a definite budget to the Marketing Committee, AFAIK we/it is/are
planning to meet within the next couple of weeks.

I believe the finance committee would be expected to propose a budget
to the full board for approval, and then monitor that the foundation is
operating within it.

Yes - my hope is that at our next board meeting we will be able to review and hopefully pass the budget refined by the finance committee for 2008.

For line items like the Marketing budget -- some of this could be used during November/December with the understanding that the budgeted amount will have to last through December 2008 barring further infusion of cash from new sponsorships / other sources during the course of 2008.

Dave

Hi,

Maybe for interest to Marketing Committee.

"All Marketers are Liars"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294
(Seth Godin talks about Google)

* Seth Godin:
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Venka