Ubuntu Wiki

Ubuntu Open Week - Ubuntu Marketing Team - Jenda Vančura - Thu, Apr 26, 2007

see also Saturday Session.

TZ UTC-4

(04:01:43 PM) jenda: Hello :)
(04:01:56 PM) jenda: I'm Jenda, and I'll be presenting the Marketing Team in this session
(04:02:42 PM) jenda: Although I'll be leading this session, the Marketing Team itself (MT) does not have a leader.
(04:02:52 PM) jenda: I'll return to the actual structure of it later.
(04:03:21 PM) jenda: I'm hoping some other marketing team folks will appear and drop in a few words about their individual projects.
(04:03:35 PM) jenda: Jono mentioned earlier that I might be talking about marketing...
(04:03:43 PM) jenda: ...don't be fooled, I know nothing about marketing ;)
(04:03:58 PM) jenda: I'll be talking about Ubuntu's marketing _team_.
(04:04:22 PM) jenda: I'm still hoping others, more qualified in actual marketing, will appear later on :)
(04:05:18 PM) jenda: The MT's most interesting attribute, I'd say, is that it's an area in Ubuntu where even the least technical of us (of you, too) can contribute.
(04:05:37 PM) jenda: (By the way, feel free to interrupt me at any time with questions)
(04:06:14 PM) jenda: The Marketing Team is a group of loosely knit projects, which are listed at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam
(04:06:41 PM) jenda: The most obvious shortcoming of not having a team leader is that nobody is responsible for that page being up to date ;)
(04:07:11 PM) jenda: And nobody but the actual project members will usually dare mark a project 'inactive'.
(04:08:18 PM) jenda: The MT is a purely community effort, there is little or no contact with Canonical's professional Marketing - save occassional consultation.
(04:08:33 PM) jenda: (us consulting them, I'd say, is more common ;))
(04:09:34 PM) jenda: This means the MT has no budget or formal existence - and thus can't and doesn't actually participate in professional marketing per se.
(04:09:53 PM) jenda: What the MT focuses on is what the community does best: grassroots marketing.
(04:11:34 PM) jenda: Currently, what the MT is doing, what I think it should be doing, and what it probably could be doing are three largely disjunct categories.
(04:11:52 PM) jenda: (well, no the latter two are actually nearly identical ;))
(04:12:46 PM) jenda: The MT's only truly active projects are the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter (you all read that, don't you? Don't you??) and the Fridge, which likes to distance itself a bit from the MT itself.
(04:13:11 PM) jenda: There is also the ubuntu counter.
(04:13:28 PM) jenda: These three projects all have one thing in common:
(04:13:34 PM) jenda: They focus within the community.
(04:13:56 PM) jenda: The UWN does a _great_ job of keeping the community up to date of itself.
(04:14:26 PM) jenda: The Fridge fulfills a similar role, in a slightly different style.
(04:15:03 PM) jenda: Experience has shown that (IMO, at least) these two are not mutually redundant and each has their place.
(04:15:14 PM) jenda: But they can hardly be considered Marketing Projects.
(04:16:16 PM) jenda: (In the FLOSS world, I imagine marketing as raising public awareness of the existence, benefits and malefits of (the particular piece of) FLOSS, it's promotion and advocacy.)
(04:16:44 PM) jenda: The counter is clearly only of interest to us, members who like being counted.
(04:17:34 PM) jenda: The Joe User does care about how many people use Ubuntu, of course, but he cares more about "We estimate 5-8 million users" than "We have reliably counted 20,000 users..."
(04:18:52 PM) jenda: In this line of thought, I'll admit that my own project within the MT, DIY Marketing, also focuses mainly on existing community members as is, and even when complete will still be of more interest to them than to non-users.
(04:19:07 PM) jenda: I'll get to the details of the project towards the end of the sesion.
(04:20:06 PM) jenda: The pattern I described is, I believe clear: it's immensely easier to work for a target audience within the existing community than the TA without.
(04:20:19 PM) jenda: From this I conclude - we should focus on the latter ;)
(04:21:03 PM) jenda: My personal opinion (and observation) is that the only _real_ marketing, as described above, can be done by LoCo teams.
(04:21:34 PM) jenda: Only the LoCo teams are close enough to the target audience (TA) to be able to appeal to it.
(04:22:40 PM) jenda: This doesn't mean there is no place for the MT to do its work
(04:22:56 PM) jenda: It means it needs to adjust its work, taking the above into account.
(04:23:32 PM) jenda: This allows us to split marketing efforts into two basic categories
(04:24:32 PM) jenda: The first category would be activities done by LoCos
(04:25:16 PM) jenda: This includes Press Relations, RL fests, conferences and expos, face-to-face advocacy etc.
(04:25:58 PM) jenda: The other category includes marketing efforts that are targeted towards the global audience, and I personally believe this category to be nearly empty.
(04:26:10 PM) jenda: It might contain stuff like web advertisements.
(04:26:25 PM) jenda: They do not require further attention, I think.
(04:27:04 PM) jenda: So, if category #2 is negligeable, and category #1 is better suited for LoCos... what can the MT do?
(04:27:10 PM) jenda: That is the question ;)
(04:27:35 PM) jenda: The answer is: a lot of the work the locoteams do will have to be replicated by other locoteams in order to achieve the same result.
(04:28:47 PM) jenda: This means, a lot of effort can be saved by them either sharing their work, or someone (hint: MT) to predict their needs and cater to them, centrally.
(04:30:21 PM) jenda: My focus within the team, and my vision for the entire team is just that - it should provide resources for the LoCo teams to use.
(04:31:28 PM) jenda: I find it remarkable how close this envisioned role gets to the only role the MT manages to fulfill to date (which is of intra-community communication)
(04:32:25 PM) jenda: I ran out of words for the MT's role, I hope what I had to say was understandable :) I'll now move on...
(04:32:36 PM) jenda: I said I'd get back to the structure of the MT.
(04:33:11 PM) jenda: The MT is quite simply composed of individual projects, who's sub-teams overlap.
(04:33:59 PM) jenda: There is rarely a need to decide for the entire team, and when there is, it is decided by consensus or simply acquiesced.
(04:34:11 PM) jenda: (I'm sure I spelt that wrong :))
(04:35:05 PM) jenda: Most notably, the decisions we make for the entire team are times of meetings. It's usually one of teh MT members who write them out, and unless there's a complaint from someone who really has something to say at the meeting, it usually stays at that.
(04:35:40 PM) jenda: I'll now move on to the individual projects.
(04:36:11 PM) jenda: I'm not sure if there are any of the MT folks here who'd like to talk about theirs...
(04:36:17 PM) jenda: Going once... ;)
(04:37:24 PM) jenda: OK, beuno will now tell you a bit about the UWN
(04:37:41 PM) jenda: He has sent out the past few issues.
(04:37:56 PM) jenda: (sent out and largely made happen, i should say ;))
(04:38:36 PM) beuno: Hi everyone, I'm Martin Albisetti and I've been the editor for the past (7 or 8 I think) issues. I'm probably a good example of what Jenda is trying to explain by how the Marketing Team works
(04:38:45 PM) jenda: hehe
(04:39:04 PM) beuno: the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter was stalled, and I just picked it up, finished it and nagged people until it got released
(04:39:32 PM) beuno: so that's a good example of how you can get involved pretty quickly
(04:40:31 PM) beuno: the UWN is a great place to start since it doesn't require any prior experience in marketing or ubuntu itself
(04:40:39 PM) jenda: (In fact, it's what I did to the Marketing Team a little over a year ago ;))
(04:41:46 PM) beuno: there is a secret to it which I think we should advertise more, which is if you actually go on the wiki page (ie: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuWeeklyNewsletter/Issue37), and you click on edit
(04:41:59 PM) beuno: you will see many comments on how to contribute to each specific section
(04:42:13 PM) PriceChild: (if you're logged in to the wiki with your launchpad account)
(04:42:14 PM) beuno: a lot of work has gone into making it as clear as possible
(04:43:32 PM) beuno: and as jenda mentioned, the main focus is keeping the community updated on what's been going on, so anything you *hear* might be useful
(04:44:00 PM) beuno: much of our material come from random emails in our mailing list and users on IRC mentioning specific topics or articles
(04:45:45 PM) beuno: right now the UWN is keeping up with a weekly release every sunday, which means a lot of presure on very few people, so if you're looking for something to help out with, you are more the welcome in UWN
(04:47:18 PM) beuno: a great way to help out is to hang around in #ubuntu-marketing and ask what needs to be done this week, as simple as that
(04:47:40 PM) beuno: another effort that has been going on the past few issues is translating the UWN
(04:48:13 PM) beuno: since the goal is to keep as many users as possible informed, we want it to be available in as many languages as possible
(04:49:11 PM) beuno: my very rough estimate is that it's being translated into 5 or 6 languages on a weekly basis, which is a lot considering how often it's released
(04:49:58 PM) beuno: again, translations, like the rest of the projects in the MT has a "just do it approach"
(04:50:16 PM) beuno: login to the wiki, create a new page for the translation, and get it done
(04:51:00 PM) jenda: (not all projects have that approach!)
(04:51:03 PM) beuno: some translations are done through LoCo groups, some are done individually, and it even changes every week
(04:51:33 PM) beuno: right, sorry, not all projects have that approach
(04:52:37 PM) beuno: but there are many areas where you can help out without necessarly participating actively in the marketing team (although that does help)
(04:53:06 PM) jenda: beuno: shhh ;)
(04:53:16 PM) jenda: beuno: anything else about the UWN?
(04:53:32 PM) beuno: not unless someone has a question
(04:53:42 PM) jenda: I was about to move on to my own DIY project, but I'll pass as we are running short on time.
(04:54:04 PM) jenda: You can read pretty much all I have to say about DIY on wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam/DIYWebsite
(04:54:21 PM) jenda: I believe now's a good time for any questions you might have :)
(04:54:45 PM) jenda: If you don't get them answered here and now, feel free to come into #ubuntu-marketing at any time and ask there.

<zorglu_> QUESTION: any plan to produce a study on how to make a living from opensource ? (more people paid to do opensource means more people doing that full time, so a lot more contribution)

• no, Personal gain is of no concern to the Marketing Team.

<Belutz> QUESTION: for offline marketing, do you to use your own money or someone paid for it?

• I use my own money. however, I've managed to use it effectively, so as to earn a certain 'fund' from which I can draw

<Belutz> QUESTION: is full circle magazine also a marketing team project?

• it's been communicating with the Marketing Team, and it's very much supported. But it has never explicitly declared itself as such to my knowledge. some members from the Marketing Team participate in it, but it was started (and is run by) from someone outside the team

<BHSPitMonkey> QUESTION: I often end up touting Ubuntu to friends and family members, but when it comes down to actual argumentation vs. other options (Windows), I find I lack a lot of reasons to give (I know that I prefer linux/Ubuntu...); Are there any resources out there to help learn how to promote effectively?

• there is whylinuxisbetter.com :). it's maintained by an Ubuntu person, but it's general in nature. That would be a very useful section of the DIY project's HOWTO section

  <beuno> that link doesn't seem to be correct

  It's correct when I say it's correct sorry, it could also be whyislinuxbetter.com or .net or something so, to answer the question clearly - not yet for Ubuntu in particular

<Belutz> QUESTION: any suggestion for promoting ubuntu to companies/schools/governments?

• Didn't I say I knew nothing about marketing? I have one. Get your LoCo team interested, and make it come up with a plan. the argentina LoCo, for example, is installing Ubuntu in an installfest tomorrow. Once that happens - the MT would be very interested in the results and process, and might publish info on it for other LoCos to draw upon. Your LoCo is _bound_ to have many talented and qualified people in it who can answer that question on teh local scale much better than I..

(05:03:25 PM) jenda: Any more questions?
(05:04:27 PM) PriceChild: Thanks very much jenda :)
(05:04:34 PM) jenda: I take that as a 'no' :)
(05:04:41 PM) jenda: Thanks for your attention.
(05:04:51 PM) jenda: and thanks beuno for your help :)

<tomtig> QUESTION: Is there any updated ODP presentation for Ubuntu project and I can take and give a presentation with at my LUG?

• sorry, not that I know of. if you find one, as always, the MT is very interested

(05:05:32 PM) beuno: jenda, np.  and if anyone isn't sure on how to approach helping with UWN, feel free to contact me
(05:05:34 PM) jenda: (the DIY project more than anyone else)
(05:05:57 PM) Belutz: thanks jenda, thanks beuno :)