Re: [libreoffice-marketing] Building a network of marketeers

Hi Florian,


> Hello,
> since September 28th, 2010, everyone of you has done a fantastic job,
> invested a tremendous amount of work, and has been contributing a lot to
> make LibreOffice what it is today -- a software used worldwide, a
> well-recognized brand, and a name people trust in, something that stands
> for
> free software, open standards and a major productivity suite.
> Many of you have recognized that we have not yet set-up fixed community
> roles, official titles or named team leads. This has been on purpose, to
> not
> create fixed structures from the beginning, and I have a feeling we are
> performing very well with this approach. In the next months, I am sure that
> we will see some more structure growing, but I hope it will not be as
> diverse and large as we had it with OpenOffice.org -- to me, the "flat"
> approach we are following at LibreOffice works very well and keeps lowering
> barriers for people joining the community. When many people contribute
> their
> amazing talent, creativity and a lot of time, it is not necessary to have
> too many different "hierarchies" in the project.


I fully agree to that!!! We are working just fine without such titles and
hierarquies...


> However, there is one area where we should move forward and work for more
> structures, and that is marketing.
> Those who have been involved with OpenOffice.org remember our so-called
> "MarCons", the marketing contacts, and I would like to start building
> something similar in the LibreOffice community. We had various discussions
> on the marketing mailing list on this topic, and there is a common
> agreement
> that this approach is worth a try. For those who don't remember, have a
> look
> at this page: http://marketing.openoffice.**org/contacts.html<
> http://marketing.openoffice.org/contacts.html>Don't
> be irritated by the fact that some well-known LibreOffice people are
> still listed, it seems that nobody updated the page since September...

<snip>


> What I want to do is to have a strong and solid network of marketeers for
> the *LibreOffice* project. They do not represent the Foundation as legal
> entity, but even more do represent the Community, the project and the
> product.
> So, in a nutshell, I am aiming for a distinction between the Foundation's
> official spokespeople, and the LibreOffice project's spokespeople. The
> rationale behind this is that in the future, the Foundation might have
> several projects, each with their own contacts.
> Ideally, for every international projects that we currently have -
> http://wiki.**documentfoundation.org/Local_**Mailing_Lists<
> http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Local_Mailing_Lists>-
> we should find at least two community representatives, ideally even
> three.
> They will be listed on an official website, should get some official title
> that we still can decide on ("Marketing Contact" might be a good choice,
> but
> I'm open to other solutions), be elegible to use LibreOffice business
> cards,
> and will be the first point of contact for any marketing, PR or
> journalist-related inquiries in their area. So, while not legally
> representing the Foundation, those contacts should be recognized as
> officially spokespeople for the project and the community.
> Their list of tasks is wide and interesting, like organization of trade
> shows, translating press releases, giving interviews and answering
> journalist questions. They will also have many important duties inside the
> project, the most important one being a "gateway" between the international
> marketing of LibreOffice and the local marketing, communicating ideas in
> both directions and giving feedback. Marketing heavily depends on the
> market
> and the area, and the better everyone understands the situation of
> different
> areas, the more we can improve our global marketing efforts.
> Of course, and especially since this is a volunteer job, nobody has to do
> the job alone. ;-) The most important is that there are trusted contacts in
> each region who have an overview what is going on, who are willing to
> coordinate things, and who can also cry for help in case things do not work
> out the way they plan. Challenges and tasks will heavily differ between
> various regions, but the core set of todos will be rather similar.
> In order to make that magic happen, I also aim for improving the
> communication between the various international groups. One proposal that
> we
> currently investigate is to transform the marketing conference calls into
> some sort of monthly updates on what is going on in the community. We will
> also ensure that all marketing contacts will receive press releases before
> they are made public, so they have enough time to translate them or, see
> above, search for another volunteer to do the translation.


Should those people be voted and have a mandate or those positions will be
for a "lifetime"? =)
I think we could locally promote ellections from time to time. What do you
think?


> Before I start writing an encyclopedia on community marketing and make
> everybody tired, I have some tasks for you. ;-)
> I would like to ask everyone to discuss this idea on their local mailing
> lists in their native language (feel free to translate my e-mail if you
> want), and to hear what they are thinking. Share this idea with them, let
> us
> know their questions, feedback, ideas and of course constructive criticism,
> and ask if you have some people on the list who would be willing to serve
> as
> marketing contacts. Ideally, we find a good combination of newcomers and
> experts, in order to help new contributors join our marketing efforts,
> while
> having experienced colleagues at their side, helping them to find their
> way.
> I will try to draw some graph illustrating my ideas and put it into the
> wiki.


Albino has put this into discussion in our local list.


> Ideally, the local groups will propose candidates and have a vote on them
> in
> the neat future, and we then can start a kick-off meeting via Skype, phone,
> or even face to face in Paris.
> I would be honoured to work with a strong network of marketeers to shape
> the
> future of LibreOffice, and I look forward to your feedback!


So, I suppose the candidates should be able to speak English, not only
read/write in that language, am I wrong? If I'm right, this issue will
reduce the possibilities of many candidates, at least in Brazil.

In the other hand, local marketing teams could have one or two contacts
between them and the international marketing team, and open wider
possibilities to people who can't communicate in English. I'm not sure how
this could work yet. Any idea?


> Thanks,
> Florian
> --
> Florian Effenberger <floeff@documentfoundation.org**>
> Steering Committee and Founding Member of The Document Foundation
> Tel: +49 8341 99660880 | Mobile: +49 151 14424108
> Skype: floeff | Twitter/Identi.ca: @floeff


Cheers

-- 
Paulo de Souza Lima
Técnico em Eletrônica e Administrador
http://www.pasl.net.br
http://almalivre.wordpress.com
Curitiba - PR
Linux User #432358
Ubuntu User #28729

"For people to achieve peace in their relationships, spiritual peace and the
peace among people, it's necessary, earlier, to win the internal battle
between virtues and defects" - Talal Husseini - Acropolitan Philosopher

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