Re: Marketing Plan -- draft

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 09:29:12 +1300
"John Williams" <JWilliams business otago ac nz> wrote:

> > * After a longer IRC discussion with somebody in the gnome-de 
> > channel, I
> >    was pointed to a missing definition of what marketing is. This
> >    was very helpful, since it may reduce misunderstandings. 
> >
> >    Maybe it's helpful to note that there's are two versions, broadly
> >    speaking:
> >    1.) The classic version is the four P's: Price, Product, Place,
> >    and
> >         Promotion.
> >         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing
> >
> >    2.) Another version is basically marketing management:
> >         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_management
>
> After studying marketing at university for nearly 20 years, I have a
> couple of words to add.  Firstly, the material on those pages looks
> like it was copied from a first year textbook.  That's fine, except
> you must realise that all that material is basically a (mental)
> framework for organising _planning_ and is not really a conceptual
> model or theoretical base, or description, of marketing per se.

Checked. 

I fact, I was expecting a comment. I'm glad we're not going for an
scientific education, here. ;)

> My definition of marketing is:
>
> "Find out what people want, then give it to them (if that's what you
> want)".
>
> This is distinct from _selling_, or promotion, which is:
>
> "OK, we've got this stuff.  How do we make people buy it?"
>
> So far on the marketing list we have been discussing (mainly)
> promotion. My point (forgive me, I'm an academic.  We need half an
> hour of intro before we get to the point) is that perhaps we need to
> think more about:
>
> "What is frustrating to users about using computers; and how can we
> (given our resources and personal goals) remove those frustrations and
> otherwise enhance that experience?"

I agree completely. But assume for the moment, we found out what people
find frustrating, etc.. What should the marketing team do then ?

> As an aside, I think the philosophical reasons are often downplayed
> (the creation of the term Open Source as opposed to Free comes to
> mind).  In general, people like to share, and like to help each other.
> The fact that Stallman, Raymond, Perens, ...  live in the USA is
> probably skewing their view of resistance to promoting GNOME and
> GNU/Linux on this point. You must never forget that the USA is, to the
> rest of the world, insanely materialistic and conservative.  Most
> businesses that I interact with would be completely relaxed about 
> Stallman's more"rabid" positions.  (With the exception of businesses
> who sell software, of course.)

I agree that people have no problem to share as long as additional units
of the good can be produced without additional costs.

Good Morning, btw! :)

Claus