Re: Marketing Brief

[Claus Schwarm <clschwarm googlemail com>]

This looks good! I especially like how it's formulated. I guess the
paper should serve as an overview to others?

I have three suggestions for improvement (two my typical ones):

1.) Mention GNOME's different products.

At least, the desktop and dev platform should be mentioned. We might
also add mobile platform and "GNOME applications", that is: applications
"owned" by GNOME. Sure, they are all somehow connected. But it's an
mistake to create the impression that these are all "one thing" since
each needs it's own appoach of marketing.

2.) Explain the relationships between "stakeholders".

The relationship 

  "GNOME > Distribution > OEM > Customer" 

is very similar to the one of a typical sales chain: 

  "Producer > Wholesale > Retail > Customer".

This has also implications for marketing. Strictly speaking, we'd need
to segment each part of the chain. It's also important that some of our
products can bypass parts of the chain: applications, most importantly.
[1]

(Side note remark: Good thing to mention OEMs. We didn't very often yet.
Wouldn't it be cool to have a GNOME x.0 special edition laptop one
day? :-D )

3.) Explain the diffusion process [2]

People are different in their reaction to new technology. Additionally,
nearly all are risk-averse, some just less then others. This has
important implications for our marketing, since the GNOME desktop is
best suited for the "Late Majority" and "Laggards" but it's hard to
reach these groups (they are not accessible to us).


Best regards,
Claus

[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeScienceCD for a potential example
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_innovations


On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 14:27 -0500, Paul Cutler wrote:
> I'd like to preface this email with a couple thoughts.  I'd like to
> apologize for not continuing the brainstorming discussion in recent
> weeks, but something John said made me take a different approach.
> John's right - a lot of this has been discussed before.  With that
> thought, I decided to write a Marketing Brief.  I used content that
> was in the wiki, on the web, and my own thoughts and opinions.
>
> I'm currently at a docs conference, and one of our keynote speakers
> said something, that basically sums me up.  Doc writers are
> perfectionists, and don't like to send stuff out until it's
> "complete".
>
> Well, as you'll see, the Brief is only 75% complete.  You will see
> comments and questions I have in parantheses and brackets, and whole
> paragraphs are missing, and a few more citations are needed.  I should
> know better about harnessing the power of community!
>
> You can review it here:  http://live.gnome.org/MarketingBrief2009 -
> It's on the wiki - so edit, review, and give feedback.  If you
> disagree with any points I have, let's talk about it here on the list.
>
> Additionally, on Tuesday when I return home from this conference, I
> will send out to the list 2 marketing campaign ideas for GNOME 3.0.
> In addition to Claus' campaign idea he posted on the list last month,
> I think we can have some good discussion about that.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Paul
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