Re: Summary of responses to round one questions about 3.0

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi Jason,

Jason D. Clinton wrote:
> Out of 9 attendees who blogged on the UX Hackfest and were emailed, 5
> responded. The email sent was the following:
>
>     I am writing you this email on behalf of the GNOME Marketing
>     Committee and because you were a UX Hackfest attendee.
>
>     The GNOME Marketing Committee is deeply concerned about the
>     coherence of our message to the public about what the 3.0 release
>     will be. Up until the UX Hackfest, that message was coherent: GNOME
>     Shell with deep integration with presence management and time-based
>     file management. Now, the Committee does not know what to tell the
>     public. The Committee has empowered me to gather opinions about what
>     attendees believe will be in 3.0.
>
>     Please answer the following four questions by one week from the time
>     of this writing. Feel free to make your answer as short as you
>     please: a one sentence answer is sufficient. Please know that I will
>     make every attempt to keep your answer in confidence; however, I
>     will provide a summary of the opinions of all attendees to the
>     Committee.

Are you sur you couldn't have sounded a bit more formal???

The language is a bit intimidating & impersonal, no? "deeply concerned",
"The Committee has empowered me", "Please answer the following questions
by one week from the time of writing"...

I just wonder if it wouldn't have been more inducive to creating a
longer-lasting relationship with the designers to say something like:

"Hi!

I noticed that you were at the UX hackfest & blogged about it. The
marketing team met recently, and we were wondering if any of what has
come out of the UX hackfest will get implemented for GNOME 3.0, if
you're working on refining any designs & getting them implemented, or
whether they're still in the ideas stage. We've noticed expectations
growing about what will be delivered in 3.0 since the hackfest, and we
just want to make sure that the expectations stal aligned with reality.

Would you mind answering a few questions to help us out, please?"

Followed by questions about what the person you're emailing is doing,
and with whom, rather than general questions about the features in the
product, and how that mighht relate to previously uinanticipated
features in GNOME 3.0.

I'm just wondering whether response rate & answer quality & usefulness
might have improved with a friendlier email.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org