Re: Getting some marketing love going..

[Claus Schwarm <c schwarm gmx net>]

Hi,

On Tue,  9 Nov 2004 14:34:49 +0100
Dave Neary <dneary free fr> wrote:
 
> OK, now we're getting down to brass tacks :)
> 
> What kind of 'informal' survey are we talking about? What is the
> target group for the survey? How do I get a list of the IT decision
> makers in governments and government departments?
> 

I wrote research, not survey. ;) For a proper survey, we would need
hypotheses otherwise it wouldn't make much sense. The research is the
boring part before the survey. :D

Basically, the idea is to talk to people by sending them mails. See for
example, the foundation candidate here:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2004-November/msg00003.html

She writes, she talked to people in governments, already. Maybe she like
to take part on the list, but even if not: What did she heard? Where's
the central problem when considering a switch to Linux and GNOME? What
desktop software do government _usually_ need?

Additional resources could be:

  http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/7877 - A story how a californian (!)
country government switches to Linux.

  http://www.technetra.com/writings/open_government/ - An archive of
writings about the Open Government.

  http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39172988,00.htm
 - a story what made governments switch or not - additional links below.

  http://www.floscaribbean.org/index.html - there's even a LUG in the
caribic, with a very active member; he's just not updating the website
it seems.

There's also a story today on newsforge. Basically a google search for
"+government +"Open Source"" results in enought hits, and there are lots
of names of people who already tried to advocate Linux for governments.
We 'just' need to talk to them to get an idea what the government's
needs (for a desktop solution) are - then we check if we can deliver,
and if not, what needs to be done to make it work.

Next step could be a gnome-for-governments.org website - a sort of
forum. Maybe we could even get a small survey running. Would be
sufficient to invite people or sent out press releases: "GNOME starts
Open Source government forum", that sort of thing.

We could advertise FLOSS on the site - seems strange in the beginning
but I'm talking about emotional advertising, not the usual boring IT
stuff. Freedom is a feeling. You can't express this in numbers.

There could be a web form on the page to let the GNOME fans enter
potential adresses of local governments and IT decision makers. Sort of
finding one IT decsion maker that is interested in switching and then
ask him to provide adresses of fellows in other towns that could be
interested, also.

If we lack a needed application, lets collect use cases there, find a
lead developer to split the task into lots of small tasks, and then
advocate for development on gnome-love and footnotes. If we can't find
somebody, lets find software that would do the job even if it's not
integrated into gnome.

However, I have the impression that there are several developers who are
interested in getting started with Mono, and learn it. Perfect tool for
the job. The only problem is to find somebody who is able to lead other
people instead of writing it himself.

If we can't find a lead developer or other software, we need to find out
in which areas we could deliver a solution. Then, lets do a 'survey' to
let governments find out in which areas they could start with Linux
and/or gnome to save money.

If you're unsure what you need to ask, please imaging I'm a government
official; a role-playing game. Try to sell me GNOME.

That is basically the idea. Please critize.


Regards, 

Claus