Re: real marketing or just catchy slogans?

[Dave Neary <dneary free fr>]

Hi,

Murray Cumming wrote:
> > getting information is the start - when their
> > information retrieval contributes to technical decisions in a project,
> > our marketing will begin to be more successful.
>
> Fine. But when that "getting information" is obviously stalled then it
> can't be allowed to stop us.

Momentum is important, I agree.

> We do know what our users want, and we do know what they are like.

Sure we do, in general. And we're making good software, in general. And 
yet, there are a bunch of points which have come up repeatedly as 
annoyances (and thus a usability issue) in GNOME reviews and articles - 
having a preference in Nautilus to change to the browser view, having 
Nautilus places and GTK+ bookmarks be shared, etc. I don't know what 
progress (if any) is being made on some of these things. I don't know if 
they're considered priority items at this stage.

> I think we also overestimate the value of this targetting:
> - Ubuntu have very generic emotional marketing materials, yet I think we
> would like their kind of success.

Ubuntu targetted momentum users early, and are reaping rewards.
 - Use Debian, and get developer buy-in from the Debian community
 - Use GNOME, and get developer buy-in from GNOME community
 - Hire community leaders from both as advocates

They've also directly targetted hardware vendors - their hardware 
database, and contracts with HP and others to certify hardware, will 
make them a good choice for pre-install on OEM desktops and laptops. 
When that happens, it won't have been by accident.

To consider Ubuntu's marketing as unfocussed would be wrong. They 
woprked very hard early on to get community involvement, and in effect 
turned the Debian and GNOME projects into their marketing department.

> - Firefox also have a very wide market with a very generic product, and
> marketed successfuly to that wide market.. They didn't decide to target
> scientific users or educational users. (Yes, I know they had a slightly
> easier delivery method.)

Have you forgotten that Firefox/Mozilla was an early-adopter fringe 
product for years before jumping the chasm? And by conventional 
marketing wisdom, with 10% market share they still haven't crossed the 
chasm (although I think it's fair to say that they have). When 1.0 came 
out, spreadfirefox.org was instrumental in their momentum. Again, their 
improvements have been entirely early-adopter/community driven. They got 
the cutting edge on board, and those guys helped them jump up in market 
share.

And Mozilla has not *just* been marketing that way - they also have a 
classical marketing department, looking for big corporate support 
contracts, sending sales reps out to see what the big customers need, 
and making sure that Firefox gives it to them.

> OK, but don't think it's going to help our marketing to have a discussion
> about whether spatial nautilus is good or not

I agree. But perhaps feedback from us will change the priority of a 
change up the chain? Spatial's great, I love it, it took me a while to 
get used to it. But there's a reason Ubuntu changed it.

> Yes. But a) what are the suggestions, and b) should we wait for one.

a) I made a bunch. Anyone interested in taking on part of that project 
please contact me, or mail on-list.

b) No. Marketing strategies can be developed in parallel, and we can 
certainly do some general communication & promotion without addressing 
the needs of specific market segments.

> People should feel free to exert pressure, but I think the marketing-list
> would fail utterly if it expected to get this involved in the little
> details of development. There's enough pressure to get these things right
> from within the development community anyway, and telling people that you
> _really_ want them to do something doesn't really make it happen.

I see all of this more as an organic, person to person thing.

Here's a scenario.

1. Article gets published by someone giving out about GNOME.
2. Someone mails author asking him about specifics for a given problem
3. The someone creates a few Bugzilla entries, or adds comments in 
relevant bugzillas
4. The someone gets on to a developer in the project being given out 
about, perhaps on IRC, perhaps by mail. Just to say hi, tell him about 
the comments, maybe point to the bugzilla, and ask him what he thinks.
5. The developer thinks the concerns are irrelevant, and explains why -> 
Mail author back
6. The developer agrees that thing X is a pain -> Ask if it's planned 
during the next devel cycle.
7. If it is, tell author. If it isn't, ask for it to be. Or maybe 
contact the board & ask them to put up a bounty for feature X. Or maybe 
try it yourself.

8. A month later, another article gives out about the same thing. Mail 
the author, add comments to bugzilla, touch base with the dev eloper 
("Hi, thought you might be interested in this article: the guy really 
wants the frobniz fixed - same complaint we got from (previous author) - 
has anyone shown interest in fixing it?")

We can be the guys who help remove obstacles, make sure people know what 
feedback is circulating, and create a positive cycle wherte people 
writing articles about GNOME feel like the project is listening & 
heeding them.

> Again, a simple campaign with a simple theme can help rally people
> together to make all these details happen.

I forgot spreadgnome.org (although I think we should choose another 
name). A community promotion site is essential for all this.

> Yet both fall under improving the end user's experience. They are details
> of that. I think we are being techy when we focus on the details instead
> of the real vague gut emotional impact of most marketing materials, or on
> the benefit of mere name recognition.

I think focussing on the details, and ensuring we have answers to those 
questions, is an important part of what we do.

> And let's review it periodically. Like the release team handles
> development, we should improve our marketing strategy when we have the
> means to do that, instead of holding out for the by-the-book

Agreed.

> I have zero way to get the information that people seem to be asking for
> before they'll get moving on marketing

What information do people seem to be asking for? And who is the "they"?

> I'll hold off for another month in case people suddenly come up with some
> strategy for getting this information or moving on without it. If not,
> I'll try again to get things moving anyway.

No, don't hold off, carry on. Bring the slogan idea to a head, though - 
we should pick some, and be done with it.

Cheers,
Dave.

--
David Neary
bolsh gimp org