Re: Contractor status update: last week & next steps

[Dave Neary <dneary gnome org>]

Hi Sumana,

One thing I've done in previous releases which I've found useful after
the fact was to collect press references for GNOME releases in a
bookmarking site (I used to use del.icio.us, recently moved to
pinboard.in, but Google Reader would work too).

I think that this would be a very useful addition here too. For
Delicious, the tags "gnome gnome30 release press" would be useful.

It's something we can crowdsource, but it'd be great if you & Alan could
ensure that release coverage gets tagged somewhere for safekeeping.

Cheers,
Dave.

Sumana Harihareswara wrote:
> My last email, on April 1st, mentioned that "my main TODOs today, this
> weekend, and early next week are to follow up on press contacts, the
> eReleases blast, and GNOME Journal."  So I did that; that day, I got the
> eReleases press release out [
> http://www.ereleases.com/pr/gnome-30-users-developers-49501 ], and it
> went to more than a thousand publications.  And then here's a list of
> what I did last week:
> 
> * Corralled answers for journalists.  A few journalists asked me
> followup questions after the press release [
> http://www.gnome.org/press/2011/04/gnome-3-0-released-better-for-users-developers-3/
> ], so I got answers from other GNOME people, wrote answers, replied to
> the reporters via email and phone, and put these answers on the wiki:
> http://live.gnome.org/GnomeMarketing/TalkingPoints#Approaches_That_Work .
> 
> * Managed the GNOME Journal launch.  Nagged the last few authors, edited
> articles for content and style, uploaded them, fought with Textpattern,
> continued planning to move us to WordPress, and sent out the publication
> announcement.  I'd still love for people to continue publicizing this,
> since there are many interesting nuggets that I haven't seen picked up
> by the larger press.
> 
> * (Started planning the next two issues of GNOME Journal, including
> hopes for a 3.x roadmap article in case anyone wants to write it.)
> 
> * Did a teensy bit of web testing and feedback regarding gnome3.org. 
> Great job!
> 
> * Went to the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.  There, I talked up
> GNOME 3 to reporters and other interested Linux folks, and made contact
> with some KDE people and started talking about publicity for the
> upcoming desktop summit [ http://www.desktopsummit.org/ ].  It sounds
> like we should be working to drum up attendance now, by planning special
> events, trumpeting rare speakers, and publicizing the unique benefits of
> attending GUADEC & the Desktop Summit.
> 
> * Attended the marketing/PR training at the Linux Foundation
> Collaboration Summit [
> http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/collaboration-summit/press-training
> ].  I sure did learn a lot, from strategies for resource-constrained
> projects (build relationships with five key reporters) to tips for being
> interviewed.  I will link to Cloer's slides and add my notes when she
> puts them up.
> 
> 
> Undone:  I didn't put tasks in Bugzilla because they were moving too
> fast and I was in San Francisco, many timezones away from Allan in
> Bangalore, and couldn't coordinate effectively.  Lesson for next time:
> do it early if we're going to do it at all.  Similarly for setting up
> interviews with key GNOME developers; I dropped the ball there.
> 
> Now that we've launched, I talked with Allan about how to best use the
> rest of our contracts (we're booked to work on GNOME till the end of
> April).  We think our priorities for the rest of April are:
> 
> (a) reach out to not-so-news-driven (more in-depth-reporting)
> journalists about aspects of the release that didn't get covered on
> launch day -- once we get some bites, prep developers who have
> volunteered, and get them interviewed
> 
> (b) write up lessons learned & ideas for next time
> 
> (c) infrastructure building & maintenance: update the wiki, consolidate
> audiovisual and textual resources, and otherwise help prep for future
> marketing, including press releases, talking points, etc. for the
> launches of GNOME 3 within distributions that will come out in the next
> weeks & months
> 
> So I'm going to make some progress on each of those this week. 
> Specifically, I aim to reach out to two reporters, braindump a few
> lessons learned privately, and confer with Allan and Vincent about
> resource consolidation.  And I'm planning on pushing GNOME Journal's
> next issue forward, in collaboration with Paul Cutler, but that's not
> part of my contract since it's not GNOME 3-specific.  :-)
> 
> Best,
> Sumana

-- 
Dave Neary
GNOME Foundation member
dneary gnome org