Re: push back on negative articles

[Sriram Ramkrishna <sri ramkrishna me>]

On Sun, Aug 19, 2012 at 7:08 PM, Karen Sandler <karen gnome org> wrote:

I love that we're re-evaluating the ways that we handle press and that
we're looking for opportunities to improve.

I can accept that.  But I won't allow gross mis-characterizations to go unchallenged.  I can use my own plus page for that... although I might also use the comment section to gently explain our side.

I think most people see how i argue and it's basically a soft power not particularly abrasive.

 

I think we should focus on ways to get positive press, as others have
said, and I think one of the best ways to do that right now is probably to
talk about the 3.6 release. Maybe we should systematically look at the
negative articles and make sure that we address the substantive points in
our press about the new release? I think a free software community run
project is different than a company's product in that we'll always be a
work in progress. It's ok to talk about areas that can be improved for
future, for example. I do think there's a lot of great stuff happening
that I gets overlooked in an effort to zone in on juicy disagreement and
we can probably help with that by making sure we take opportunities to
talk about the good things.

One thing I've seen repeatedly is the whole tablet OS.  I know we aren't doing tablets but because of some of the similarities people are taking intuitive leap into a hasty conclusion.  I don't think we push back on this enough.

It distracts with what we are trying to do IMHO.  It would be good to set up a FAQ and every month just point people to it on our social networking pages and on twitter.  We can also use that to post in comments.

A canned response like that should be sufficient and then be around to answer any follow up questions.

Reading slashdot today, the cesspool of wrong ideas is difficult to push back when it is so overwhelming based on profound mis-interpretations.  Of course that is par for the course for that site.  I have much more intelligent conversations on reddit and on google plus.
 

We've still got a good amount of time to work on it too.

Indeedy!

Regarding media training, I think there are some classes at work I could take for this.  It might be helpful and probably required if I am going to talk to the press at all even if it is not work related.  It's no secret who I work for.  I'll investigate getting myself media trained.

sri
sri
 

On Sun, August 19, 2012 6:43 pm, Olav Vitters wrote:

> Briefly, any politician or anyone dealing with the press is media
> trained. Any big company will have spoke persons (either someone
> external, or some high up manager). For anyone reading along, the idea
> is not that they (spoke person or anyone media trained) lie; it is to
> avoid any spins. Say exactly one thing, nothing more.

I think it would be a good idea to get media training, and I'd be up for
being the one to do it, of course! I am a little skeptical about how
overall effective it will be (I've had small amounts of training in the
past that would have been helpful if I'd want to be more like a television
personality for example with tips on wardrobe, and I've had other media
experts tell me that everything we do is too "inside baseball"). Depending
on the price, it couldn't hurt!

I have a few friends who have had some media training and I'll ask them
who to contact. Anyone else have any ideas where to start? Let's find out
what kind of options there are and see if we can maybe find some group
sessions that would be helpful. I think we're a handful of people that are
generating most of our marketing content right now, and it would be great
to spread the knowledge around.

I realize that I should remind everyone that I'm probably going to be out
of contact for a lot of September on maternity leave so we should come up
with a game plan for 3.6 release related press at any rate!

karen

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