Re: [Marketing] Open Document viewer

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-07-20 at 12:06 +0200, Finn Gruwier Larsen wrote:
[snip]
> That was exactly my thought, too! I believe that ODF-enabled Firefox 
> would cause a very rapid spread of ODF all over the world - maybe the 
> next Internet revolution is just around the corner :-)

Why would anyone want to stick with boring old HTML and CSS with all the
nightmares that creates for developers and users alike if you could view
ODF in a browser?

John

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Re: [Marketing] The French ministery of defense doesn't trust OOo to be secure?!

[John McCreesh]

There has been comment in the media about a report on a French language
website: "Le ministere de la Defense met OpenOffice A l'index"

The ZDNet article(1) claims to describe the proceedings of a confidential
meeting within the French public administration. It is not appropriate for
the OpenOffice.org community to comment on a leak from a private meeting.
However, one of the people mentioned in the article, Eric Filiol, has
posted two replies to the on-line article clarifying the purpose of the
research and correcting some of the incorrect conclusions in the original
article.

The OpenOffice.org office suite is being widely adopted within the French
public administration, and the OpenOffice.org community has been working
closely with the departments involved. OpenOffice.org is pleased that its
source code is being scrutinised by the most important and respected
department of security in France.

If security vulnerabilities are suspected, there is a well defined
procedure within the IT industry for reporting, analysing, and resolving
any issues, which aims to minimise any public announcement (and the
resulting creation of exploits) until fixes are available.

The OpenOffice.org community confirms it regards security as of the
highest importance and will react immediately to any security issues
reported by the French public adminstration or other competent bodies or
individuals.


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Re: [Marketing] The French ministery of defense doesn't trust OOo to be secure?!

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, July 20, 2006 14:23, Johan Beckers wrote:
> For the french speaking people on this list, here is an article on ZDNet
> France, about the french ministery of defense giving a bad vote on OOo
> saying it is even more insecure then MS Office.
> Bottom line would be that the OOo developers are making to mutch of an
> effort to get MS Office funcionality into OOo instead of keeping an eye
> on security.
> Any updates on this?
>
> Read the full article here:
> http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39362096,00.htm
>

There is an official response on the pr mailing list which is being
translated etc - I'll forward it on to this list now

John


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Re: [Marketing] Keep the Car in Spanish

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-07-14 at 23:33 -0500, Alexandro Colorado wrote:
> The spanish translation to spanish of the Keep the car campaing is done.  
> Aside from some link debugging, the main content is already translated and  
> ready to be linked.
> 
> http://es.openoffice.org/lecturas/lecturas_0014.html
> 
Linked thanks

John


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Re: [Marketing] Review of OO.o

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-07-14 at 06:43 +1000, Alex Fisher wrote:
> Interesting and positive review of OO.o 2.0 on an Australian website
> 
>  or 
>  (in case the first one gets wrapped/broken). Both 
> links go to the same page
> 

Good review - I assume the date is just unfortunate?

"Sun Microsystems OpenOffice 2.0" - hmm, not heard of that one :-)

Added to http://www.openoffice.org/product/reviews.html

John


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Re: [Marketing] Keep the car in French

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-07-13 at 15:27 +0200, Sophie Gautier wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Thanks to Cyprien Gay help, I finally manage to get the FR keep the car 
> page online :
> http://fr.openoffice.org/keep_car-fr.html
> 
> I'll add the "Further reads" links this evening

Linked - thanks

John

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Re: [Marketing] Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-07-07 at 19:47 +0100, Ian Lynch wrote:
> [snip...] From
> what I can ascertain, the plug-in design is technically sound so far.
> Its open source so if anyone deliberately breaks or compromises
> something it can be seen and fixed. If it doesn't make export and import
> better than the current .doc filters in OOo it probably won't get used
> much. If it makes such data transfer more reliable then it must have
> some advantage to OOo or why would Sun be spending engineering time on
> improving the filters?

I think it's more commercially sound than technically sound.

Microsoft was facing two risks on the converter front:

* it is just possible that enough free software folks might have
overcome their visceral revulsion of all things Microsoft to form an
open-source converter project

* I had heard rumours that a number of commercial software houses were
working on / had proposals for commercial converters

Both of these would mean loss of control for Microsoft, and the chance
that they might produce high-quality converters (which Microsoft has
stated are not technically possible)

By *providing official support and funding* for an *open-source*
project, Microsoft has guaranteed that no commercial company will try
and compete; and has made it highly unlikely that any independent free
software project will emerge.

Microsoft already control their Open XML format, and they are taking
control of the converter space too. All they need to do now is to
continue progressing Open XML through the standards bodies, and they
have sewn up the market again.

So, there's still work to do :-)

John

-- 
John McCreesh
Marketing Project Lead
OpenOffice.org

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Re: [Marketing] Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-07-07 at 15:22 +0200, Charles Schulz wrote:
> Hi,
> >
> > There is only one answer: "Together, all parties need to set up
> > independent conformance testing to guarantee software products do work
> > with the standard." - our press release today
> >
> >   
> Here comes my shameless plug on the topic:
> http://www.libervis.com/blogs/5/charles/the_dark_side_of_the_plugin
> 

As the owner of a sheepdog (Ben the Border Collie), I'm struggling with
idea of him in a field of cash cows...

:-) John


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Re: [Marketing] Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-07-06 at 20:34 +0200, Charles Schulz wrote:
[snip]
> I think we should put it in a different way. Sure enough, there is
> pressure on MS. So MS is looking like they're acting gracefully, but
> behind the scenes something else is going on.For example, they could
> mess up the plugin itself, a tool which many experts claim that it is
> almost impossible to develop.

Of course they will. They are already preparing the media to accept this
with phrases like:

"The use of OpenDocument documents is slower to the point of not really
being satisfactory" 
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39271078,00.htm

"No translation is perfect. There are a lot of trade-offs between Open
XML, which is actually full-featured and backward-compatible, and ODF,
which is more limited."
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/Microsoft_bends_on_OpenDocument/0,261733,39262426,00.htm

So when this translator turns out to be less than satisfactory,
Microsoft will say:

(a) we told you so
(b) go and talk to the open-source project who developed it 
   (who will have folded because MS funding will have run out)
(c) use our formats instead

And if people say that's not playing fair. MS will reply: "it has been
tested by Dialogika in Germany to European Commission customer
requirements." (testing paid for by ... Microsoft)

There is only one answer: "Together, all parties need to set up
independent conformance testing to guarantee software products do work
with the standard." - our press release today

John


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Re: [Marketing] Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, July 6, 2006 12:25, John McCreesh wrote:
> On Thu, July 6, 2006 11:58, Vitor Domingos wrote:
>> "Expanding on its customer-focused commitment to interoperability,
>> Microsoft Corp. today announced the creation of the Open XML Translator
>> project. The project, developed with partners, will create tools to
>> build
> [snip]
>
> Expect an OOo Press Release shortly...
>

And here it is
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=294

John


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Re: [Marketing] Microsoft Expands Document Interoperability

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, July 6, 2006 11:58, Vitor Domingos wrote:
> "Expanding on its customer-focused commitment to interoperability,
> Microsoft Corp. today announced the creation of the Open XML Translator
> project. The project, developed with partners, will create tools to build
[snip]

Expect an OOo Press Release shortly...

John


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[Marketing] why openoffice.org proposal

[John McCreesh]

There is some excellent work going on in the art project to create a
user-friendly "shop window" why OpenOffice.org site. If you haven't seen
the latest suggestion, please click on
http://wyrfel.reukauf.com/hosting/OOo/Why_1/en/index.html. Most of the
tabs along the top are working. Please give them all a good clicking and
post your comments to art@marketing.openoffice.org

Thanks - John


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[Marketing] Timeout please: OOo Mac OS X port - VS - NeoOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

The OOo / NeoOffice postings have contained some useful information and
good advice, but I think the topic is pretty well exhausted now and I
would like to encourage project members to divert their energies to other
topics. Please consider these topics closed.

Can I also remind people about the etiquette for this mailing list - see
http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectMailingListList. Please
review this and make sure your own postings are in line with these
guidelines.

Thanks - John
Marketing Project Lead


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Re: [Marketing] Re: Brilliant marketing campaign

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-07-01 at 05:29 +1000, André Wyrwa wrote:
> Hi John,
[snip]
> That's why we should get a neutral name for a the current campains
> button (which can be a link to the actual one).
> 
> I'll explain in more detail:
> 
> why.openoffice.org/:
>   ./index.html
> (page with current campain (almost copy of keepthecar.html))
>   ./keepthecar.html
> (page with keep the car campain)
>   ./getlegal.html
> (page with get legal campain)
>   ./...
> (and so on)
>   ./images/
> ./ooo_current_120x60.png -> ooo_keepthecar_120x60.png
> ./ooo_keepthecar_120x60.png
> ./ooo_getlegal_120x60.png
> 
> Now index.html would include two button link markups.
> 
> The first would be this:
> http://why.openoffice.org";>
> http://why.openoffice.org/images/ooo_current_120x60.png";
> border="0" hspace="3" vspace="3"
> alt="Good Reasons for OpenOffice.org">

OK - I'll buy this. Can you do a ooo_current_120x60.png please? I think
everything else is in place.

John

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Re: [Marketing] Re: Brilliant marketing campaign

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-06-30 at 11:32 +0200, Marko Moeller wrote:
[snip]
> Yes, indeed the new Site and the idea behind is really good!
> 
> Replacing the site content of the old get-legal campaign isn't!
> 
[snip]

The reason for taking this approach was:

The "real" (permanent) why.openoffice.org site is work in progress. the
target is to have it in place by OOoCon (2006 :-) latest

In the mean time, these "tactical" campaigns get us publicity using a
very easy to remember URL, and gets links to the site out there in
cyberspace (good for search engines etc)

People who click on any of the campaign buttons will see the very latest
campaign. If they really want to see one of the older ones, they are
only one click away.


I am quite happy to hear opinions on this - maybe it's too subtle, maybe
it's sheer genius, or maybe it's plain stupid. Tell me, and give me a
better suggestion - including a proposal for what we should we have
why.openoffice.org/index.html until the "final" content is ready.

John
-- 
John McCreesh
Marketing Project Lead
OpenOffice.org

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Re: [Marketing] another digg for Metro ads?

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-06-29 at 20:34 +0200, Finn Gruwier Larsen wrote:
> Why don't we make this an international campaign?
> 
> If it can be done in New York, it can be done everywhere!

Any volunteers?

John


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Re: [Marketing] svg openoffice buttons?

[John McCreesh]

Forwarded to the art project for comment ...

On Wed, June 28, 2006 07:41, Shoshannah Forbes wrote:
> Hi all.
> Where can one find svg versions of the OOo buttons / banners?
> thanks!



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Re: [Marketing] Brilliant marketing campaign

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, June 27, 2006 10:52, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> I've just seen the new "Why OpenOffice.org" page, after receiving
> the announcement about the "Take a Test Drive - Keep the Car!"
> campaign. I must say I think this is brilliant, and commend those
> who did it.

Thanks - they're all on this list.

For those who don't subscribe to announce@ (why not?), the PR is on
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=291

Following the adverse comments we received about preparing the 'Get Legal'
campaign on a public list (see http://lwn.net/Articles/182092/ ), this
campaign was put together on the pr list. I'm still not sure we've found
the right place for this sort of "how do we get everyone's input but still
preserve the element of surprise" activity.

Comments welcomed!

John


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Re: [Marketing] Brilliant marketing campaign

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, June 27, 2006 12:01, André Wyrwa wrote:
[snip]
> And in general I just wish we would rather sooner than later get over
> the whole "MS does this - we do that" thing and rather get to a more
> self-content way of advertising.

Historically, the MP did stick carefully to the "don't knock the
opposition" rule. However, MS-O 2007 is a real window of opportunity for
us to break MS's lock-in on existing users - it's too good an opportunity
to resist. The beauty of this 'counter-marketing' is that we can use MS's
advertising budget to our advantage:

the more MS hounds illegal users, the more 'Get Legal' works to our advantage
the more they hound unwilling users to upgrade - and portray them as
dinsoaurs in adverts!! - the more 'Keep the Car' works to our advantage.

> Also, i don't like how everyone considers the UI changes MS is
> introducing to be a bad thing - and that we use that to our advantage.
> After all we want to encourage people to embrace change, but when MS
> does the same and people are hesitant we celebrate? Doesn't work for me.

MS constantly throw TCO as a reason for sticking with MS-O, claiming that
the retraining costs etc. of migration to OOo outweigh licence cost
savings. Well, if they're arbitrarily changing their whole UI just to try
and put OOo on the back foot, I'm going to throw retraining costs etc
right back in their faces.

> Trying to make the UI more productive is actually a really good approach
> from MS. Office UIs didn't change much in years and they are basically
> big indiscoverable menu and dialog hierarchies that leave the user
> guessing how he can do what he wants to do. This is true for OOo as much
> as for MS-Office.

And we believe we have done it better - wait for the PR for the upcoming
release!

> I believe that people will embrace this move from MS at some point and
> find it more productive. Voices stating that can be heard already.

And we'll do our bit to make sure they get heard. If we can spend MS's
money to get the message across, that's even better :-)

John

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Re: [Marketing] testimonials, case studies

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, June 27, 2006 08:09, André Wyrwa wrote:
> Hello,
>
> do we have a collected list of case studies (besides
> http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments)?

http://www.openoffice.org/product/studies.html

> And where could i find testimonials and quotes that we are free to use
> (other than the for in the press kit)?

http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/testimonials.html

John


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Re: [Marketing] Marketing ideas

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 09:53 -0400, Jeffrey G. Causey, CPA wrote:
> > > Idea #3
> > > Get a charitable organization 501(C)3 so these
> > > donations can be made on a tax deductible basis in the
> > > U.S.
> >
> > Would you care to help set this up?  In the meantime, you could use
> > http://contributing.openoffice.org/donate.html and eat the tax deduction
> > on your US$25 :-)
> 
> Is there a need for a 501(c)(3) in the U.S. to handle donations?  I have set 
> them up in the past and would be glad to help with such an effort.  Could be 
> either an existing group/org or a new one - I'm not familiar enough with 
> what's out there already.
> 
> Any guess who may know more?

Louis was working on this on behalf of the community council. Drop him
an email - he's just about due back from South Korea for LWE.

John

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[Marketing] Why an MS 2007 upgrade is bad news

[John McCreesh]

I'm looking for references to case studies / analyst papers etc which
state that users should look at alternatives rather than automatically
upgrade to MS Office 2007. Some examples:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1933229,00.asp
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/3810/0/
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/3773/106/1/0/

Please reply to this posting with any examples you've spotted.

Many thanks - John


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[Marketing] Why OpenOffice.org at OOoConf

[John McCreesh]

You may have noticed the 'why.openoffice.org' theme once or twice this
year :-) I'm looking for people who have an interest in marketing OOo to
specific target markets to come along to workshops / brainstorms at
OOoConf. For example, I'd like people involved in schools, universities,
etc to come along to a session 'why openoffice.org ... in the education
sector'.

Have you a special interest in one of these areas? would you be happy to
facilitate one of these sessions?  I'd like to see all the target
markets covered - for a reminder of what these are, please see
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Strategic_Marketing_Plan#Target_Markets
However, this is not an exclusive list. If you'd like to run any 'why'
session - e.g. "why OpenOffice.org for developers" - or give a
presentation on a "why" theme - please reply to the list (ideally) or
drop me an email if you'd like to discuss off-list first.

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] Please, unsubscribe

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-05-28 at 01:07 +0200, Konrad Stobiecki wrote:
> please, unsubscribe my [EMAIL PROTECTED] e-mail address,
> as I am using [EMAIL PROTECTED] The problem is that I can't do
> it myself, because when I send letters from
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] I get "host rejected" message. Although
> i can receive e-mails from this account. This is pretty messed up.

Done - John


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Re: [Marketing] MS to use FAST to sue UK schools

[John McCreesh]

On Wed, 2006-05-24 at 08:48 -0400, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> If we play our cards right we could turn this into a repeat of Portland, 
> Oregon:
>   "FAST has vowed to take primary and secondary schools to court
>   for unauthorised software use, in what has been billed
>   a 'disastrous' move"
>   - http://news.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020330,39270906,00.htm
> 
> The schools moving to applications like OOo and/or various open source 
> operating systems are probably especially at risk since they won't be 
> buying enough MS licenses and thus show up on the radar.
> 
> The 'Get Legal' campaign should certainly be able to leverage this faux 
> pas.
> 

I went on the FAST web site to check this out and it told me:

Microsoft VBScript runtime  error '800a000d'

Type mismatch: 'ShowEvent'

/content/events.asp, line 14 

:-) John


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[Marketing] OpenOffice slow, bloated?

[John McCreesh]

There is a particularly annoying Google advert which pops up regularly
if you visit sites with OOo content - I'm sure you've seen it:

OpenOffice slow, bloated?
Abiword missing all the nice features?

I find this offensive, as it helps perpetuate the myth about OOo
performance. Now, I guess every time someone clicks on it, then the
advertiser has to pay some dollars to Google, and when the advertiser's
credit is exhausted, Google pulls the advert.

Just a thought

John


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Re: [Marketing] "Get Legal" Article on openoffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, May 18, 2006 19:42, Torrey, Daniel wrote:
> I read the "Get Legal" blurb on your website, and was disappointed to
> see that we're adopting Microsoft's FUD tactics.  I think this should be
> nuked, and we should let the product stand on its own merits.  The "Get
> Legal" page just seems...sleazy.

Your posting shows the importance of adopting a variety of approaches, as
something that appeals to one person may be a turn-off to another.

The overall reaction to "Get Legal" has been very positive, both on the
lists and in the media (see the thread 'Sightings of "Get Legal"').

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - Help MS - flyer ;-)

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, May 19, 2006 12:30, Steven Shelton wrote:
> Cor Nouws wrote:
>> We went to people asking "We want to help Microsoft, will you help us?
>> ..." :-) Most people could realy see the humor of it, and many will
>> place the button on their web or blog.
>
> I love it! I'd love to see a standard-sized ad banner that has the "We
> want to help Microsoft" or "Help Microsoft in its battle against
> software piracy" or "Software piracy is illegal, and it's wrong" spelled
> out more explicitely (instead of just the button).

On the art project, we'd discussed having an animated gif, with the first
image being a threat, e.g.:

"Is your office software legal?"
"Illegal software can land you in jail"
"Confused about software licencing?"

and after a few seconds displaying the "Get Legal" message...

John



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[Marketing] Re: [marketing] New why page proposal

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, May 19, 2006 05:35, André Wyrwa wrote:
>
> Hei,
>
> This is a crossposting.
>
> I'm crossposting this to the marketing list, because it concerns
> marketing more now.

Agreed, let's do follow-ups there

[snip]
> I really think OpenOffice.org can live without the same marketing crap
> that everyone else does. Let's not just repeat the crap, let's be both
> creative and user oriented...not only on the development side.
>
> Sorry, getting a little polemic here, again. ;-)

Polemical is good :-)

> Anyway, my proposal:
> - - welcoming
> - - liberating
> - - rewarding

There's some good stuff here. Presenting the key benefits of OOo on a web
page that can be read at a glance is not easy. The typical user has a
(probably illegal, probably old) copy of MS-Office on their PC and they
see no benefit in changing. If they hear something about this free
software stuff, they probably think it must be rubbish simply because it
is free (and nothing is ever really free - there's always a catch
somewhere), and it's not a known brand like Microsoft, and it took them
years to learn MS-O, and they've got all these Word documents they use, so
why should they bother?

So, the plan is two-fold.

First of all, we need to identify trigger points which will cause people
to even consider changing. If MS do a big anti-piracy drive, that will
make some folks uneasy - hence "Get Legal, Get OpenOffice". There are
other trigger points too, such as buying a new PC and finding it hasn't
got MS-O installed (a lot of people think all PCs just come with MS-O).
We'll be doing more trigger campaigning to drive people to why :-)

Secondly, once someone has a motive to look at OOo, we then have to
convince them:

* OOo will actually do everything that MS-O does for them - otherwise they
won't even consider it
* They won't have to go back to school or retype all their files
* It really won't cost them any money either for the software or if they
do find they need help

So the front page of why.openoffice.org has to address these three
concerns, which is what the three slogans are trying to do. Mousing over
the slogans gives the chance to present a bit more of the story. Clicking
on a slogan will give the whole story on a new page.

I'm not convinced the slogans are right - let's have the discussion.

On the honesty part - I do actually believe this marketing crap. We did a
lot of usability stuff between OOo 1 and 2 to make it easier for MS-O
folks to use OOo - some folks thought we went too far and started to
compromise the original OOo design. If we don't believe the product is
right for the mass-market, we should just stick to preaching to those
already converted to the open-source religion. I hope our ambitions are
bigger than that.

John


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[Marketing] Goodbye Microsoft Office, hello OpenOffice

[John McCreesh]

I must put this one up on the site on the reviews page:
http://www.times-standard.com/business/ci_3828429

Is their anyone in their circulation area who would like to try and sell
them the Get Legal - Get OpenOffice.org message as a follow-up?

Thanks - John


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[Marketing] Louis in the press

[John McCreesh]

Wall Street Journal no less ...
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114727136610348924.html

I also liked the quote: [OpenOffice.org] "opened and saved files more
quickly and didn't get hung up processing the way Office does from time to
time."

One to quote against the "OOo is too bloated / too slow" etc. camp.

John


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Re: [Marketing] planning some Press release

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 22:51 +0200, Cor Nouws wrote:
> Hi Finn,
> 
> Finn Gruwier Larsen wrote:
[snip]
> We don't need all to send out the same press releases, nor on the same 
> time. Exchanging ideas, posibilities, is a good step. Then it's up to 
> the NL-groups when It's OK for their country.
> 
> Or does this sound to free :-)

No, that sounds right to me. The MP isn't the only place where people
have good ideas :-)  I would like to see the MP list as a 'clearing
house' where people can post 'we had this really cool idea and this is
what happened' so that everyone can benefit.

> > When a press release is ready and approved by the marketing leads, it 
> > should be sent to the NLC project leads for translation at least 24 
> > hours before its official release.
> 
> Yes, the official international relases will benefit from such an aproach.

Yes, I must start doing this better. It's easier when we're creating our
own news, rather than reacting to something.

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal on Home page

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 13:50 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
[snip]
> We can use the MP page for Why, and I can also add a Why link on the  
> right news bar of the homepage.

It would be cool to display the why logo on the home page...

John


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Re: [Marketing] new lead

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-16 at 07:24 +0800, Jacqueline McNally wrote:
> Hello
> 
> I would like to propose John McCreesh as the new Marketing Project Lead.
> 
> John has made a huge contribution to the project prior and during his
> role as Co-Lead. Contributing to the website content and infrastructure,
> drafting and editing the Strategic Marketing Plan, and now together with
> Cristian coordinating why.openoffice.org.
> 
> Please welcome John in his new role, and lend your continued support to
> John and Cristian as the leads of the Marketing Project.

Thanks for those kind words. It's been a great pleasure and a privilege
to work alongside Jacqueline on the MP - her contribution has been
enormous, even when she should have been taking things easy and looking
after her own health rather than than that of the MP :-) She has agreed
to keep an eye on the project and help us with her experience and 'feel'
for the world of open-source - for which I will be grateful.

The good news is of course that Cristian has agreed to be co-lead for
the MP. Cristian is full of ideas, and with Microsoft starting to lose
touch with its core market, I'm sure we'll make serious marketing
progress and have no end of fun over the next twelve months.

For now, I'd like to focus the MP on the why.openoffice.org theme,
building up the momentum to a really powerful conference. If you aren't
already booked to attend - do it! If you've wanted an excuse to visit
Europe - you've got one! If you really can't attend, we still need your
success stories - get in touch and we'll find some way of presenting
them to the conference.

*You* know why.openoffice.org - now let's tell everyone else.

John


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Re: [Marketing] Re: blogging feature in MS office 12

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 19:39 +, Andrew Brown wrote:
[snip]
> IN the meantime, I suggest and RFE, and perhaps a prod to the next people 
> who tunr up on the lists asking how they can contribute to the project. 

I must be missing something here ... if I write a document in Writer and
then copy and paste it into my WordPress blog using Firefox, it does a
remarkably good job of preserving the formatting etc...

Why would I want anything more than this?

John




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[Marketing] John and Louis double act

[John McCreesh]

Amazing what you can do thanks to the internet - the virtual interview:

http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20060513194119192

John


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[Marketing] John in the press

[John McCreesh]

"Can free software measure up to the commercial alternative? John
McCreesh sticks up for the alterntaive to MS-Office."

Usual caveats that I didn't actually say some of this stuff ...
however ...

http://www.mealldubh.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/pcanswers.pdf

John


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[Marketing] [Fwd: [art] Stats]

[John McCreesh]

Apologies for the cross-posting, but it's I like to share good news

John

 Forwarded Message 
From: Sebastien Lanteigne <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: art@marketing.openoffice.org
To: art@marketing.openoffice.org
Subject: [art] Stats
Date: Sat, 13 May 2006 10:53:31 +1100

I know that this is not the best place to do so but I've received the
2005 statistics from the head office.  However since we have been
working very hard to promote OpenOffice and other FOSS. I'd like to
share them with you.

The company I work for "L'Agence universitaire de la Francophonie"
(www.auf.org) has:

-2200 computers in almost 40 countries across Africa, Asia, North
America and the Pacific.  All are using OpenOffice.org;
-1600 computers in public acces 82% of which are running Ubuntu GNU/Linux;
-249 servers of which 210 are running Debian GNU/Linux.

>From 2004 to 2005, GNU/Linux usage has increased 44%. MS windows usage
has dropped 23.5%. OpenOffice.org is now the office suite of choice
and is replacing MS-Office on all computers.

Thanks to everyone making this possible.

Seb.


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[Marketing] Get Legal - but not too soon

[John McCreesh]

Now that the LWN article has moved from being 'subscriber only' to
'general release', I've re-read all the comments:
http://lwn.net/Articles/182092/#Comments

The balance of opinion seems to be:

"Seriously, breaking news of a PR campaign *can* derail it ... That
said, the OOo marketing people who made it Google-visible before it was
supposed to go public are the real idiots here!"

I'm not sure that our mailing lists *are* Google-visible, but the point
is still valid. They are public, and anyone can join and listen in. "Get
Legal" is the first in a series of attention-grabbing campaigns as we
develop the proposition "Why OpenOffice.org". I believe we will get most
impact if we can maintain an element of surprise.

Comments?

John



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[Marketing] Louis in the press

[John McCreesh]

"I understand that Massachusetts is under the gun to migrate, and that
this might make it easier to fulfill their mandate," said Louis
Suarez-Potts, community manager for OpenOffice.org. But in general, he
added, "I see anything that extends the life of Microsoft Office as
problematic."

http://www.techworld.com/mobility/news/index.cfm?newsID=5981&pagtype=samechan

John


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Re: [Marketing] Clients speaking up against strongarm sales

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-05-11 at 03:49 -0400, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> While it's not news that MS has been strongarming its customers, it is 
> news that more are going public about it and that MS seems to be more 
> clummsy (desperate) about it:
>   
> http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=86
> 
> One concern is that sites phasing in OOo aren't going to show adequate 
> sales for new versions of MSO.
> 
> One advantage is that we can leverage it in why.openoffice.org

Thanks for the link

John


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Re: [Marketing] Publicity strategy

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 15:07 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
[snip]
> BTW, I'd really rather we work together on Why.Ooo. Lots to do there.  
> Also, lots to do with adding content to the new wiki I created on  
> Migration Documents.

I agree with Louis that this issue is at a tangent to the current tasks
of the MP which is what we should focus on here.

However, I am aware that the whole ODF/ISO issue has arisen since we
produced the Strategic Marketing Plan, and I would be quite happy for
the issue to continue to be discussed on the [EMAIL PROTECTED] list -
if anyone has any energy left to continue...

John


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Re: [Marketing] Getting OOo with M$ vouchers ?

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-05-07 at 06:15 -0400, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> MS "tentatively agreed to pay $70 million *in vouchers* to several 
> California municipalities to settle an antitrust claim that it used its 
> market dominance to overcharge government customers" according to Reuters:
>   http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6067712.html
> 
[snip]
> Seeing as a cash refund on the purchase of OpenOffice would be of little 
> use to us, how can we influence the settlement to our advantage or 
> otherwise benefit from the proposed voucher scheme?

How much are the vouchers worth? Say USD 100? Then offer special OOo CDs
for sale at USD 100 (or USD 50) with clear labelling that the proceeds
going to Team OpenOffice...

John


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Re: [Marketing] Publicity strategy

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 16:36 +0100, Ian Lynch wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 09:39 -0400, Louis Suarez-Potts wrote:
[snip]
> >  fine: we know where  
> > you stand.
> 
> You clearly don't but don't let that get in the way of objectivity ;-)
> 
Ian and Louis - I'm not picking on either of you - this just happens to
be the latest email I've seen in this chain.

Cristian has already requested we draw a line under the MS-O / ODF
discussion as it's getting increasingly off-topic. As another co-Lead
I'd like to add my weight to that request.

Please folks - enough.

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] OEM and Open Office

[John McCreesh]

Or for real beginners' books, we've just seen a press release by
http://inpics.net/index.html

John

On Sat, 2006-05-06 at 12:48 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Yes! Please do. That would be fantastic.
> 
> And please tell us how it goes. Oh, and there are some great books 
> available that you can give to your customers as value-add and are free 
> for you. I recommend the OOoAuthors "Getting Started Guide" (note: I'm 
> one of the authros). You can buy printed books or download a PDF file 
> and print it yourself:
> 
> Download:
> http://oooauthors.org/en/authors/userguide2/gettingstarted/published_final/0100GS-6x9-GettingStarted-2edn.pdf
> 
> Printed books:
> http://www.lulu.com/content/177729
> 
> Cheers,
> Daniel.
> 
> Bruce wrote:
> > Hello,
> > I am a small OEM system builder who is fed up with Microsoft.
> > Is it ok for me to preinstall open office instead of Microsoft
> > Office on the systems I build? Thanks.
> > 
> > Bruce
> 
> 

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Re: [Marketing] Sightings of "Get Legal"

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-05-05 at 08:56 -0400, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> On Fri, 5 May 2006, Jacqueline McNally wrote:
> > "In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized,
> 
> Yes.  That's my point.
> 
> > but whether or not the internet is a proper noun is disputable.
> 
> No.  Please stick with facts and don't try to get all post-modern on us. 
> Wishing something is true is not the same as it being true, though the 
> difference in the short term may be negligable.

The BBC:
All Israeli newspapers are privately-owned; many are available on the
internet.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/country_profiles/803257.stm

The Times:
Nobody just takes printed pages and puts them on the internet...
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20411-2165510.html

Good enough for me

John

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[Marketing] [Fwd: LWN's "Get Legal" article]

[John McCreesh]

Folks, fyi.

John

 Original Message 
Subject: LWN's "Get Legal" article
From:"Jonathan Corbet" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date:Fri, May 5, 2006 15:36
To:  "John McCreesh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--

Hi, John,

I notice that the marketing list people tend not to be LWN subscribers,
and are unable to read this week's article.  No accounting for taste, I
guess...:)  I just set up a magic link which non-subscribers can use for
that particular piece:

http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/182092/81b2cdcdc27b011f/

If you think it makes sense, could you pass that on to the list members?

Thanks,

jon

Jonathan Corbet
Executive editor, LWN.net
[EMAIL PROTECTED]


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Re: [Marketing] Can marketing processes be too open - the LWN story

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, May 4, 2006 12:43, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> I haven't followed all of the messages regarding the Get Legal campaign,
> though it is interesting.
>
> When is the official launch date and what is the URL again for the
> campaign ?

It was launched exactly one week after "World Intellectual Property Day"
(sic) with this PR
http://www.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=announce&msgNo=282

The site is http://why.openoffice.org

John

> -Lars
>
> Lars Noodén ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
>   OpenOffice.org: Now ISO 26300 Standards Compliant !
>
>
> On Thu, 4 May 2006, John McCreesh wrote:
>
>> LWN this week leads on "Get legal - Get OpenOffice.org". They cover the
>> campaign, and also some of the issues around their "leaking" of the
>> story
>> before we had produced a finished marketing product.
>> http://lwn.net/Articles/182092/#Comments
>>
>> In fairness to LWN, they did pull the "leak" as soon as they realised we
>> were upset, and have now produced a balanced account of the affair. I
>> think it's worth a discussion (both here and in LWN) about how we
>> proceed
>> in future.
>>
>> John
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [Marketing] Comment on "get legal" from a techwriter

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, May 5, 2006 07:25, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> I posted a link to the "get legal" campaign on a Technical
> Writers' list. Here is one response. -- Jean
>
>> "A poll has indicated 86% of users would prefer to try
>> OpenOffice.org 2 rather than buy MS-Office 2007." But the
>> link is to an Australian online survey about Office 2003.
>>
>> "Studies have shown it is ten times cheaper to move to
>> OpenOffice.org 2 than it is to upgrade to MS-Office 2007."
>> No link to those studies. Guess why?
>>
>> Fear-mongering, fact-mangling... I expected better of OOo.
>> When did they start getting all corporate and FUDdy?


They're quite right - with all the HTML/CSS hacking two links got rolled
into one:

85% of users prefer OOo 2 option vs MS-O 2003
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4054/53/
OOo 2 migration ten times cheaper than MS-O 2007
http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=2742&pubid=3&issueid=66

Correctly stated, it makes the poll results look even better. I'll get it
fixed tonight. Let's blame Collabnet - if we didn't have to spend so much
time fighting the CMS to get it to display a simple web page correctly,
we'd have more time to check the content :-)

John


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Re: [Marketing] Comment on "get legal" from a techwriter

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, May 5, 2006 07:25, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> I posted a link to the "get legal" campaign on a Technical
> Writers' list. Here is one response. -- Jean
>
>> "A poll has indicated 86% of users would prefer to try
>> OpenOffice.org 2 rather than buy MS-Office 2007." But the
>> link is to an Australian online survey about Office 2003.
>>
>> "Studies have shown it is ten times cheaper to move to
>> OpenOffice.org 2 than it is to upgrade to MS-Office 2007."
>> No link to those studies. Guess why?
>>
>> Fear-mongering, fact-mangling... I expected better of OOo.
>> When did they start getting all corporate and FUDdy?


They're quite right - with all the HTML/CSS hacking two links got rolled
into one:

85% of users prefer OOo 2 option vs MS-O 2003
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4054/53/
OOo 2 migration ten times cheaper than MS-O 2007
http://computerworld.com.sg/ShowPage.aspx?pagetype=2&articleid=2742&pubid=3&issueid=66

Correctly stated, it makes the poll results look even better. I'll get it
fixed tonight. Let's blame Collabnet - if we didn't have to spend so much
time fighting the CMS to get it to display a simple web page correctly,
we'd have more time to check the content :-)

John


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[Marketing] Jacqueline in the news

[John McCreesh]

Nice quotes from Jacqueline:
http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=010001470KT4&page=1

John


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[Marketing] Sightings of "Get Legal"

[John McCreesh]

Could I ask people to report sightings of "Get Legal" to this thread?

One to start the list:
Don't pirate MS-Office: use ours, says OpenOffice.org
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/applications/0,39020384,39266768,00.htm

Thanks - John


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[Marketing] Can marketing processes be too open - the LWN story

[John McCreesh]

LWN this week leads on "Get legal - Get OpenOffice.org". They cover the
campaign, and also some of the issues around their "leaking" of the story
before we had produced a finished marketing product.
http://lwn.net/Articles/182092/#Comments

In fairness to LWN, they did pull the "leak" as soon as they realised we
were upset, and have now produced a balanced account of the affair. I
think it's worth a discussion (both here and in LWN) about how we proceed
in future.

John


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Re: [Marketing] I'm speaking about OOo at Westchester (NY) PC User's Group

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 19:44 -0400, Benjamin Horst wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I'm giving a talk to the Westchester PC User's Group about OpenOffice 
> on Thursday, May 4 at 7:00pm local time. (Westchester is the county 
> just north of New York City.)

Hope it goes well. It would be great if you could let us know how it
went, particularly *why* people said they were attracted to OOo - in
line with the current theme of why.openoffice.org

Thanks - John
'

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Re: [Marketing] "Get Legal" on Digg

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-05-02 at 22:22 -0500, J David Eisenberg wrote:
> On Wed, 3 May 2006, Simon Phipps wrote:
> 
> > I've posted a Digg for the Get Legal campaign; you may wish to go  
> > Digg it to get it up into the front page...
> > 
> > http://digg.com/software/_Get_Legal_-_OpenOffice.Org_Spins_Microsoft_FUD
> > 
> > S.
> > 
> 
> Looks great.  One thing about the why.openoffice.org page -- somewhere on
> the page, you might want to say that Microsoft Office is copyright and
> trademark by Microsoft, as well as putting a registered trademark symbol
> next to the first occurrence of Microsoft so they can't complain about
> that.

We did do this in the accompanying press release - I'll put it in small
print on the web page too. Good point.

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] MS Office users ready to jump ship

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, May 2, 2006 10:09, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> Actually that seems to have been part of the strategy all along:
>
>   As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal
>   ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow
>   figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade.
>   http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html?legacy=cnet

Oh, beautiful

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal on LWN

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 17:02 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > I know we're an open-source project, but it is a bit frustrating when
> > work in progress is put in the public domain like this:
> > 
> > * people are directed to a site which is still evolving
> > * we reduce the impact of the press release when it's officially
> > released.
> > 
> > http://lwn.net/Articles/181996
> 
> Jesus what an idiot. Makes you wonder if they're purposely trying to 
> wreck the campaign before it takes off. I tried to find a way to contact 
> the poster but failed. I don't have an LWN account and I won't pay for 
> one just to post a reply to this.

I am and I have :-)

John


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[Marketing] Get Legal on LWN

[John McCreesh]

I know we're an open-source project, but it is a bit frustrating when
work in progress is put in the public domain like this:

* people are directed to a site which is still evolving
* we reduce the impact of the press release when it's officially
released.

http://lwn.net/Articles/181996

John

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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 06:30 +0300, Cristian Driga wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> 
> >> Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html
> 
> Some more suggestions for the campaign:
> 
> 1. Building translated get_legal.html pages. (possibly hosted on the NLC 
> sites if not on why.OOo site in a /get_legal/ sub-folder ?)
> 
> 2. Creating translated buttons for the campaign.
> 
> 3. Buttons for webmasters:
> Below the current end line (Get legal - get OpenOffice.org today!), add 
> a paragraph dedicated to webmasters. Something like:
> 
> "
> Webmasters! Support reducing software piracy worldwide!
> Together we can help reducing the software piracy and build a better 
> world. For this all you have to do is to copy/paste the code below into 
> your website and display the "Get legal. Get OpenOffice.org" campaign 
> button.
> 
> 
> http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html";> src="http://why.openoffice.org/images/web_button_get_legal_border.png"; 
> border="0" hspace="3" vspace="3" alt="Get legal. Get OpenOffice.org">
> 
> "

+1 done

> Note: Once translated pages and buttons in place, the HTML code will 
> link to the corresponding translated buttons and get_legal_LN.html pages.
> 
> 
> 4. I would propose that the "Get legal! Get OpenOffice.org" button be 
> used for linking to this page's campaign and that we make a separate 
> button to put in this page saying: "Get legal! Download OpenOffice.org 
> now!" for the actual link to the download page.

+1 will do

> OR
> 
> ..we should at least place a text link above the existing button in the 
> page saying: Download OpenOffice.org.
> 
> 
> Reasoning: We are talking about a campaign which must be by itself 
> visually recognizable. In this respect, it could be better if buttons 
> would not be just another download button for OOo and instead be used to 
> promote the campaign and OOo on other sites which link to get_legal.html 
> pages and from there visitor finds the download link.

For maximum impact, I would like to move the get_legal page to
why.openoffice.org/index.html when we launch the campaign (I don't want
people to look at incex.htnl and see a "work in progress sign"). As soon
as the real why page is ready, we can relegate the get legal to a
secondary page.

If we run another campaign before why is ready, then we could move it to
index.html etc.

John

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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 10:13 +0300, Cristian Driga wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 00:14 +1000, Mike Williams wrote:
> > On Saturday 29 April 2006 06:02, John McCreesh wrote:
> > Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html
> 
> A bit of rephrasing/re-arranging for your consideration:
> 
> "So what are you waiting for? It costs nothing to try. If you like it, 
> it costs nothing to use for as long as you like, wherever you like. 
> Peace of mind at no cost."
> 
> could be (a bit of HTML included):
> 
> Don't wait for BSA and authorities to knock on your door!
> Try OpenOffice.org now. It costs nothing to try. If you like it, it 
> costs nothing to use for as long as you like, wherever you like.
> Peace of mind at no cost.
> 
> 
> :)
> 
> ...the bold line is to make that paragraph even easier to read and 
> understand at a glance. If you think the "Don't wait for BSA..." text is 
> not suitable for this page, we could simply cut it out and place the 
> line with Try OpenOffice.org now! in bold there.

I think we have to be careful not to go to far down the scare tactics
route. We want to encourage people to take the time to evaluate OOo, not
panic them into rushing out and buying MS-O licences :-)

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-05-01 at 00:14 +1000, Mike Williams wrote:
> On Saturday 29 April 2006 06:02, John McCreesh wrote:
> > Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html
> 
> Hi John,
> 
> "so you don't need to type anything in again" makes sense to me, but I had to 
> think for a few seconds. I think it's ambiguous and would be clearer as "so 
> you don't have to re-type your work" or some such thing. 

+1 Done

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-04-30 at 12:35 +0200, Cor Nouws wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 00:02 +0200, Cor Nouws wrote:
> >>One warning: when talking about this with some business-people (month or 
> >>so ago), it turned out that they could become offended. As if I 
> >>suggested that they would do illegal business ...
> > 
> > 
> > Good point - I've added "Microsoft's licence agreements are complicated
> > - it's easy to break them by mistake"
> 
> Smart ;-)
> 
> I just took a little time to read the (renewed) draft page.
> Would it be an idea to put the added sentence two lines lower, after "If 
> you have a copy of ..."?

I've moved things about a bit on the latest version

> Furthermore, I would suggest think about changing the pay-off
> "Get legal - get OpenOffice.org today!"
> into something like
> "No doubts about a legal Office - get OpenOffice.org today!"
> (or "No fear about your Office being illegal", or )
> Just to make it sound less accusing.

The slogan for the campaign is "Get Legal - Get OpenOffice.org" so I'd
like with it. It is designed to be arresting (sorry, another bad English
play on words - arresting = "eye-catching" as well as "being taken away
by the police")

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-04-30 at 10:46 +0100, John McCreesh wrote:
[snip]
> I like this - let's park it for today while we finish Get Legal. Rening
> me later if I forget about it :-)

d'oh - s/Rening/Remind/

This keyboard can't spell ;-)

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get legal - get OpenOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-04-30 at 01:38 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> as nobody replies on [EMAIL PROTECTED] I show the seemingly more 
> interested people here, what I did from your comments. I included a 
> fourth draft in the website linked below.

+1 for the third draft

John

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Re: [Marketing] Get legal - get OpenOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 11:15 +0200, charles-h.schulz wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> the get legal campaign is a very good idea. Maybe a small PR
> operation would help it rise up in the media, who knows. 
> As for the risk that we may encounter due to the potential
> "agressive" nature of the message, I think we might actually
> tone it down by... toning ourselves up. 
> That is, we could use irony. When I read John's page I think I
> see where he wants to go, and I have a suggesstion for this:
> let's say that we actually stand behind the BSA (yes, yes) in
> its fight against software piracy. In fact, we stand so much
> behind the BSA that we want people to purchase original copies
> of MS Office, and the ones who can't, or don't want to buy
> them should use OOo. 

There is a phrase "tongue in cheek" - like my earlier reply to Daniel
http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgId=2592668
was "tongue in cheek"...

This works for people who are "in the know", e.g. open-source people who
appreciate the irony. We could use this in a PR to Newsforge or LWN for
example. However, the humour is wasted on people whose knowledge of
computing currently stops at Microsoft.

> I hope I explained myself clearly because I reckon this is a
> pretty strange idea. But a similar thing happened in France
> where the FOSS movement expressed its solidarity and agreement
> with a law that was forcing the IT retailes to clearly
> indicate the certified origin -and the price- of the
> preinstalled OS of the computers they were selling. The goal
> was to let consumers know how much they were paying for Windows...

Good.

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get legal - get OpenOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 09:00 +0200, Finn Gruwier Larsen wrote:
[snip]
> We also have 
> to take into account that the effect of the slogan mainly comes from the 
> fact that it's actually a bit provocative. I think a marketing has to be 
> a bit provocative, but of course not too provocative. It's a question of 
> finding the right balance.

+1 

I am always happy to see provocative suggestions and rely on the good
sense of others in the MP to say if a suggestion has gone too far ...

Johhn

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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 22:59 +, jonathon wrote:
> Cor Nouws wrote:
> 
> >it turned out that they could become offended. As if I suggested that they 
> >would do illegal business ...
> 
> That might happen.
> 
> OTOH, those same people are even more offended when it turns out that
> their office is using software that the BSA has defined as "pirated", or
> otherwise illegal to use.
> 
> Maybe add/rephrase it to:  "Get Peace of mind."

Yes! added to the text

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 00:02 +0200, Cor Nouws wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> 
> > Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html
> > 
> > Please comment only on the message on this list - I'm going to look for
> > volunteers on the art project to turn it into a web page :-)
> 
> 
> Good opportunity indeed.
> 
> One warning: when talking about this with some business-people (month or 
> so ago), it turned out that they could become offended. As if I 
> suggested that they would do illegal business ...

Good point - I've added "Microsoft's licence agreements are complicated
- it's easy to break them by mistake"

John


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Re: [Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-04-29 at 00:42 +0300, Cristian Driga wrote:
> Hi John,
> 
> It's a great idea and the draft looks good. More below...
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html
> 
> Some suggested changes:
> 
> ===1===
> 
> "OpenOffice.org 2 is a world-class alternative which does everything you 
> need from an office suite."
> 
> I would put it a bit more direct (even if it gets longer):
> 
> "OpenOffice.org 2 is a world-class alternative office suite, similar in 
> functionality with Microsoft-Office. OpenOffice.org does everything you 
> need: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and much more."

+1 - done

> ===2===
> 
> 2. And this:
> 
> "It can even use MS-Office format files, so you don't need to type 
> anything in again."
> 
> ..suggest..
> 
> "It can even open and save MS-Office format files (.DOC, .XLS, .PPT), so 
> you don't need to type anything in again."
> 

+1 - done

> 
> I've got this tendency to always try to put it more explicit simply 
> because I've met lots of people to whom the word "Office" meant *only* 
> Microsoft-Office. I know it sounds stupid but its kinda Xerox meaning 
> "copy machine" and not the brand. For us the difference is obvious, but 
> for many, it isn't. Same goes with "Word Processor" vs. "Text Processor" 
> or something similar.
> 
> ===3===
> 
> Another secondary message for the page: "Your search is over."
> 
> 
> What words and methods should we use to get Google display high in 
> results the get-legal page in the following searches and similar ones ?
> 
> "free microsoft word download"  - 121944 searches for last month 
> according to se-keywords.com:
> 
> http://www.se-keywords.com/cgi-bin/kse-logiciel.pl?mot=microsoft+word+free+download&etape1=1&lg=us&zone=world
>  
> 
> 
> I would start with mentioning these search words in a page (an accessory 
> to get_legal.html ?) or paragraph with text like:
> 
> "You've been looking for free microsoft word downloads ? For free 
> microsoft power point downloads ? You have been searching on the web for 
>   office software to replace illegal software copies you had installed ?
> 
> Your search for freeware or trial word, excel, powerpoint software 
> replacements is over. You now have a totally free alternative.
> 
> It's real, it's free, it's legal, it's OpenOffice.org."
> 
> + link to get_legal.html
> 

I like this - let's park it for today while we finish Get Legal. Rening
me later if I forget about it :-)

> P.S. After having added links to other relevant information and having 
> it ready for visitors, should we have a PR for this small campaign 
> start? ;-)

Of course :-) but let's get the graphics sorted first

John


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[Marketing] Get Legal - draft message

[John McCreesh]

Comments please on http://why.openoffice.org/get_legal.html

Please comment only on the message on this list - I'm going to look for
volunteers on the art project to turn it into a web page :-)

Thanks - John

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Re: [Marketing] Get legal - get OpenOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 13:46 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hi John, all,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > [...]I'm keen to do something
> > under the strapline - "Get legal - get OpenOffice.org"
> > 
> Great idea :-)
> 
> -> to be used at why.openoffice.org?

I want to develop why.openoffice.org into a full mini-site. However,
this will take time to do properly. If we could do a single 'Get legal'
page this weekend, that would be great (Monday is a holiday in the UK).

> I just tried to create a web button for this purpose:
> 
> http://www.familie-dippold.de/OpenOffice.org/web_button_get_legal_124x60.png
> 
> If you like it, it will be attached to the new gallery I'm going to 
> update ASAP.

This is good. Could you get the slogan inside the button - like the
Ubuntu ones on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WebsiteButtons ?

Thanks - John


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[Marketing] Get legal - get OpenOffice.org

[John McCreesh]

Another example like Daniel's of yeaterday:

  BSA offers £20k piracy bounty to rat on your boss
  Three-quarters of staff say they'd drop their employer in it...
  http://newsletters.silicon.cneteu.net/t/115934/463176/183536/0/

Please send any other examples to this list. I'm keen to do something
under the strapline - "Get legal - get OpenOffice.org"

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] MS Office users ready to jump ship

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, April 27, 2006 13:09, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> A marketing opporunity for OOo?
>
> http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/4054/53/
>

Excellent Daniel - thanks for this. As I said recently in my blog:

"As a proponent of open-source software, I am 100 percent and more in
favour of commercial software vendors clamping down on software pirates
with the full rigour of the law. Why should honest open-source developers
face cut-price competition because Microsoft is too lazy to pursue
pirates? In particular, I think it is complely disgraceful and unethical
than Microsoft turns a blind eye to software piracy throughout the third
world. This only encourages people to become addicted to software they can
never afford to buy, and discourages them from using open-source software
which is completely and permanently affordable."

http://www.mealldubh.org/index.php/2006/04/18/aerophobia/

As you say, good marketing material. Keep them coming - more ammunition
for why.openoffice.org

John


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Re: [Marketing] spreadopenoffice.org -> why.openoffice.org

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-04-25 at 16:15 -0500, J David Eisenberg wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2006, Cristian Driga wrote:
> 
> > 
> > BTW: congratulations on your es.openoffice.org website. Great design. 
> > Simple and extremely efficient. It was of inspiration for us in the 
> > why.ooo initiative. We'd love to see the Spanish community helping out 
> > in getting why.ooo going because this action would be in the benefit of 
> > the whole OOo community.
> > 
> 
> Yes, please! I think the Spanish page is a model for what the main
> openoffice.org page should be.  
> 
> I've been banging my head against a wall for several months 
> now in an attempt to convince others that the current home page is *not* 
> new-user-friendly.
> (http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgId=2226120
> http://website.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgId=2512170)
> 
> Maybe you will be in a position to do something about this.

Please have a look at the proposals attached to
http://qa.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=64643

John


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[Marketing] Microsoft dismisses OpenOffice password removal

[John McCreesh]

As usual, this isn't quite what I said, but it's close enough...

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2154626/microsoft-dismisses-openoffice

John


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[Marketing] why.openoffice.org is born

[John McCreesh]

The site plumbers have now created a holding space for the new 'shop
window' site why.openoffice.org. The 'manifesto' for this mini-site is
here:
http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=dev&msgNo=23171 

I've set up an area within the Marketing section of the wiki with a few
holding pages starting at http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Why
and would invite contributions there. The idea is that we can brainstorm
and develop ideas quickly within the wiki. As the pages mature we can
then go through the pain of editing html, creating graphics, and
committing to cvs for the live 'why' site.

We've not used a wiki for collaborative editing before in the MP, so I'd
encourage everyone to give it a try. If it doesn't work, we can always
revert to a [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list...

Thanks in advance for your contributions. I knwo there's a lot of
knowledge and enthusiasm out there - let's capture it in this site.

John


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Re: [Marketing] Open office blowup

[John McCreesh]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 18:00 -0500, Jerry Russell wrote:
> STRANGE.
> 
> This is the strangest thing that has happened to me relative to computers, 
> and I have been working with them for thirty years.  
> I was loading OpenOffice on my computer and there was an explosion in the CD 
> drive, yes in the CD drive.  The OpenOffice CD that I received from a Sun 
> source blowup.  I opened the CD drive and there were tiny pieces of the CD 
> was everywhere.
> Is there a time limitation on these applications, and if time elapses, bang?

Our engineers have been working hard to make OpenOffice.org faster and
more powerful. It looks as though they may have gone too far. I suggest
you revert to a version of OpenOffice.org earlier than April 1st.

John


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[Marketing] OOo performance

[John McCreesh]

You may have seen Gorge Ou's latest attack on OOo / OpenDocument
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=196
Possibly he's hoping to attract the same amount of publicity that he
managed with his earler pop at OOo performance:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=119 although I guess the novelty value is now
starting to wear thin.

At the time of George's first article I wrote a 'so what?' response, which
I think is still relevant:
http://www.mealldubh.org/index.php/2005/10/31/this-pig-does-fly

This is not to say OOo engineers are complacent about performance - in my
experience 'finding a better way to do something' is one of the main
motivators for open-source hackers. See
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2153630/openoffice-zooms-lagging But for
the vast majority of users, OOo performance today is more than fit for
purpose.

One of the joys of open-source, but bad news for journalists, is that we
no longer need 'experts' who get privileged (i.e. free) copies of software
which they then 'review' on behalf of lesser mortals. If anyone wants to
know about OpenOffie.org, they can try it out. Tens of millions have, and
have liked what they have got.

It's not even "try before you buy" - it's "try and watch it fly".

John




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Re: [Marketing] why.openoffice.org/marketing

[John McCreesh]

On Wed, 2006-04-19 at 15:49 +0200, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hi John, all,
> 
> John McCreesh wrote:
> > I'd like to canvass opinion among the marketing project for the launch
> > of a new theme: "Why OpenOffice.org"
> > 
> > The proposal is that "Why OpenOffice.org" will be a major theme of our
> > campaigning in 2006 and for OOoConf 2006. The developments in the
> > MS-Office 2007 story mean we have a golden opportunity to explain to the
> > world there is a better way.
> > 
> > The first task would be to create http://why.openoffice.org:
> 
> This would mean a new project "why" ?

This is under discussion, whether the Collabnet infrastructure requires
we create a full project or whether there is another way. Louis and
Stefan are going to come back with some options.

> I think it's content is part of the marketing project, so I suggest 
> it to be lead by the marketing leads?
> 
> It's a good idea to create an easy starting point for the people we 
> want to reach, this Internet address could be such a point.
> 
> It could be linked from www.openoffice.org as well - but first it 
> will have to be created.
> 
> Another idea would be to use http://marketing.openoffice.org as easy 
> access starting point with all the implementations you made for 
> why.OOo and to move the present marketing homepage to 
> marketing.openoffice.org/detailed.html - but for all these ideas we 
> need volunteers spending quite a lot of time.

The plan would be to continue to use marketing.openoffice.org as a
workplace for the marketing project - i.e. inward facing.
why.openoffice.org would be outward facing, talking to people who are
asking why they should use OOo.

> > 
> > WHY will convey these messages in a simple, visual format, without the
> > 'clutter' of the standard project pages. Examples of this approach
> > already exist in some nl projects - http://es.openoffice.org is a
> > particularly good example. 
> 
> You talk about removing the standard nav-bars? This is done on 
> several pages - even the main page http://www.openoffice.org works 
> in this way IMHO.
>  >
>  > The WHY URL will permit memorable URLs such as
>  > why.openoffice.org/publicadministration/
>  > why.openoffice.org/governments/
>  > why.openoffice.org/smes/
>  > etc
> 
> This would work for
> marketing.openoffice.org/publicadministration/ etc as well.
> 
> In my eyes naming has to be as easy as possible, but the most 
> important thing is someone who is able to do it!
> 
> > I believe there is enough expertise across projects such as marketing,
> > art, web, and nl projects to create a stunning and convincing site.
> > 
> > Are you in favour of this proposal and can you help?
> 
> There are lots of work to be done on the present marketing pages - 
> it would be great if this approach could bring people together to 
> work on such a central marketing theme. I believe that the standard 
> pages could profit from such a work!

The present marketing pages could do with a good spring clean - in fact,
the whole site could do with a good spring clean. We tend to add pages
as time goes by, but very rarely remove anything. However, I believe
there is a real opportunity now to grow market share thanks to MS-Office
2007, and having a good 'selling site' is a step in the right direction.

John



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Re: [Marketing] Riding on MS' BSA activities?

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, April 18, 2006 16:33, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> MS is continuing to step up activities of BSA around the world, both in
> places like Sweden and Pakistan:
>   http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2006-daily/18-04-2006/business/b11.htm

And China: http://software.silicon.com/os/0,39024651,39158140,00.htm

As an admirer of Thinkpad laptops, I find this news particularly annoying...

John


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Re: [Marketing] Riding on MS' BSA activities?

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-04-18 at 06:33 -0400, Lars D. Noodén wrote:
> MS is continuing to step up activities of BSA around the world, both in 
> places like Sweden and Pakistan:
>   http://jang.com.pk/thenews/apr2006-daily/18-04-2006/business/b11.htm
> 
> What kind of ways can we ride on this and use it to promote 
> OpenOffice.org?

And they aren't just using the BSA - they're also using technology:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,39020396,39263342,00.htm

One good answer to why.openoffice.org is "because the alternative is
Microsoft"... In the past, I've discouraged active MS-bashing in our
marketing - companies and politicians who do nothing but knock the
opposition don't do themselves any favours in the long run.

However, I think MS have made a huge gaffe in delaying the launch of
MS-Office 2007 so they can make it look less like OOo, and we should not
be slow to point this out. I've done two press interviews recently where
the journalists have been very receptive to this message.

why.openoffice.org/upgraders maybe

John

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[Marketing] why.openoffice.org/marketing

[John McCreesh]

I'd like to canvass opinion among the marketing project for the launch
of a new theme: "Why OpenOffice.org"

The proposal is that "Why OpenOffice.org" will be a major theme of our
campaigning in 2006 and for OOoConf 2006. The developments in the
MS-Office 2007 story mean we have a golden opportunity to explain to the
world there is a better way.

The first task would be to create http://why.openoffice.org:
- to explain to each target market why they should use OpenOffice.org
- to convince IT managers, public administrations, governments, etc to
implement the suite in their organisations
- and to make the public demand that the authorities provide them with 
ODF documents instead of .doc files

WHY will convey these messages in a simple, visual format, without the
'clutter' of the standard project pages. Examples of this approach
already exist in some nl projects - http://es.openoffice.org is a
particularly good example. 

The WHY URL will permit memorable URLs such as
why.openoffice.org/publicadministration/
why.openoffice.org/governments/
why.openoffice.org/smes/
etc

I believe there is enough expertise across projects such as marketing,
art, web, and nl projects to create a stunning and convincing site.

Are you in favour of this proposal and can you help?

Thanks - John


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Re: [Marketing] Article: Why technical writers aren't using FOSS

[John McCreesh]

On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 09:06 +0100, Daniel Carrera wrote:
> Cristian Driga wrote:
> > Thoughts ?
> 
> I think we should pick a set of market segments where it's easier to 
> sell FOSS. What I got from Bruce's article was not that Linux on the 
> desktop is hopeless, but that Tech Writers are not the best segment to 
> target. 
[snip]
Good point - technical authors are not a target market
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Strategic_Marketing_Plan#Target_Markets
although we do have an action to encourage authors to write about OOo
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Strategic_Marketing_Plan#People
(it is desirable but not mandatory for them to use OOo to create their
manuscripts :-)

I wouldn't abandon all hope on the basis of Bruce's article. I'm looking
forward to hearing how Jean gets on this weekend
http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/BrowseList?list=dev&by=thread&from=1335402
No doubt she will be able to write a suitable reply to Bruce if her
experience is more positive.

John



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Re: [Marketing] Press release for OOo 2.0.1

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 16:22 +0200, Finn Gruwier Larsen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Can anyone tell me where I can find the press release for OOo 2.0.1?

http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ReadMsg?list=pr&msgNo=1038

John

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Re: [Marketing] Promoting OOo to authors, editors, publishers

[John McCreesh]

Thanks for the tip - that's an excellent example of how people can use
their professional peer networks as a marketing opportunity. Is your focus
on getting them to use OOo in their own organisations, or on getting them
to publish articles, books, etc on OOo (and/or including CDs)?

John

On Tue, April 4, 2006 09:15, Jean Hollis Weber wrote:
> A slightly different approach to reaching potential end-users...
>
> I will be demonstrating OOo at a series of publishing workshops
> at the Australian national science fiction convention at Easter
> in Brisbane. Attendees include writers, editors and publishers
> (both professional and wannabees). I'll have handouts about OOo,
> some CDs to pass out to interested people, and display copies of
> many of the available books.
>
> This convention is attended by reps of many small press
> publishers in Australia and some of the big name publishers as
> well. I know a lot of these people personally, so I hope we'll
> get a lot of publicity and interest from this. Many attendees
> have contacts in our target markets of non-profit organisations,
> governments, and so on, so there is potential beyond the
> relatively small scale of this particular conference.
>
> --Jean


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Re: [Marketing] Case Study - Bristol City Council, England

[John McCreesh]

On Sat, 2006-03-04 at 01:52 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Hi
> 
> On 2006-02-27, at 22:54 , John McCreesh wrote:
> 
> > Good case study at
> > http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/02/23/ 
> > bristol_migration.html
> \
> did you add this to the wiki on the "major deployments"?
> see http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/ 
> Major_OpenOffice.org_Deployments
> 

It's on the main site at http://www.openoffice.org/product/studies.html

John


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Re: [Marketing] Another article on disruption

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-03-02 at 12:44 -0500, Jeffrey G. Causey, CPA wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Ran across another article:
> 
> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1933229,00.asp?kc=ewnws030206dtx1k599
> 
> This one is about the challenges firms/users will face in deciding whether to 
> upgrade to Office 2007, switch to an alternative, or do nothing.  The focus 
> is on the issues of file compatability and the new user interface that Office 
> 2007 will introduce.  

Thansk for the link - it's a good article. I did a piece in my blog
http://jpmcc.blogdns.org/index.php/2006/03/02/your-office-or-mine/ about
this. Microsoft are not infallible - we should look forward to the
challenge.

>From what I've seen of the early MS marketing, they seem to be stressing
very strongly the number of templates, wizards, etc that they will be
supplying. This will enable them to claim that you don't need to know
MS-O2007 to produce professional results. They also know it's an area
where OOo is weak.

Fortunately, it's one area where our userbase could help by contributing
masses of templates. They would need to be QA'd and possibly translated
(there's nothing worse than a template which superficially looks ok but
which completely ignores stylesheets etc :-) 

What do folks think?

John

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[Marketing] FOSSTEC 2006 Symposium

[John McCreesh]

Any interest?

John

 Forwarded Message 
From: Prof. Nagib Callaos <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: FOSSTEC 2006 Symposium
Date: 1 Mar 2006 15:57:10 -0400

On behalf of the FOSSTEC 2006 Organizing Committee, I would like to invite
you to participate, submitting a paper and/or organizing an invited
session, in the 2nd International Symposium on Free/Open Source Software,
Technologies and Content (http://www.fosstec.org/hw/), which will take
place in Orlando, Florida, USA, from July 16-19, 2006.

The best 10%-20% of the papers will be published in Volume 4 of JSCI
Journal (http://www.iiisci.org/Journal/SCI/Home.asp). 12 issues of the
volumes 1 and 2 of the Journal have been sent to about 200 university and
research libraries, and 6 issues of Volume 3 (2005) will be sent to a
larger number of library. Promotional, free subscriptions, for 2 years, are
being considered for the organizations of the Journal's authors.

Also, we would like to invite you to organize an invited session related to
a topic of your research interest. If you are interested in organizing an
invited session, please, fill the respective form provided in the
conference web page, and we will send you a password, so you can include
and modify papers in your invited session.

Organizers of the invited sessions with the best performance will be
co-editors of the proceeding volume where their sessions' papers were
included and of the CD electronic proceedings. They will also be candidate
for invited editors, or co-editors of a possible JSCI Journal issue related
to their invited session papers.

You can find information about the suggested steps to organize an invited
session in the Call for Paper and in the conference web page.

If you need a detailed Call for Paper, don't hesitate in asking us for it.
You can also get it the conference's web site.

If the deadlines are tight and you need more time, let me know about a
suitable time for you and I will inform you if it is feasible for us.

Best regards,

Professor Nagib Callaos
FOSSTEC 2006 General Chair


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[Marketing] Case Study - Bristol City Council, England

[John McCreesh]

Good case study at
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2006/02/23/bristol_migration.html

John


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Re: [Marketing] Vote about official OpenOffice.org OEM label is over

[John McCreesh]

On Sun, 2006-02-26 at 23:13 +0100, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hello to all of you,
> 
> and thanks to all the people joining the voting.
> 
>  From 16 Marketing Project members only one voted for Label D, all 
> the others preferred Label B (four of them named Label A as second 
> choice).
> 
> 
> | So *Label B* (http://familie-dippold.de/OEM_label_small_new.png) |
> | will be the new official OpenOffice.org OEM label.   |
> 

Nice work

> I'll try to update the Art Project galleries as soon as possible (I 
> think I'll attach it to the CD-Art gallery), perhaps it could be 
> available from the web page at the end of next week...

Good

> Up to then you may download it from Issue 44459 
> (http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=44459) where I 
> attached the vector graphics source (SVG made with Inkscape) and a 
> 1200 x 1200 pixel raster graphic (exported to PNG).
> 
> Could someone please transfer this information to the distribution 
> project - I think, there we can find most of the people not reading 
> this list, but providing OOo on computers. They should know, that 
> there does exist such a label- and that it has been officially 
> approved by the Marketing Project. For visual identity reasons they 
> are requested to use this label for computers shipped with 
> OpenOffice.org

I have a standard letter I send out to people asking for permission to
use logos etc - if you can get the image put into the Art gallery I'll
change the letter.

Good work all round - John


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Re: [Marketing] news submittal guidelines

[John McCreesh]

On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 16:50 +0100, Charles-H.Schulz wrote:
> This message is intended to explain to everybody how to submit news
> and
> article you may have read on the net and that are relevant to be on
> the
> OOo Newsletter's blog, http://newsletter.blogspot.com

http://ooonewsletter.blogspot.com/

John

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[Marketing] Guidelines for this mailing list

[John McCreesh]

Following good suggestions from Alex and Cristian, I've updated the
description of this mailing list:

This is the main Marketing Project discussion list. Please monitor or
subscribe to this mailing list before you join any other! 

Please remember that there are many on the lists who are not native
English speakers, and whose postings may appear more "aggressive" than
intended. Rather than start a flame war, please wait until the next day
before responding. During that day, consider carefully whether or not
their suggestion might perhaps have some merit. Usually you'll find that
it does. 

Vigorous discussion of marketing issues is encouraged - personal abuse
or off-topic postings are not acceptable.

http://marketing.openoffice.org/servlets/ProjectMailingListList

John

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Re: [Marketing] things should change. vote of confidence and capability.

[John McCreesh]

On Wed, February 22, 2006 12:35, Alex Fisher wrote:
[snip]
> May I suggest that in the future, when anyone makes any suggestion in what
> may
> seem to be an "aggressive" (for lack of a better term) tone, that everyone
> take a deep breath, consider whether the poster is a native English
> speaker,
> if not then make allowances for that, and then wait until the next day
> before
> responding. During that day, consider carefully whether or not their
> suggestion might perhaps have some merit. Usually you'll find that it
> does.
>
> Then, if you don't like the way things are phrased, ASK for clarification
> before you fire of a hasty reply.
>
> In my 5 years, virtually every "flame war" has started because one or more
> others have not paused in the way I suggest above.
>
> Think about it, folks.

Can I please ask everyone subscribed to this list to print off Alex's
email, blu-tack it to their monitor, and read it slowly before they read
any postings on the list.

Alex, many thanks.

John


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Re: [Marketing] Vote about official OpenOffice.org OEM label

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 23:19 +0100, Steven Pauwels wrote:
[snip]
> I think that if someone has a violent objection to the label that the 
> community chooses by vote, he should start his own OOo distribution. It 
> is completely respectless to the efforts put in by the art project, and 
> the decission made by the marketing project members, to use another.
> This is one of the reasons people find it difficult to work for OOo 
> marketing. For Gods sake... make up your minds...
> You vote but nevertheless we should use them all... this is 
> contra-productive and completely demotivating.

It's not intended to be. We're an open-source project, not a monopoly
supplier - we can't say "You must put this 'Fred Computers Inc
recommends OpenOffice.org' logo on every advert or we'll cut you off our
preferred price plan"

> John... Take your co-leads responsability to actually lead.

We can only lead by the excellence of what we do. If we provide world
class artwork, why would anyone choose *not* to use it?

John

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Re: [Marketing] Vote about official OpenOffice.org OEM label

[John McCreesh]

On Mon, 2006-02-20 at 21:01 +0100, Bernhard Dippold wrote:
> Hi list members,
> 
> in the art project we designed different proposals for OEM labels
> that should be sticked on PCs delivered with OpenOffice.org.
> 
> To come to an "officially approved" label I'd like to ask you to
> vote on these labels (otherwise the 4 or 5 active people at the art
> project would decide on their own).
> 

B then A

However, I would recommend that we display the winner as the
'recommended' or 'official' label, but also leave the others as
alternatives. We have no power to enforce a label - if someone takes a
violent objection to the 'recommended' label, I'd prefer them to choose
one of our alternatives rather than make a completely new one.

John

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[Marketing] Forrester Research Social Computing Report

[John McCreesh]

We took part in a piece of research for Forrester on 'Social Computing':

John

> Thank you for taking the time to work with us on the February 2006
> Social Computing Report. As your company was mentioned in this report,
> I've included a link to your complimentary copy. Please follow the
> link
> at the bottom of this email; it will bring you to our Web site where
> you
> can download a PDF of the Report. I hope you will find it helpful, and
> if you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact me.
> Once again, thank you for your time.
> 
> http://www.forrester.com/Research/ThankYou/0,2252,38772,00.html
> 

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Re: [Marketing] MarCon Role

[John McCreesh]

Thanks. I couldn't see a way to do a table of contents for the whole
SMP, or how to do a 'next page' / 'previous page'. No doubt there is a
way...

John

On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 15:11 -0500, Jeffrey G. Causey, CPA wrote:
> John,
> 
> I have setup a starting page (really nothing more than a placeholder at this 
> point) for the SMP.  I will start working on the migration - I need the 
> practice with the markup.  Obviously, anyone else that feels compelled to 
> jump in...
> 
> Jeff Causey
> 
> On Tuesday February 07 2006 17:19, John McCreesh wrote:
> > On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 11:07 -0800, Adam Moore wrote:
> > > On 2/6/06, John McCreesh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > > We tried to define this once at
> > > > http://ooosmp.homelinux.org/GoalsandObjectives/MarketingProject
> > >
> > > I knew there was something just didn't have the time to go find it.
> > > Thank you.  Could this be put up on the wiki?  Definitely something
> > > that should be included.
> >
> > Yes, now that we have a wiki, I'd like to migrate all the SMP from the
> > computer under the stairs to the official wiki. Unfortunately, the
> > mark-up languages in the two wikis are not the same, so it's not a
> > straight copy job.
> >
> > If anyone wants to volunteer, please go ahead.
> >
> > John
> >
> >
> > -
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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> 

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Re: [Marketing] Final call for easter egg oppinion!

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 23:02 +, Ian Lynch wrote:
> > I think I put a slightly different slant on this. I entirely agree
> that
> > the open-source communities which work best are the do-ocracies,
> those
> > which value people according to what they contribute. By contribute,
> I
> > don't just mean posting to a mailing list, which can be just an
> > ego-trip. I mean people who actually contribute code (if a
> developer),
> > translations (N-L), artwork (art project), collateral (on a
> marketing
> > list), etc.
> 
> What about people who actually get mass take up? Eg someone who goes
> into a company and persuades them to adopt the product? I guess this
> is
> more like sales but since marketing is the nearest we have to selling
> I'd say that would be a useful contribution and it might not get
> noticed. Ideally this would get posted to the list but it might not
> for
> a variety of reasons. Same is true of people who raise awareness in
> their place of work. Unfortunately, I think there is a lot of work
> that
> goes on that might not be either noticed or understood but if it helps
> get more users of OOo its of value to the project. 

Let me give an example - the work that Bob Kerr did on getting OOo into
the public libraries here in Scotland. By itself, a useful piece of
distribution. However, what made it much more valuable to the MP was the
fact he took the trouble to write up a HOW-TO. This described what he
had done, but more importantly he showed how to apply marketing cliches
like "know your customer" in practice. His HOW-TO also got a good airing
on the geek press.

So, give your granny an OOo CD, you're a star; tell everyone on the MP
how you got her to accept it and pass it to her friends, you're a
superstar :-)

John


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Re: [Marketing] Strategic management

[John McCreesh]

On Wed, 2006-02-08 at 16:10 +, Ian Lynch wrote:
[snip]
> My suggestion is that the Marketing Leads Lead a thread on strategic
> management to make clear the central strategic goals and that in any
> debate they actively "Chair" the meeting to keep it on topic, away
> from
> emotional personal outbursts or deviations into detail not directly
> under-pinning strategy. They then summarise the outcomes and a
> manageable number of tasks that underpin these asking Marcons and
> specific people to take responsibility for them. This then becomes the
> headline for the front page of the Wiki.
[snip]

I'm happy to have another go at this on the strategy@ list, which is how
we got to the current SMP. However, with the rate at which people post
to this list, actively 'chairing' is a pretty tall order - unless we can
find a fast typist with broadband who is prepared to work 24x7 and
hasn't got a life :-)

There *are* issues with the SMP, like it's getting out of date, and it
needs a clear link to the detailed 'to-do list'. My suggestion would be
that could be fixed by moving it to a wiki format and getting wider
input.

What I think may be a greater priority is SMP volume 2. The MP has two
aims: to market OOo the product, and to market OOo the community. The
SMP volume 1 looked at the product. Volume 2 should be looking at how we
market the community to contributors, especially but not only
developers.

I'd recommend that as a priority as we have nothing at all on that just
now.

John

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Re: [Marketing] Final call for easter egg oppinion!

[John McCreesh]

On Tue, 2006-02-07 at 17:01 +0100, Charles-H.Schulz wrote:
> In any FOSS community, the community is made of the developpers. The
> one
> who codes is the one who calls the shots. The rest, albeit valuable
> sometimes, has no other way than respecting the developpers' decisions
> or try to convince them they are wrong. There is hence no question of
> separating the community and the developpers.
> 
I think I put a slightly different slant on this. I entirely agree that
the open-source communities which work best are the do-ocracies, those
which value people according to what they contribute. By contribute, I
don't just mean posting to a mailing list, which can be just an
ego-trip. I mean people who actually contribute code (if a developer),
translations (N-L), artwork (art project), collateral (on a marketing
list), etc.

So I like to think of OOo as a community of different projects, each
valuing their contributors according to how they contribute to that
project's aims. I think it is entirely right e.g. for the MP to try and
encourage developers to code what the market wants.

We maybe need some mechanism whereby people gain community points for
doing things, and maybe lose them for just creating noise on lists :-)

John




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