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It seems I sent the email I just apologized for from the wrong address, Not my day, I guess. Here us my reply to Onno as I originally intended it to look.bers. > Onno Benschop wrote: My responses are interspersed below with relevant quotes from Onno's message > > This message is being sent to the list because I believe in open > communication - even though some of the content is specifically for you. That is the reason I posted the article to the list, and I was really hoping you would reply. > > Your article is a very interesting take on your participation with > Ubuntu and the Ubuntu-Marketing team and for it's thorough and thought > out content I thank you. To complete the social amenities, you are most welcome and I appreciate the effort you put into your reply > > You raise some interesting points about perceptions and reality. Yes, I believe that the main issue with this team is one of perception, or to be more exact, the group's self-perception. IMHO. it needs to change its perception about what marketing is, which will then change how it perceives itself, which, in turn, will change its reality. For the sake of brevity, I will not get into the changes in perception that need to be made in detail here. Rather I will write a separate message and post it here in a day or two. I am still working out my ideas in my head before committing them to "paper." > I am mindful of your visual...... If you have specific issues that need > software support that you are not able to overcome, then please let me > know and I'll attempt to assist you where I can. My main problem, visually, is not email but the IRC chat. I really had a very hard time keeping up with the conversation because the screen changed faster than I could read it. That is the advantage of email and forums; they allow you to control the pace of the conversation :-) If you can offer some technical solutions that might help me with the IRC sessions, I would be most grateful. > > Your comments about group dynamics and email are interesting because my > view is not even close to yours. You are not alone in that, I suspect! > > I've been using email as my primary communications medium since I came > on-line in 1990. ...> Another way to look at this highlights just how far we are apart in our > experiences. My point exactly. People like yourself who have little or no experience with Windows have very different perceptions of how virtually reality works. You've probably never had to spend hundreds of dollars having your hard drive cleaned of trojans and viruses or had to completely replace the hard drive or even your computer because of them. I've been there and done that as have many of the people I know who use their computers to make a living marketing online. It is the attempts to escape these email issues that led to the popularity of RSS. I know, because I was an early and vociferous advocate of direct-to-desktop marketing. > > So, yes, Ubuntu needs to be marketed to the world, but there is > absolutely no way that we can do it ourselves, here, within this team. I agree that it is not the responsibility of the marketing team to do the actual marketing to the world. That should be the job of the LoCos. They should have the tools and the authority to market Ubuntu to anyone and everyone in their region. We market Uvubtu to the world, but divide the world up among the LoCos. The responsibility of the marketing team, as I see it, is to develop the marketing tools for the LoCos to use. Everything from release party guides to how to talk to a Windows user to how to market in general. And, again, this requires a change in perception. We need to look beyond the limited marketing venues being used now and design tools and training materials to teach the LoCos to broaden their efforts. to go after organizations like Becta or a regional school district. or your doctor and her colleagues. We need to discuss our ideas. once they are a bit more developed with Canonicals marketing team to see how we can coordinate our efforts. And we need to encourage LoCos to seriously consider some form of incorporation so they can seriously market to entities like Becta. But that means that the core leadership of the marketing team, at least. needs to move out from what seems to be a somewhat provincial perspective to a more global perspective. If this is not clear to all, please let me know and I will develop it further. > > Do I share your frustration that we cannot just get up and market this > thing to everyone? Not any more. Interjecting a little humor here, with a kernel of wisdom: frustration will kill anyone's dreams. Been there, Done that. > > The reason I'm not frustrated about it, is because I look at this from a > system perspective. We are building a system that makes it possible, > using volunteers and community members to harness their energy to do the > marketing that they want to. Personally I market Ubuntu most days. Not > actively go out and do letterbox drops, or advertising, or seminars, but > just in talking to people about Ubuntu, about OpenSource, standards and > other things that cause people to have a frustrating Windows experience. This is the shift in perspective I am talking about. Not necessarily every member of the Ubuntu community, but a lot of us need to go out and market actively. really actively. Otherwise, all the work the developers are doing and will do is pretty much wasted. No matter how good a product is, it will not sell itself. That belief is a myth. The competition is too strong and markets itself very actively. If we seriously want to compete with them, we need to be more aggressive, even with volunteers - see below for more on this. More humor here: Heck, it is even possible that this could lead to the reality of none of us needing a day job any more LOL A bit far-fetched, but not out of the realm of possibility. It HAS been done before. I did it with a small social service agency. > > So, yes, to actively participate in this community you need some skills. > We welcome you with open arms, we try to introduce new skills to you as > we go and we try to support you as time goes by. Is it hard - sure. Is > it frustrating - sure. Is it rewarding? The problem with what you say in the paragraph above is that the adoption of new skills as you present it is a one-way street. What about making it a two-way street? Especially for a team like this one? The technical skills needed to be a good marketer are NOT the same skills you need to be a good developer. Marketing requires the ability to communicate with all kinds of people, many of whom have little or no specialized technical skills. I am not saying that new people should not learn the already existing technical skills. I AM saying the marketing team should seriously consider EXPANDING its arsenal of communication technologies so that we can communicate with those people, and more importantly, they can communicate with us. And we make these new technologies available to the LoCos! > > Answer me this. > > If you were a Windows user, where is your community that helps you, > fixes software for you, gives you free advice and a place to share your > concerns and ideas, central resources to manage your machine and > community representation across many countries of the world, where you > can talk to people in Mexico, Denmark and Australia, just by hitting the > send button on your email client? If you read the "Marketing Ubuntu" articles on my wiki, you will see that I consider the existence of the Ubuntu community to be one of the most important selling points of Ubuntu. And it is because I feel that way, that I am so adamant about this change of perspective. > > > So, please do not feel disheartened, rather feel encouraged that we take > note of your contributions and consider them together with the > contributions from other team members. I am not disheartened. I am FRUSTRATED. A big difference. And, to be honest with everyone, I got even more frustrated AFTER the meeting. For a month now, we have discussed the need for direction and leadership on this team. And, yes, I am aware that everyone here is a volunteer and all that implies. I have been a volunteer before as well as a volunteer coordinator. Consensus is nice, if you can get it and you can afford the time to achieve it, but sometimes, and as far as I saw it, the meeting yesterday was one of those times, you have to take the bull by the horns. We accomplished half of what needed done. We set the direction for this team, and we, implicitly at least. we being those who attended the meeting, acted like leadership. The 8 or 10, I'm not sure of the exact attendance, stepped up and took on the leadership of this team. And we should have finished the job and said, "These are the people that have the time, the energy and the initiative to take action on behalf of the team. Let's make it official and formalize them as the core marketing group." That would have resolved both concerns. Instead, we postponed the leadership decisions for another month. I am not sure this team can afford that. I am afraid that I am not the only one who is still frustrated. If people's frustration levels get too high, we may lose some skills, talents, and expertise this team can ill afford to lose - and I'm not talking about myself here either. I think that most of the people on this list are waiting for someone else, other than themselves. to step up and do what needs done. Yesterday's meeting was an opportunity for that to happen, and it only got halfway there. That frustration was what really prompted my writing this article. The marketing team has to be the first to make this change of perception - a shift to a more global perspective - and then lead the rest of the Ubuntu community to rethink its perspective to a more global perspective. We will never make any inroads of any consequence on Bug #1 until we do. But, if and when that day comes. it will be awesome to see the effects!!! I truly believe this and I am committed to bringing about that change, even if it takes the rest of my life!!! > - -- Peace! John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFITKBG3oYFui6B2koRAsliAJ4rLKrTx7gQ1fNyVY25++v8j49ZTgCdHeH3 McRYfXU9glhLHn1tGguGYyE= =ziYB -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- ubuntu-marketing mailing list ubuntu-marketing@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
