[Board] 2009 budget

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

On 27-Nov-08, at 10:46 AM, Arnulf Christl (OSGeo) wrote:

>> The marketing budget http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Marketing_Budget_2009
>> is not fleshed out at all.
>
> This is true but there has been a lot of dicussion on this during  
> the IRC
> meetings on the mailing list and f2f in Cape Town.

Please note, this is a work in progress and our committee is working  
on it to reflect that budget figure given from the F2F meeting - that  
url is not ready for reference for any other purpose at this point.   
It's taking some time, but we're working through it.

>> I think we should have a discussion about
>> whether or not marketing OSGeo really represents a return on  
>> investment to
>> members, member projects and to sponsors.  If this discussion already
>> happened, could someone provide a synopsis of the main benefits of  
>> putting
>> this much marketing muscle behind OSGeo? What are the targets of the
>> marketing and can they be hit?

This really touches the core purpose for OSGeo, so it's likely a good  
time to revisit our purpose and see if it needs to be adjusted.

At startup, I think it's safe to say that most projects didn't need  
systems support from OSGeo to thrive - so the focus was on spreading  
the word about the projects.  Basically acting as a virtual marketing  
department for projects that would otherwise not have a cent to spend  
on marketing.  "Our goal is to encourage the use and collaborative  
development of community-led projects." The purpose was to reach out  
to new users, including companies who would support further  
outreach.  That was seen as the missing piece.

Of course, since we already cover the costs of having a web presence,  
plus had some active SAC members and further donated resources, OSGeo  
has been able to provide some general services for projects when good  
ideas came up.  Not all projects use these services but the ones who  
do, depend on them greatly now.

I'm not sure this needs to be a marketing vs. SAC discussion, but  
rather a question of where do you see SAC going.  I've had the sense  
that SAC was more constrained by availability of volunteers than by  
hardware/services and their costs.  Do you want to make services more  
enticing to projects, so they move over to OSGeo infrastructure?

The other question is, what role do you see OSGeo playing in the  
geospatial landscape?  Helping projects and their teams grow has a  
real benefit to users and developers.  But marketing is what helps  
the world know that the projects even exist.   As part of that  
marketing it may mean we need some improved systems, web development,  
etc.  Personally, I see marketing as the organisation's primary  
mission, do you think it needs to be adjusted?

Tyler