[Board] Re: [Marketing] Status of the Marketing Committee

Thu Nov 10 12:34:54 PST 2011

Arnulf,
For the last year or two, committee meetings have been attended mainly 
only by Tyler, Alex Mandel, Brian Hamlin, and sometimes one or two others.
Alex, Brian and myself also work on the OSGeoLive DVD, and some of the 
activities previously being done under the marketing banner are now 
being done under a OSGeoLive banner.
In particular:
* Project Overviews for all projects
* A presentation for all projects

Others who have been on the committee in the past have been leaders of 
Open Source companies, but have drifted back into not speaking up. I 
can't speak for them, but expect it would come down to feeling that 
their time and budgets is better spent in other marketing activities - 
eg: building presentations and presenting at foss4g events, or more 
targeted marketing for their own companies.

The other activity Marketing was taking on was managing a marketing pack 
for conferences, and occasional seed funding for conferences. This is a 
particularly challenging task as previous budgets fall short of 
expectations from people wishing to get funded for osgeo representation 
at conferences.

Here is the maths:
* Previous marketing budget ~ $30K p.a.

* International or regional conferences where it would be nice to be 
represented: 20 to 50
* Local geospatial events where it would be nice to have OSGeo 
representation: 100s to 1000s. (I can think of 5 to 10 candidate annual 
events in Australia, and their are hundreds of countries)
* Once off costs per local chapter (banners etc) ~ $400
* Cost of a booth at a conference ~ $4K
* Travel of an ambassador to a conference ~ $2K to $10K
* Cost of expendables per event (DVDs, fliers) ~ $300

I'm personally prepared to help a committee of 10 active members, but I 
don't have the time to take on a greater commitment than that.

On 11/11/2011 2:59 AM, Seven (aka Arnulf) wrote:
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> Folks,
> how do you feel about this committee? Straight forward answers are
> appreciated.
>
>
> Then, please excuse the longish mail but there are some things that need
> to get tackled by someone - the best fit seems to be the Marketing
> Committee.
>
>
> Are we going to be able to fill out the role that Tyler wants to give
> up? He sent a list of things that he wants to hand off a month ago but
> there was just one mail in response. Therefore I copied the points here
> again for reference and will comment on some of them. Please keep in
> mind that all the points listed here were so far managed by a fraction
> of a full time job, Tyler had lots of other things on his plate too. We
> should be able to get Marketing up and functional easily by sharing
> tasks between several people. Each of us will not need more than an hour
> or two per week to do this. But we do need some commitment, so please
> step up if any of the following resonates with you. Maybe you also want
> to post something on Discuss to attract new committee members.
>
>
> - - Committee
>      Chair Marketing Committee, plan meetings
> - ->  this is an honorable job and requires little work. If I were younger
> and less overloaded I would jump the chance to take over this role. It
> also gives your profile a kick and opens doors to events which would
> otherwise be either closed or costly. Marketing also has a budget for
> travel which can be spent by Marketing. The next OSGeo budget is
> developing now, so this is the right time to request for money.
>
>      Identify priorities – events, material
> - ->  increasingly this has been taken over by the Local Chapters.
> Marketing focuses more on the global perspective balancing interest and
> energy spent on different events and serving as hub to mediate dates of
> events to avoid overlap.
>
>      Coordinate with volunteers
>      Design and host material
>      Coordinate with designers as required
>      Coordinate printing, shipment, payment of material for events
> - ->  thanks to Tyler we have a good set of material now. Printing and
> maintaing this material is increasingly a globalized thing meaning that
> we think globally but act (print, ship, etc.) locally. The German local
> chapter FOSSGIS for example manages trade fair brochures all on it's own
> including searching for sponsors to print things.
>
>      Maximizing OSGeo benefit from all events we are at
>      Prioritising event related spending
>
> - - Events
>      Help coordinate OSGeo's presence at events
>      Speak as the OSGeo rep/contact
> - ->  At a recent Board Meeting we decided to create a new role called
> "OSGeo Ambassador". It is yet to be more clearly defined but it gives
> credibility to speakers and access to events otherwise not reachable
> (see also committee chair benefits). Currently Daniel Morissette and
> myself manage spending of travel money required to do this. We could
> transfer this responsibility to the Marketing Committee if there is
> interest and commitment.
>
>      Plan OSGeo booth – material, manpower
>      Coordinate presentations for events
> - ->  There are lots of good presentations available, including generic
> OSGeo introductions. Cleaning up and focusing will help people to find
> the right one.
>
>      Plan special meetings with stakeholders
> - ->  I am not sure what this exactly is. Tyler, could you expand on this
> giving examples?
>
>      Help FOSS4G chair
>      Serve on FOSS4G LOC
>      Drive sponsors to FOSS4G
> - ->  these three tasks mainly relate to the global FOSS4G conference and
> belong to the conference committee.
>
>      Get OSGeo sponsorship needs in front of many eyes
> - ->  Well, yes - the need is clearly seen but that did not really get us
> very far. And again - I do not believe that this is a primary task for
> the Marketing committee.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Arnulf
>
> - -- 
> Exploring Space, Time and Mind
> http://arnulf.us
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