[Marketing] Marketing plan part 3

[Michael P. Gerlek]

I'm sorry I haven't been to any of the ex-VisCom mtgs lately, nor was I
around for the Victoria discussions, but I'll just offer two points, in
case no one else has already, based on my previous VisCom experience:

First, we are looking to spend a sizable chunk of the Foundation's
(limited) money on this; what are the opportunity costs, and will we
have enough money to do follow-on activities afterwards?  I'm concerned
that if we spend this money up front, we may not have sufficient funds
to later attend shows and what-not.

Second, or more fundamentally, is this really a worthwhile expense?  My
view on OSGeo marketing has evolved a lot over the past two years, and
I'm more generally of the opinion that monies should be spent on things
of direct value to the members.  That is, keeping our infrastructure up,
getting better one-click installs, giving money to projects with
worthwhile efforts that need additional funding, etc.  More succinctly,
what is it that the Marketing team is now intending to "market" to the
world, with exactly what expected results, and how important is that
activity?

Sorry to rain on anyone's parade, and if this has already been discussed
I'll shut up and go away, but I fear this group may be repeating what I
now view as some of the mistakes I made when I was trying to direct
VisCom.  I think OSGeo is now sufficiently well-known, at least for the
moment, that getting our name "out there" isn't as important as it was
~12 months ago.

-mpg

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: marketing-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
> [mailto:marketing-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Tyler 
> Mitchell (OSGeo)
> Sent: Sunday, November 18, 2007 10:48 PM
> To: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
> Subject: Re: [Marketing] Marketing plan part 3
> 
> Maybe you can propose a max budget (USD$) to be spent on this and  
> then make a motion to continue?
> 
> Arnulf - have any particular ways you want it handled?
> 
> Tyler
> 
> On 17-Nov-07, at 3:17 PM, Jeroen Ticheler wrote:
> 
> > Thanks Jo,
> > I hope we can get a vote going on this so we could proceed if  
> > others are positive to. Should I put forward a motion for this to  
> > proceed? Birgit indicated that it would be good for them to start  
> > this year since they have more work upcoming next year and 
> that she  
> > wanted to be sure they could give the project the attention it  
> > deserved.
> > Looking forward to feedback. Cheers,
> > Jeroen
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