[Marketing] Exhibition Pack

[Michael P. Gerlek]

Well, our marketing efforts for a given event need not reflect the entire mission statement, which is why I asked the question.  But let's say we are targeting the "general" message and backing it up w/ some specific product instances: then we next need to ask who the audience is: developers, users, decision makers, ..?

The more specifically we can refine our target, the better we can determine what materials and what audiences are appropriate.

[I'm speaking here from the viewpoint of a "real" marketing department, i.e. one with paid staff to come up with collateral to support such efforts, which admittedly in the past has led me down invalid paths  relative to our volunteer-based non-profit...]

-mpg


-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com] 
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 9:37 AM
To: Michael P. Gerlek
Cc: OSGeo Marketing
Subject: Re: [Marketing] Exhibition Pack

Michael P. Gerlek wrote:
> Good point.  At the risk of flogging dead horses...
> 
> If the question in the floor is "what's the best way to reach people with
> our message?", then we should first ask "what's our message?".  I could come
> up with different responses depending on whether we say "promoting open
> source as an alternative to proprietary stacks" (a general, broad mssg),
> "getting people to use GDAL and MapServer" (a specific mssg), etc.

Michael,

"""
OSGeo Mission Statement

To support the development of open source geospatial software, and promote
its widespread use.
"""

I see our *message* to the software using world as being that there are
open source geospatial options suitable for many workflows and projects,
and that those open source options have some advantages over proprietary
solutions.  Obviously we tend to promote OSGeo projects more heavily than
non-OSGeo projects, but in general we should promote any open source
geospatial project that is good enough to serve a purpose and to reflect
well on the overall effort.

So I think we need to make the general points about the readiness and
advantages of open source geospatial software.  We also need to provide
specific material in support noteworthy projects - showing how they
fit into our general message, and particular uses.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent