[Marketing] Exhibition Pack

Dave McIlhagga dmcilhagga at dmsolutions.ca
Mon Dec 1 15:40:42 EST 2008 

Cameron,

I think one group that is critical to OSGeo's success are the CTOs or  
Technology Managers of software companies -- especially those offering  
both software services and selling proprietary products.

Geospatial is a horizontal technology that is a commodity component in  
larger (often proprietary) software solutions.

These are the guys that can drive adoption and sustainability of OSGeo  
projects through the roof regardless of who else is using the  
technology. They can do so by offering something all projects can  
benefit from -- folks doing coding, testing, and documentation. They  
are also excellent candidates for sponsorship.

I'd suggest a marketing program that doesn't include a plan to attract  
these folks to adoption of OSGeo technologies within their software  
would be missing arguably the market that could do more for OSGeo than  
the others combined.

Dave




On 1-Dec-08, at 3:19 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

> Thanks Paul, Dave, Michael, Frank for raising these questions.
>
> Dave, re "Who are we targeting", I think that we want all, but OSGeo  
> should be targeting funding sources, ie decision makers. The rest  
> will follow.
>
> I want to see more Government tenders and similar projects being  
> allocated to companies which use open source components.
>
> To reach the decision makes for large contracts, Open Source needs  
> to be seen as creditable. And I think this will be achieved by  
> showing case studies of successful Open Source & Standards based  
> implementations, and for specific selling of these achievements  
> through avenues used by decision makers for feeling the market.
>
> I'm in agreement with Dave, LISAsoft has seen a minimal immediate  
> ROI from conferences. Presenting at conferences is buying mind-share  
> and is a long sales cycle. OSGeo can do conferences cheaper than  
> others by using our volunteer workforce (who are often at the  
> conference already), and crying poor non-profit status to get a free  
> stand.
> I think we do need to target conferences, but as Paul hints, we need  
> to limit the conferences we sponsor to only the high value  
> conferences.
>
> Other channels that OSGeo Marketing should focus on is:
> 1. Our website. This doesn't doesn't target users or decision makers  
> at the moment. We need to be more commercial in our approach. Jody  
> Garnett has review notes on how to improve this, and this is  
> something that I think is worth spending budget on.
>
> 2. Case Studies, and how to present them. (as already noted by a  
> number of blogs lately). No one has mentioned a webinar channel or  
> news feed yet.
>
> 3. Training material. And packaging this up with software. (We do  
> have a separate committee for this).
>
> 4. LiveDVD. Another channel for getting our software out there which  
> complements the Conferences.
>
>
> Dave McIlhagga wrote:
>> One other aspect to think of .. who are you primarily trying to  
>> reach. I see two primary groups -- and they would probably take two  
>> different strategies if you want to get to them both:
>>
>> 1. End Users - hard to get to in the traditional GIS space since  
>> from my experience most users of open source geospatial come from  
>> the IT domain.
>> 2. Software Developers - especially corporate interests who embed  
>> open source geo technologies into their service/product offerings  
>> -- this group can sometimes be found at geo events -- but also  
>> general IT events.
>>
>> These two groups are very distinct and require completely different  
>> messages -- but are probably both very valuable to attract as they  
>> are both instrumental to the ecosystem.
>>
>> Dave
>> www.dmsolutions.ca
>>
>>
>> On 1-Dec-08, at 12:21 PM, 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.
>>>
>>> -mpg
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: marketing-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:marketing-bounces at lists.osgeo.org 
>>> ] On Behalf Of Dave McIlhagga
>>> Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 6:01 AM
>>> To: Paul Ramsey
>>> Cc: OSGeo Marketing
>>> Subject: Re: [Marketing] Exhibition Pack
>>>
>>> It begs another question too ... is targeting geospatial events  
>>> really
>>> the best way to get to people? Corporately we've pretty much given  
>>> up
>>> on it as it just doens't translate into business. I'm not sure if  
>>> the
>>> same rule would apply to OSGeo since the marketing drivers are
>>> different -- but it might be worth trying to do some form of basic
>>> cost/benefit analysis of the best way forward.
>>>
>>>
>>> Dave
>>> www.dmsolutions.ca
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 30-Nov-08, at 10:01 AM, Paul Ramsey wrote:
>>>
>>>> 40 is absurdly huge. Why don't you troll back and actually look  
>>>> at the
>>>> email list for instances of people saying "we're doing this
>>>> conference..." if it's 20, I'll be surprised.
>>>>
>>>> P.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 3:25 AM, Cameron Shorter
>>>> <cameron.shorter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Thanks Tyler for putting numbers in.
>>>>> What we need to complete the budget is a quantity column.
>>>>> How many conference packs do we need to create (I reckon 1 per
>>>>> local group =
>>>>> 20)?
>>>>> And how many conferences do we support per year. Again, I reckon 2
>>>>> per local
>>>>> group per year = 40. Plugging these figures into to the budget and
>>>>> we don't
>>>>> leave much budget for anything else.
>>>>> Attached is a spreadsheet with a quick sketch at what I'm talking
>>>>> about.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo) wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Following from our last meeting and earlier discussions, there'd
>>>>>> been
>>>>>> consensus to focus marketing efforts on getting a few primary
>>>>>> pieces of
>>>>>> marketing material together.  With the intent of having a "pack"
>>>>>> of material
>>>>>> that could sent to (or downloaded and prepared by) someone  
>>>>>> wanting
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> represent OSGeo at an event.  Without addressing the issues of
>>>>>> who/what/where could get such a package, we've been focusing on
>>>>>> what it
>>>>>> might contain.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Detailed thoughts were hashed through in our last meeting.  I
>>>>>> threw some
>>>>>> cost estimates up into a table today.  Please have a look,  
>>>>>> suggest
>>>>>> revisions, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Exhibition_Pack#Cost_Summary
>>>>>>
>>>>>> After we a general idea of potential costs (either per  
>>>>>> component, or
>>>>>> overall), then we can plug them into our 2009 budget.   Following
>>>>>> that we
>>>>>> start talking about preparing the components, deciding how to
>>>>>> distribute
>>>>>> them, searching for sources, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tyler
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tyler Mitchell
>>>>>> Executive Director
>>>>>> Open Source Geospatial Foundation
>>>>>> tmitchell at osgeo.org
>>>>>> P: +1-250-277-1621
>>>>>> M: +1-250-303-1831
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>>>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Cameron Shorter
>>>>> Geospatial Systems Architect
>>>>> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
>>>>> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>>>>>
>>>>> Think Globally, Fix Locally
>>>>> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
>>>>> http://www.lisasoft.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Marketing mailing list
>>>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Marketing mailing list
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>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Marketing mailing list
>> Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
>
>
> -- 
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Systems Architect
> Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
> Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>

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