[Marketing] Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 15, Issue 6

[daniele.ocu ocu]

I am completely in favor of Chris' and Professor Ari's ideas and opinions
related to the fact that OSGeo should focus more on improving its web
presence. Thank you Chris and professor for your detailed and excellent
thoughts.

Not only it is the best way to measure efforts and investments in Marketing
through User logs, it can also be more effective than a number of offline
efforts.

I liked the example of OpenGeo not only because it is a beautiful website
but also because it is very user-friendly. I also agree that using a
language that is focused to specific groups and targets such as sponsors is
an excellent way to transmit an understandable message that is converted to
more sponsors, contributors, etc.

It is important nevertheless to be aware that not only these features are
important for a significant online presence. If you have a look at Alexa.com
and compare OSGeo and OpenGeo (as expected because OSGeo has a larger
community) OSGeo outperforms in terms of User traffic. What I want to say
here is that tools such as Alexa can be nice ways to measure our position in
relation to our stakeholders in the websphere.

So I suggest that whoever is interested to do comparisons and share them
here in the list. It would be interesting to know who are the stakeholders
according to the marketing committee.

Quite some time ago I had prepared a small presentation on a simple
structure for improving online presence. I did not update it unfortunately
but the ideas are still relevant i guess.

Have a look and ad your comments.

I created a link to it on the wiki:

http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Marketing_Discussions#Online_Presence

Kind Regards,

Daniele.

On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 2:47 PM, <marketing-request at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Send Marketing mailing list submissions to
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>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009 (Christopher Schmidt)
>   2. Re: Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009 (Cameron Shorter)
>   3. Re: Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009
>      (Christopher Schmidt)
>   4. Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 15, Issue 5 (daniele.ocu ocu)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 15:05:35 -0500
> From: Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
> Subject: [Marketing] Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009
> To: Ari Jolma <ari.jolma at tkk.fi>
> Cc: OSGeo Marketing <marketing at lists.osgeo.org>
> Message-ID: <20081207200535.GC30941 at metacarta.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Sun, Dec 07, 2008 at 06:38:12PM +0200, Ari Jolma wrote:
> > Chris,
> >
> > Very good observations. This should be brought to the attention of the
> > marketing committee, from which we are eagerly waiting for a marketing
> > plan with associated costs (i.e., how to spend the money we're expecting
> > to have). (I just did that by cc'ing to the marketing list)
> >
> > Tyler wrote somewhere that some say "Your Open Source Compass" is lame.
> > "We support the software that supports your geospatial operations"
> > sounds very good although it's a bit long for the logo.
>
> I don't mind "Your Open Source Compass" as a short slogan. Specifically,
> I think OSGeo's primary purpose as an organization is to help direct
> people to the projects that they should be using (under the OSGeo
> umbrella, primarily, but also other related projects). The facelift that
> I've mentioned here is targeted towards exactly that: a web presence
> that lets people know about OSGeo, and helps them find the proects they
> should be using.
>
> Taking people who are lost, and directing them, is a fine task to use a
> compass for. OSGeo should be that compass.
>
> That said, OSGeo's current positioning is not particularly well-suited
> towards this task, so there is a clear lack here that could be *why* the
> "Open Source Compass" slogan doesn't really fit well. It seems to me
> that fitting the Open Source Compass slogan better is an ideal task to
> attempt to achieve.
>
> > Regards,
> >
> > Ari
> >
> > Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:
> > >To Whom it May Concern,
> > >
> > >Recently, I was reviewing the Board's budget discussions for the Budget
> > >in 2009 in the mailing list archives, especially as they relate to
> > >possible expenditures for Marketing in 2009.
> > >
> > >I'll admit that I feel slightly confused as to what the goal of the
> > >marketing budget is. From what I'm reading, there is an expectation that
> > >marketing funding would be a significant portion of the spending from
> > >the foundation as a whole, and I'd like to understand how that money is
> > >or might be spent.
> > >
> > >Currently, I see evidence that some significant portion of the marketing
> > >budget in previous years was used for "Event support" -- buying booth
> > >space, primarily, or other similar events. Although I see the
> > >importance, in some cases, of attending events, I wonder if there might
> > >not be a more efficient way of marketing OSGeo with funds that may or
> > >may not be available. To me, it's not clear that event support really
> > >has the highest return on investment for OSGeo, even within the
> > >marketing world.
> > >
> > >Specifically, I think that one of the areas that OSGeo is doing poorest
> > >in marketing is in simply presenting a unified view targeted towards
> > >potential sponsors. OSGeo -- as a community -- has grown organically in
> > >a way that is both healthy and encouraging. However, OSGeo as a movement
> > >towards a well-known name is not doing particularly well. The key
> > >message/purpose of OSGeo -- "We support the software that supports your
> > >geospatial operations" -- is one that we have not put nearly enought
> > >effort into selling, in my opinion.
> > >
> > >One example of an organization which has taken the lead -- especially
> > >recently -- in rebranding itself, is the OpenGeo group (the Geospatial
> > >division of the Open Planning Project). The web presence of OpenGeo --
> > >http://opengeo.org/ -- is in a style that corporations feel immediatley
> > >at home with, and has much more 'gut appeal' to the types of
> > >organizations that OSGeo seems to be seeking as sponsors than the
> > >current OSGeo website does.
> > >
> > >This wasn't accomplished by creating a lot of booth materials --
> > >OpenGeo's total booth materials cost for FOSS4G must have been very
> > >minimal compared to even OSGeo's this year.
> > >
> > >The current OSGeo website is not a completely inadequate community site.
> > >It has some success in that regard. But OSGeo -- as an entity seeking
> > >sponsorship -- can't only be about building the community. It really
> > >needs to be seen as an organization which is supporting these Open
> > >Source projects to be truly successful.
> > >
> > >With that in mind, I would like to propose for your consideration the
> > >following:
> > >
> > >  In order to accomplish its goals of supporting the Open Source
> > >  projects that make up OSGeo, OSGeo should take on the task of
> > >  improving their brand by creating a strong web presence targeted
> > >  towards potential sponsors. Specifically, this web presence should be
> > >  seeking to identify other organizations with similar potential
> > >  targets, and mimic the successes of those organizations in
> > >  presentation of materials.
> > >
> > >  The materials being presented should include:
> > >    * A high level overview of OSGeo and what it is
> > >    * A high level overview of the projects that are currently supported
> > >      by OSGeo, targeted towards executive -- rather than
> > >      developer-oriented -- summary
> > >    * A high level overview of how OSGeo achieves its goals in
> > >      supporting these projects
> > >    * How organizations can help support OSGeo in the above task.
> > >
> > >  This web presence should exist in *addition* to the resources which
> > >  are currently used by the community.
> > >
> > >It's not clear to me if this effort should be pursued within the
> > >existing marketing community in OSGeo, or pursued by some other group
> > >already existing within OSGeo. It is clear to me that there has not been
> > >a lot of thought put into the current website from the perspective of
> > >someone with experience in marketing. This isn't a bad thing,
> > >neccesarily, but I think in order for OSGeo to continue to grow, this is
> > >going to become more and more of a problem.
> > >
> > >Clearly, this is not the sole marketing task for OSGeo: materials to be
> > >used at conferences should continue to be pursued. However, I think to
> > >some extent, OSGeo needs to help projects which help themselves beyond a
> > >certain point. OSgeo's job is to act as the starting point for people to
> > >get *to* the information they need about a project -- not a place to
> > >provide that information. Right now, probably due in part to the level
> > >of participation by the projects themselves in the OSGeo community,
> > >there is a blurry line here, and I think that's one of the things that
> > >should be changed.
> > >
> > >It's not entirely clear to me whether the OSGeo drupal website that
> > >currently exists is important to the community. It's possible it is, and
> > >that it could continue to exist in some form. However, I think that it
> > >is not sufficient as an executive overview of what OSGeo is, what it
> > >does, and what each of its proejcts does from the marketing perspective.
> > >It is clear to me that some projects are better at internal marketing
> > >that others -- OSGeo should take the first step for each of these
> > >projects within its own realm, and encourage projects to do their own
> > >work outside of that.
> > >
> > >We've built a great community. The explosion of local chapters is
> > >evidence of that. The desire to become an OSGeo project from projects
> > >currently not in incubation is also evidence of that. In order to
> > >continue to grow and succeed in supporting our projects, I think it's
> > >really time to seriously look at how to market OSGeo as an organization
> > >to executives with checkbooks, and I think an improved web presence is a
> > >key part of that task.
> > >
> > >Thank you for your consideration.
> > >
> > >Best Regards,
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Prof. Ari Jolma
> > Environmental Management Information Technology
> > Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
> > tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
> > Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi
> >
> >
>
> --
> Christopher Schmidt
> MetaCarta
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2008 09:33:20 +1100
> From: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Marketing] Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009
> To: Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
> Cc: OSGeo Marketing <marketing at lists.osgeo.org>
> Message-ID: <493C4F30.2030405 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Ari,
> I think you have made an accurate assessment of OSGeo's need to
> re-target our front-door web pages to be more commercially focused.
>
> I'm also encouraged to see someone challenging the comparative value of
> different marketing activities.
>
> The difficult part which I'm interested to hear your thoughts on are:
> * How are we going to resource a web page cleanup?
> * What will it cost? (So we can budget for it, and compare ROI from web
> pages vs presence at conferences)
> * Are there any metrics we can call upon which compare effectiveness of
> web marketing vs conference marketing?
>
> Christopher Schmidt wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 07, 2008 at 06:38:12PM +0200, Ari Jolma wrote:
> >
> >> Chris,
> >>
> >> Very good observations. This should be brought to the attention of the
> >> marketing committee, from which we are eagerly waiting for a marketing
> >> plan with associated costs (i.e., how to spend the money we're expecting
> >> to have). (I just did that by cc'ing to the marketing list)
> >>
> >> Tyler wrote somewhere that some say "Your Open Source Compass" is lame.
> >> "We support the software that supports your geospatial operations"
> >> sounds very good although it's a bit long for the logo.
> >>
> >
> > I don't mind "Your Open Source Compass" as a short slogan. Specifically,
> > I think OSGeo's primary purpose as an organization is to help direct
> > people to the projects that they should be using (under the OSGeo
> > umbrella, primarily, but also other related projects). The facelift that
> > I've mentioned here is targeted towards exactly that: a web presence
> > that lets people know about OSGeo, and helps them find the proects they
> > should be using.
> >
> > Taking people who are lost, and directing them, is a fine task to use a
> > compass for. OSGeo should be that compass.
> >
> > That said, OSGeo's current positioning is not particularly well-suited
> > towards this task, so there is a clear lack here that could be *why* the
> > "Open Source Compass" slogan doesn't really fit well. It seems to me
> > that fitting the Open Source Compass slogan better is an ideal task to
> > attempt to achieve.
> >
> >
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Ari
> >>
> >> Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:
> >>
> >>> To Whom it May Concern,
> >>>
> >>> Recently, I was reviewing the Board's budget discussions for the Budget
> >>> in 2009 in the mailing list archives, especially as they relate to
> >>> possible expenditures for Marketing in 2009.
> >>>
> >>> I'll admit that I feel slightly confused as to what the goal of the
> >>> marketing budget is. From what I'm reading, there is an expectation
> that
> >>> marketing funding would be a significant portion of the spending from
> >>> the foundation as a whole, and I'd like to understand how that money is
> >>> or might be spent.
> >>>
> >>> Currently, I see evidence that some significant portion of the
> marketing
> >>> budget in previous years was used for "Event support" -- buying booth
> >>> space, primarily, or other similar events. Although I see the
> >>> importance, in some cases, of attending events, I wonder if there might
> >>> not be a more efficient way of marketing OSGeo with funds that may or
> >>> may not be available. To me, it's not clear that event support really
> >>> has the highest return on investment for OSGeo, even within the
> >>> marketing world.
> >>>
> >>> Specifically, I think that one of the areas that OSGeo is doing poorest
> >>> in marketing is in simply presenting a unified view targeted towards
> >>> potential sponsors. OSGeo -- as a community -- has grown organically in
> >>> a way that is both healthy and encouraging. However, OSGeo as a
> movement
> >>> towards a well-known name is not doing particularly well. The key
> >>> message/purpose of OSGeo -- "We support the software that supports your
> >>> geospatial operations" -- is one that we have not put nearly enought
> >>> effort into selling, in my opinion.
> >>>
> >>> One example of an organization which has taken the lead -- especially
> >>> recently -- in rebranding itself, is the OpenGeo group (the Geospatial
> >>> division of the Open Planning Project). The web presence of OpenGeo --
> >>> http://opengeo.org/ -- is in a style that corporations feel
> immediatley
> >>> at home with, and has much more 'gut appeal' to the types of
> >>> organizations that OSGeo seems to be seeking as sponsors than the
> >>> current OSGeo website does.
> >>>
> >>> This wasn't accomplished by creating a lot of booth materials --
> >>> OpenGeo's total booth materials cost for FOSS4G must have been very
> >>> minimal compared to even OSGeo's this year.
> >>>
> >>> The current OSGeo website is not a completely inadequate community
> site.
> >>> It has some success in that regard. But OSGeo -- as an entity seeking
> >>> sponsorship -- can't only be about building the community. It really
> >>> needs to be seen as an organization which is supporting these Open
> >>> Source projects to be truly successful.
> >>>
> >>> With that in mind, I would like to propose for your consideration the
> >>> following:
> >>>
> >>>  In order to accomplish its goals of supporting the Open Source
> >>>  projects that make up OSGeo, OSGeo should take on the task of
> >>>  improving their brand by creating a strong web presence targeted
> >>>  towards potential sponsors. Specifically, this web presence should be
> >>>  seeking to identify other organizations with similar potential
> >>>  targets, and mimic the successes of those organizations in
> >>>  presentation of materials.
> >>>
> >>>  The materials being presented should include:
> >>>    * A high level overview of OSGeo and what it is
> >>>    * A high level overview of the projects that are currently supported
> >>>      by OSGeo, targeted towards executive -- rather than
> >>>      developer-oriented -- summary
> >>>    * A high level overview of how OSGeo achieves its goals in
> >>>      supporting these projects
> >>>    * How organizations can help support OSGeo in the above task.
> >>>
> >>>  This web presence should exist in *addition* to the resources which
> >>>  are currently used by the community.
> >>>
> >>> It's not clear to me if this effort should be pursued within the
> >>> existing marketing community in OSGeo, or pursued by some other group
> >>> already existing within OSGeo. It is clear to me that there has not
> been
> >>> a lot of thought put into the current website from the perspective of
> >>> someone with experience in marketing. This isn't a bad thing,
> >>> neccesarily, but I think in order for OSGeo to continue to grow, this
> is
> >>> going to become more and more of a problem.
> >>>
> >>> Clearly, this is not the sole marketing task for OSGeo: materials to be
> >>> used at conferences should continue to be pursued. However, I think to
> >>> some extent, OSGeo needs to help projects which help themselves beyond
> a
> >>> certain point. OSgeo's job is to act as the starting point for people
> to
> >>> get *to* the information they need about a project -- not a place to
> >>> provide that information. Right now, probably due in part to the level
> >>> of participation by the projects themselves in the OSGeo community,
> >>> there is a blurry line here, and I think that's one of the things that
> >>> should be changed.
> >>>
> >>> It's not entirely clear to me whether the OSGeo drupal website that
> >>> currently exists is important to the community. It's possible it is,
> and
> >>> that it could continue to exist in some form. However, I think that it
> >>> is not sufficient as an executive overview of what OSGeo is, what it
> >>> does, and what each of its proejcts does from the marketing
> perspective.
> >>> It is clear to me that some projects are better at internal marketing
> >>> that others -- OSGeo should take the first step for each of these
> >>> projects within its own realm, and encourage projects to do their own
> >>> work outside of that.
> >>>
> >>> We've built a great community. The explosion of local chapters is
> >>> evidence of that. The desire to become an OSGeo project from projects
> >>> currently not in incubation is also evidence of that. In order to
> >>> continue to grow and succeed in supporting our projects, I think it's
> >>> really time to seriously look at how to market OSGeo as an organization
> >>> to executives with checkbooks, and I think an improved web presence is
> a
> >>> key part of that task.
> >>>
> >>> Thank you for your consideration.
> >>>
> >>> Best Regards,
> >>>
> >>>
> >> --
> >> Prof. Ari Jolma
> >> Environmental Management Information Technology
> >> Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
> >> tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
> >> Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> 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
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2008 19:02:31 -0500
> From: Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
> Subject: Re: [Marketing] Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009
> To: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> Cc: OSGeo Marketing <marketing at lists.osgeo.org>
> Message-ID: <20081208000231.GD30941 at metacarta.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 09:33:20AM +1100, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> > Ari,
> > I think you have made an accurate assessment of OSGeo's need to
> > re-target our front-door web pages to be more commercially focused.
>
> For the record, almost all of the email Ari forwarded was written by me:
> the original was sent to the board list.
>
>  http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2008-December/002799.html
>
> > The difficult part which I'm interested to hear your thoughts on are:
> > * How are we going to resource a web page cleanup?
>
> To be frank, I don't see anyone within OSGeo who is able to make this
> type of revamp happen based on the existing skillsets we have so far
> demonstrated. Specifically, I'm not aware of anyone with formal work
> experience in a marketing firm that I see regularly taking on website
> tasks.
>
> I've worked in a marketing company long enough to know that I know
> nothing, but no long enough to know more.
>
> If I were to take this on as a task, my approach would be to seek out
> marketing organizations with web experience, and request that they
> provide a suggestion for how to achieve our goals. Of course, our goals
> are only written in a single email by one person, which is clearly
> insufficient :) Once we have goals -- goals like "Create website content
> which does $foo", etc. -- we can more seriously attack the problem, but
> I can't say that OSGeo will have the resources to tackle this internally
> based on what I've seen so far.
>
> > * What will it cost? (So we can budget for it, and compare ROI from web
> > pages vs presence at conferences)
>
> Again, I'd say that this would be tied to the above -- it would need a
> better description/agreement on what needs to be done, followed by an
> estimate from an organization familiar with these types of tasks.
>
> > * Are there any metrics we can call upon which compare effectiveness of
> > web marketing vs conference marketing?
>
> I'm not aware of any. However, we do have some experience with
> conference marketing -- do we have any metrics for measuring that on its
> own?
>
> Regards,
> --
> Christopher Schmidt
> MetaCarta
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2008 14:47:13 +0900
> From: "daniele.ocu ocu" <daniele.ocu at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Marketing] Re: Marketing Digest, Vol 15, Issue 5
> To: marketing at lists.osgeo.org
> Message-ID:
>        <df565c8a0812072147m38703a7fq31087bd399b9eef at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I am completely in favor of Professor Ari's ideas and opinions related to
> the fact that OSGeo should* focus more on improving its web presence*.
> Thank
> you professor for your detailed and excellent thoughts.
>
> Not only it is the* best way to* *measure* efforts and investments in
> Marketing through User logs, it can also be more effective than a number of
> offline efforts.
>
> I liked the example of OpenGeo not only because it is a *beautiful
> website*but also because it is very
> *user-friendly*. I also agree that using a language that is focused to
> specific groups and targets such as sponsors is an excellent way to
> transmit
> an understandable message that is *converted to more sponsors,
> contributors,
> etc*.
>
> It is important nevertheless to be aware that not only these features are
> important for a significant online presence. If you have a look at
> Alexa.com
> and compare OSGeo and OpenGeo (as expected because OSGeo has a larger
> community) OSGeo outperforms in terms of User traffic. What I want to say
> here is that tools such as Alexa can be nice ways to measure our position
> in
> relation to our stakeholders in the websphere.
>
> So I suggest that whoever is interested to* do comparisons* and *share them
> here in the lis*t. It would be interesting to know who are the stakeholders
> according to the marketing committee.
>
> Quite some time ago I had prepared a small presentation on a simple
> structure for improving online presence. I did not update it unfortunately
> but the ideas are still relevant i guess. *
>
> Have a look and ad your comments.*
>
> I created a link<
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Marketing_Discussions#Online_Presence>to
> it on the wiki:
>
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/OSGeo_Marketing_Discussions#Online_Presence
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Daniele.
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 2:00 AM, <marketing-request at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
> > Send Marketing mailing list submissions to
> >        marketing at lists.osgeo.org
> >
> > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> >        http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> >        marketing-request at lists.osgeo.org
> >
> > You can reach the person managing the list at
> >        marketing-owner at lists.osgeo.org
> >
> > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> > than "Re: Contents of Marketing digest..."
> >
> >
> > Today's Topics:
> >
> >   1. Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009 (Ari Jolma)
> >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > Message: 1
> > Date: Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:38:12 +0200
> > From: Ari Jolma <ari.jolma at tkk.fi>
> > Subject: [Marketing] Re: [Board] Marketing Costs/Budget in 2009
> > To: Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
> > Cc: OSGeo Marketing <marketing at lists.osgeo.org>, board at lists.osgeo.org
> > Message-ID: <493BFBF4.5030106 at tkk.fi>
> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> > Chris,
> >
> > Very good observations. This should be brought to the attention of the
> > marketing committee, from which we are eagerly waiting for a marketing
> > plan with associated costs (i.e., how to spend the money we're expecting
> > to have). (I just did that by cc'ing to the marketing list)
> >
> > Tyler wrote somewhere that some say "Your Open Source Compass" is lame.
> > "We support the software that supports your geospatial operations"
> > sounds very good although it's a bit long for the logo.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Ari
> >
> > Christopher Schmidt kirjoitti:
> > > To Whom it May Concern,
> > >
> > > Recently, I was reviewing the Board's budget discussions for the Budget
> > > in 2009 in the mailing list archives, especially as they relate to
> > > possible expenditures for Marketing in 2009.
> > >
> > > I'll admit that I feel slightly confused as to what the goal of the
> > > marketing budget is. From what I'm reading, there is an expectation
> that
> > > marketing funding would be a significant portion of the spending from
> > > the foundation as a whole, and I'd like to understand how that money is
> > > or might be spent.
> > >
> > > Currently, I see evidence that some significant portion of the
> marketing
> > > budget in previous years was used for "Event support" -- buying booth
> > > space, primarily, or other similar events. Although I see the
> > > importance, in some cases, of attending events, I wonder if there might
> > > not be a more efficient way of marketing OSGeo with funds that may or
> > > may not be available. To me, it's not clear that event support really
> > > has the highest return on investment for OSGeo, even within the
> > > marketing world.
> > >
> > > Specifically, I think that one of the areas that OSGeo is doing poorest
> > > in marketing is in simply presenting a unified view targeted towards
> > > potential sponsors. OSGeo -- as a community -- has grown organically in
> > > a way that is both healthy and encouraging. However, OSGeo as a
> movement
> > > towards a well-known name is not doing particularly well. The key
> > > message/purpose of OSGeo -- "We support the software that supports your
> > > geospatial operations" -- is one that we have not put nearly enought
> > > effort into selling, in my opinion.
> > >
> > > One example of an organization which has taken the lead -- especially
> > > recently -- in rebranding itself, is the OpenGeo group (the Geospatial
> > > division of the Open Planning Project). The web presence of OpenGeo --
> > > http://opengeo.org/ -- is in a style that corporations feel
> immediatley
> > > at home with, and has much more 'gut appeal' to the types of
> > > organizations that OSGeo seems to be seeking as sponsors than the
> > > current OSGeo website does.
> > >
> > > This wasn't accomplished by creating a lot of booth materials --
> > > OpenGeo's total booth materials cost for FOSS4G must have been very
> > > minimal compared to even OSGeo's this year.
> > >
> > > The current OSGeo website is not a completely inadequate community
> site.
> > > It has some success in that regard. But OSGeo -- as an entity seeking
> > > sponsorship -- can't only be about building the community. It really
> > > needs to be seen as an organization which is supporting these Open
> > > Source projects to be truly successful.
> > >
> > > With that in mind, I would like to propose for your consideration the
> > > following:
> > >
> > >   In order to accomplish its goals of supporting the Open Source
> > >   projects that make up OSGeo, OSGeo should take on the task of
> > >   improving their brand by creating a strong web presence targeted
> > >   towards potential sponsors. Specifically, this web presence should be
> > >   seeking to identify other organizations with similar potential
> > >   targets, and mimic the successes of those organizations in
> > >   presentation of materials.
> > >
> > >   The materials being presented should include:
> > >     * A high level overview of OSGeo and what it is
> > >     * A high level overview of the projects that are currently
> supported
> > >       by OSGeo, targeted towards executive -- rather than
> > >       developer-oriented -- summary
> > >     * A high level overview of how OSGeo achieves its goals in
> > >       supporting these projects
> > >     * How organizations can help support OSGeo in the above task.
> > >
> > >   This web presence should exist in *addition* to the resources which
> > >   are currently used by the community.
> > >
> > > It's not clear to me if this effort should be pursued within the
> > > existing marketing community in OSGeo, or pursued by some other group
> > > already existing within OSGeo. It is clear to me that there has not
> been
> > > a lot of thought put into the current website from the perspective of
> > > someone with experience in marketing. This isn't a bad thing,
> > > neccesarily, but I think in order for OSGeo to continue to grow, this
> is
> > > going to become more and more of a problem.
> > >
> > > Clearly, this is not the sole marketing task for OSGeo: materials to be
> > > used at conferences should continue to be pursued. However, I think to
> > > some extent, OSGeo needs to help projects which help themselves beyond
> a
> > > certain point. OSgeo's job is to act as the starting point for people
> to
> > > get *to* the information they need about a project -- not a place to
> > > provide that information. Right now, probably due in part to the level
> > > of participation by the projects themselves in the OSGeo community,
> > > there is a blurry line here, and I think that's one of the things that
> > > should be changed.
> > >
> > > It's not entirely clear to me whether the OSGeo drupal website that
> > > currently exists is important to the community. It's possible it is,
> and
> > > that it could continue to exist in some form. However, I think that it
> > > is not sufficient as an executive overview of what OSGeo is, what it
> > > does, and what each of its proejcts does from the marketing
> perspective.
> > > It is clear to me that some projects are better at internal marketing
> > > that others -- OSGeo should take the first step for each of these
> > > projects within its own realm, and encourage projects to do their own
> > > work outside of that.
> > >
> > > We've built a great community. The explosion of local chapters is
> > > evidence of that. The desire to become an OSGeo project from projects
> > > currently not in incubation is also evidence of that. In order to
> > > continue to grow and succeed in supporting our projects, I think it's
> > > really time to seriously look at how to market OSGeo as an organization
> > > to executives with checkbooks, and I think an improved web presence is
> a
> > > key part of that task.
> > >
> > > Thank you for your consideration.
> > >
> > > Best Regards,
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Prof. Ari Jolma
> > Environmental Management Information Technology
> > Teknillinen Korkeakoulu / Helsinki University of Technology
> > tel: +358 9 4511 address: POBox 5300, 02015 TKK, Finland
> > Email: ari.jolma at tkk.fi URL: http://geoinformatics.tkk.fi
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Marketing mailing list
> > Marketing at lists.osgeo.org
> > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/marketing
> >
> >
> > End of Marketing Digest, Vol 15, Issue 5
> > ****************************************
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Researcher @ Osaka City University
> Graduate School for Creative Cities
> http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends
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>



-- 
Researcher @ Osaka City University
Graduate School for Creative Cities
http://gisws.media.osaka-cu.ac.jp/gistrends
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