[Marketing] just some thoughts

[Dave McIlhagga]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for the info.

On 10-Dec-08, at 9:02 PM, Michael P. Gerlek wrote:

> * For the developer folks, target the existing GIS developer  
> community rather than the non-geo open source crowd.  Provide  
> sufficient project descriptions, road-mapping, and examples to show  
> them that they can use our stuff today, on the projects they are  
> already undertaking.  And do it almost exclusively via the website,  
> blogs, magazine articles, etc; you won't reach the developer types  
> as well at conferences.  Don't stress about trying to reach the  
> existing non-geo open source crowd: they are the most likely ones to  
> find out about us on their own, via blogs and word-of-mouth and  
> such, so we need not specifically go after them; the developer- 
> oriented content on the website we build for the traditional geo  
> developers will be sufficient for them.

On this note - I respectfully completely disagree. :)

 From what I've seen -- I see two key trends that fly in the face of  
this:

1. For the geo folks -- it's a tough challenge to get past the early  
adopters with open source. The reason is these folks are already  
dealing with at least one of the traditional vendors, and have comfort  
in that relationship. Overcoming direct business relationships is a  
really tough hurdle for businesses let alone an open source foundation  
-- especially when there are much more fruitful areas to focus. See 2.

2. For the IT folks -- the challenge here is that Geospatial is  
different and new for them, that is their barrier to entry. Without  
helpful information to guide them along the way -- they'll look  
elsewhere for that helping hand. If you really want to find a whole  
whack of people knocking down your door -- showcase the way that IT  
folks can, and in particular open source folks can incorporate  
geospatial in their products and solutions. Plan a strategy to work  
closely with other open source groups to highlight relevant geospatial  
open source technologies to these particular technologies. If you do  
that -- my guess is you'll get 100x the benefit of focussing on  
geospatial events.

my 2 cents ...

Dave