Comment follow-up?

[Paul W. Frields]

On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 08:22:21AM -0500, Jack Aboutboul wrote:
> Paul W. Frields wrote:
>> * How should that process work in a way that guarantees transparency
>>   and encourages collaboration and scalability?  (In many cases, there
>>   will be a pool of answers that will take care of many
>>   questions/comments.)
>>   
> Do you think we should really rely on handing people canned responses?   
> Also, to what extent?  The problem as I see it is people see the canned  
> responses in the press and they think "hrm, what they cant come up with  
> something else?"  What are your thoughts?

It's been quite an eye-opener for me to see how often journalists have
the same basic questions.  Many of these questions have answers we in
the Fedora community take for granted.  Explaining them consistently
(i.e. the same way every time) makes for a consistent overall press
effort, and is definitely a good thing.

There is a risk that comes along with any team marketing effort where
people do not coordinate the message ahead of time -- the risk of
diluting or undercutting the message you're trying to send.  Having
answers or key talking points written down somewhere easy to access
can help cut that risk considerably.

>> This is one of the reasons I was encouraging people on the Marketing
>> team to engage on the questions from Neowin.  This team can develop a
>> slate of ready materials for answers to those kinds of questions.  A
>> team effort means we can cover more ground.
>>   
> A team effort does mean we can cover more ground, but might also  
> requires more overhead, right?.  For example, you always want to speak  
> with once voice, and often times, when you put together a team on  
> something like this, certain people will disagree on certain points.  At  
> what point do you say that the time requirement to establishing a  
> concurring statement amongst all parties outweighs the benefit of having  
> a team effort?

We haven't found that inflection point yet, I don't think, because
we've never actually tried doing press responses as a team effort.
The payoff comes if, as requests come in, we're able to handle them
efficiently and consistently.

In this particular case, people here in the Marketing team have
*asked* to be part of the process, so I'm trying to include them in a
meaningful and fulfilling way.  We can put as much effort into this as
is desirable to allow collaboration and teamwork to happen.  If people
decide they do not wish to spend time on this activity, there's
nothing wrong with letting it wither, and then that occurrence would
be a factor in any future efforts to this end.

> Also, out of curiosity of process, just exactly how does Red Hat's  
> PR/Marketing team manage things like this?

That's probably something I would leave to the actual Red Hat folks to
answer fully to whatever extent with which they're comfortable, but in
the past it's been done through meetings between the FPL, our Red Hat
PR agent, and sometimes a few other key people in Marketing and/or
Fedora.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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