Fwd: F13 goals and marketing objectives...

[Paul W. Frields]

Robyn Bergeron originally wrote:
> Are there specific overall goals for F13 posted / written down / being
> discussed? Or is this something being discussed at fudcon?  The only
> reference I could find was in a sticksterblogpost
> (http://marilyn.frields.org:8080/~paul/wordpress/?p=2848).

The blog post in question talks about a specific facet of the
distribution, but not the Project overall or marketing in any sense.

> The reason I ask is because...it would be ideal to really tie what we
> are doing to the higher goals of Fedora.  Not necessarily doing
> one-off projects / tasks - although those certainly are awesome too,
> especially if we discover that they are super valuable or
> well-received - but more really ensuring that we are coming up with
> ideas / tasks that assist in reaching F13 goals.
> 
> Of course, some of these are fairly simple; I'd assume that "getting
> F13 out the door by XYZ date" is a goal of sorts, and the
> straightforward marketing work we do - one-page release notes,
> in-depth features, etc. ties in with that.  But there are, I'd hope,
> some higher, not entirely black-and-white goals - perhaps things like
> "increasing user base," or something similar - where we should be
> picking tasks to help drive us on the big, happy road towards that end
> goal.

We are always trying to increase the size of our contributor
community, by providing any interested person (often a user) the tools
and knowledge needed to join, find a team and tasks that align with
his or her interests, and produce a useful result that gives that
person a sense of accomplishment and connection.

The Marketing team is particularly bi-directional in its pursuit of
that goal.  In one sense, Marketing should produce general information
or roadmap (i.e. knowledge) and ensure that effectively gets into the
hands of those potential contributors.  Scaling outward from the
Fedora Project, so to speak.  In another sense, Marketing, just like
any other Fedora Project component, should do its best to provide a
clear set of specific tasks and processes so that people interested in
doing marketing work can get involved in the team -- scaling outward,
*inside* the Fedora Project.

> So as we drill down towards a final task list, I think (now, where'd I
> put my soapbox? :D) that it would be great to have those goals out
> there - if we have them - to help us prioritize what we, as a
> marketing team, would like to do.  Because while we seem to have
> endless ideas, unfortunately, we do not have infinite time and other
> resources (money, caffeine, and so forth) - and I would love to see
> the awesome brainpower and resources we do have be put to the most
> effective use.
> 
> And if there aren't goals out there yet - are they forthcoming? :)

When it comes to Marketing, I think with each release we should be:

* Improving our ability to produce the comprehensive set of materials
  used for release marketing -- whether that means producing something
  additional, like the one-page release notes, or reducing chaff and
  avoiding duplication

* Building and documenting (!) a process by which we efficiently get
  marketing material in the hands of all FOSS-interested media outlets
  with a minimum of confusion

For Fedora 13, the biggest and most obvious goals for Marketing and
tying into Fedora overall that I can see are:

* Getting Fedora Insight -- that is, the Zikula instance where we'll
  start to centralize and showcase marketing material, documentation,
  news, and media -- up and running

* Cross-training a number of individuals on the team to provide the
  necessary support for administering the Zikula system, avoiding
  SPoF's... ensuring that as leadership changes in Marketing over
  time, which is natural and expected, we have enough informed people
  to review, stage and publish material

* Improve cross-team communication and participation between
  Marketing, Docs, and QA so that release docs are as timely as
  possible, and that we are highlighting prominent improvements and
  changes in a Fedora release

* Highlighting the superior engineering in Fedora, which is something
  I think we don't always call out as well as we could... there are a
  ton of amazingly smart and experienced people working in the Fedora
  community, and the work of that large and technically savvy group
  ensures Fedora continues to make good decisions about technologies
  and approaches.  We don't always get it 100% right off the bat, but
  the good judgment of these folks means we usually steer clear of
  Band-Aid approaches that would bite us (or our users) later.

* Finding a sustainable rate for producing interesting material
  throughout a release cycle, to smooth out (somewhat) the
  peaks-and-troughs graph of workload that occurs over a release
  cycle.  This is a pretty tough one to do in one cycle, and I suspect
  we will learn it over iterations, much as we've done with many other
  processes, e.g. the release schedule.

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