[kde-promo] Introductions

Hi,

I'd like to introduce myself to this list:

My name's Steven Giacomelli and I'm a fourth year marketing student at 
the University of Ottawa (One more semester and I'll graduate with my 
Honors) -- I live in Ottawa, Ontario Canada and speak/write/read english 
well but i speak/read/write french with much to be desired.

I have a number of years of experience with software development -- 
mostly in dos, windows and particularly in web application development 
-- though I'm a recent Linux convert and have opened my eyes to open 
source only recently.

I have experience marketing web-applications, the XCAST2 product which I 
developed in part, has had some, but limited, success in the market 
generally - has been used by the US Coast Guard, International Paper, 
Autodesk, Shell Oil International, Fujitsu, and some other major 
organizations.

I would like to get involved actively in promoting KDE -- I've recently 
started using it and i find it is great software

Steven Giacomelli
Email: steve <at> orplex.com
Cell: 613-324-2105

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Marketing Plan

Hey,

I'm new to this -- has there been a marketing plan developed for KDE?

What are the talking points for promotion / brand image ?

Has there been an effort to develop resources to coordinate 
communications in an integrated fashion? Such for advertising, public 
relations, media relations etc?

Steven Giacomelli

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Re: [kde-promo] Marketing Plan

Alle 21:42, venerdì 3 dicembre 2004, Steven Giacomelli ha scritto:
> Hey,
>
> I'm new to this -- has there been a marketing plan developed for KDE?
>
> What are the talking points for promotion / brand image ?
>
> Has there been an effort to develop resources to coordinate
> communications in an integrated fashion? Such for advertising, public
> relations, media relations etc?
>
> Steven Giacomelli
>
Well KDE is not a marketing product. IMHO the first thing is to learn using 
KDE. Using it a lot. Become part of the community translating it, taking a 
look at the source code, fixing some bug, workin with a KDE group as could be 
usability group or others. To be subscribed to this and others KDE mailing 
lists and then present it where you can after you know how it works. KDE is 
promoted around the world for special days like could be the Linux Tag in 
German, the Linux Expo in all the country, Linux Day in Italy and also for 
the KDE developers meeting at the end of August or other event that are on 
the KDE Event page or that other KDE developers talk about here or in other 
lists. Here you can found coordination and some hints. :D
Gianni
--

-- 
A KDE Italian translator
Slackware GNU/Linux current version - kernel 2.6.9

Re: Marketing Plan

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SWOT Analysis

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Re: [kde-promo] Marketing Plan

On Friday 03 December 2004 21:42, Steven Giacomelli wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'm new to this -- has there been a marketing plan developed for KDE?

No there hasn't.

> What are the talking points for promotion / brand image ?
>
> Has there been an effort to develop resources to coordinate
> communications in an integrated fashion? Such for advertising, public
> relations, media relations etc?

There is http://events.kde.org which supports promotional activities. What we 
miss is someone who really drives things and makes things happen. Several 
people have been active in the past but they tend to get consumed by other 
activities.

If you would like to be active in this area there are a few things you need to 
keep in mind:

*) Watch out for endless discussions on mailinglists, talk is cheap, try to 
find people that actually do things as opposed to those that only talk (I am 
useless, I only talk, but Fabrice does good work)

*) Things in KDE happen because someone makes them happen, you can be that 
someone. Don't wait for some mysterious KDE entity to take care of something, 
it doesn't exists.

*) Use your effort wisely. Across countries we have KDE teams active that do a 
very good job promoting KDE (nl, de and fr come to mind) improving 
cooperation there and a better sharing of resources (e.g. articles, papers, 
promo material etc.) can help a lot already. ( http://events.kde.org is there 
to support that, it needs someone to actively maintain it )

*) Funding: we have limited funds available in KDE e.V. for promotional 
activities. We prefer to spend it on tangible things and to reimburse travel 
cost for people that give talks about KDE if the event itself doesn't 
reimburse the speaker or that work in booths on conferences. Ask Mirko for 
approval before hand, you will be reimbursed afterwards when you send in the 
receipts. Mirko Boehm <mirko <at> hackerbuero.org>

*) A good project to work on is press communication surrounding KDE 3.4. 
Stephan Kulow <coolo <at> kde.org> coordinates the release. The planning can be 
found on 
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.4-release-plan.html
New features for KDE 3.4 are listed on 
http://developer.kde.org/development-versions/kde-3.4-features.html as part 
of an ongoing process. A good approach could be to go from there and contact 
developers and ask them about things they have done or plan to do for KDE 3.4 
Writing articles about that with sceenshots is always a good idea. Developers 
suck at writing stories but tend to be good in answering questions. You can 
ask them questions and write the stories. Screenshots are everything, make 
sure they look amazing. People don't care if you have created world peace if 
your screenshots don't look good.

*) Publishing articles on http://dot.kde.org is simple, just go to 
http://dot.kde.org/addPostingForm (or click "contribute" on the main page)

Cheers,
Waldo
--

-- 
bastian <at> kde.org   |   Free Novell Linux Desktop 9 Evaluation Download
bastian <at> suse.com  |   http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/eval.html

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Re: [kde-promo] SWOT Analysis

On Friday 03 December 2004 22:39, Steven Giacomelli wrote:
> The first part to developing a marketing plan is to start with a SWOT
> Analysis of the KDE product(s):
>
> That is the:
>
>     * *S*trengths
>     * *W*eaknesses
>     * *O*pportunities
>     * *T*hreats
>
> Once this is developed -- it is possible to indentify competitive
> advantages of the product and a strategic plan can then be built upon that.
>
> I'm going to compile a lists of Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and
> Threats on kde-promo.blogspot.com

Great, your effort is much appreciated.

Cheers,
Waldo
--

-- 
bastian <at> kde.org   |   Free Novell Linux Desktop 9 Evaluation Download
bastian <at> suse.com  |   http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/eval.html

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Re: [kde-promo] Marketing Plan

On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 09:12:29PM +0000, Steven Giacomelli wrote:
> I'm confused --
> 
> I understand that KDE is open source etc., but it is still a software 
> product that has to be promoted -- and to effectively promote any 
> product -- branding *is* important.

Indeed.  And sometimes it's actually quite difficult to promote Open Source,
because the barriers in some places are set for commercial software only,
or shareware, at the least.

For example, I wanted to submit my (admittedly non-KDE) program "Tux Paint,"
which runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and BeOS to some download/news websites.

"Download.com" requires a $79.00 payment to even be considered!
(And, ironically, they have a little pop-up window on their site that
calculates your ROI: Return on Investment.  A little JavaScript code that
tells you how much you'll profit, after the $79, based on your estimated
downloads per month.  Guess what, no matter what I entered, my ROI was ALWAYS
$-79! >:^(  Idiots!)

TUCOWS lists Tux Paint in their Linux and BeOS sections.  Although I submitted
it to all relevant sections (including Windows and MacOS), it doesn't
appear in their Windows section...  a 1.5yr old version appears in their
Linux section.  The latest version appeared in their BeOS section within days
of my submitting it.  What gives!? >:^(

Of course, something like KDE is a bit different.  It's more than one
simple app for a particular market, it's an entire environment.  But, still,
for it to be adopted more widely, it does need some sort of promotion.

> And its important to make available resources to help others promote the 
> product so that it is promoted in a consistent and effective manner.

I totally agree.

> Promoting something without a plan is the same as developing software 
> without a plan -- you cant do it effectively.

There are many Linux news outlets which are always happy to accept
articles and do interviews.  That's a starting point.  From there, regional
computer magazines could be good (especially if there's a local group working
on parts of KDE), since they probably appreciate content... especially if
it's free.  (I've done articles on Mozilla and OpenOffice.org for a
Sacramento, California region magazine.  I sadly didn't get much feedback,
but it obviously got read by SOME people, and hopefully made an impact.
And it cost me nothing but time, though I of course didn't earn anything
for doing it ;^) )

Anyway, just my perspective.. kind of rambling, sorry.  I need to get back
to work now that my lunch break's over! ;)

-bill!

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Re: SWOT Analysis

On December 3, 2004 15:00, Waldo Bastian wrote:
> Great, your effort is much appreciated.

<aol>me too!</aol>

if you want to bounce ideas or questions off of someone, i'm often on the 
#freenode irc network (nick: aseigo) as well as on various IM networks and am 
willing to listen / answer questions to the best of my abilities. i'm certain 
there are others who would do so as well (though i won't speak for them, they 
can do so themselves =) ...

from your original email:

> What are the talking points for promotion / brand image ?

while not a marketing package, there has been work done by two of our artists 
(Ken Wiemer and Thorsten Rhan) on a corportate/community identity guidelines 
for KDE that covers art style/parameters, colours, claims (in verbage), etc. 
this should be useful to any efforts towards building a branding/marketing 
strategy.

--

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
Society is Geometric

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Re: Marketing Plan

Hello Steven,

On Friday 03 Dec 2004 20:42, Steven Giacomelli wrote:
> I'm new to this -- has there been a marketing plan developed for KDE?
>
> What are the talking points for promotion / brand image ?
>
> Has there been an effort to develop resources to coordinate
> communications in an integrated fashion? Such for advertising, public
> relations, media relations etc?

In addition to what Waldo and Aaron said...

At the KDE conference this year - aKademy - Fabrice Mous, Michael Renner and 
myself put together quite a few materials and ideas for a KDE press office, 
or press group. I'm sure he'll chime in, but Fab is an excellent person to 
talk about this.

We also have some documentation on promotion and media work written by Carlos 
Leonhard Woelz and myself for the Quality Team project. You're welcome to add 
to it or amend them:
http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtopromo.php
http://quality.kde.org/develop/howto/howtomedia.php

What KDE could do with is a team of people who can handle the promotion / 
press side of the project (and I don't just mean people to turn up and work 
at events). But that requires a lot of time and knowledge, both about KDE and 
that kind of work. So far there are only a handful of volunteers with limited 
time.

So maybe you could try and adapt your SWOT analysis to take into account the 
various activities, documentation and people already "in place" 

Good luck!

Regards,
Tom

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