[ubuntu-marketing] Reviving the Marketing Team (yet again!) with a focus on simple activism

[John Vilsack]

This is largely a problem that exists not only with Ubuntu, but with the
Open Source Movement in general.
Last time this conversation came up, there was a large contingent of people
we wished to see a core group of a marketing team come to fruition.
 Unfortunately, several of the more active members of the community tended
to be the most vocal opponents, and threatened to abandon the project
altogether if such a "tyranny" were created.  I opted to back down because
the moderators in IRC proclaimed that they could lead such a charge without
any sort of core marketing group.  The lack of results are more than enough
evidence of their progress.

The marketing community for Ubuntu is a reflection of what the Development
cycle would look like if there wasn't a Core Development Team.  Without
direction, there can be no progress.  Marketing from a community standpoint
will continue to be dominated by the few who object to any sort of structure
and the message will continue to be lost because the message itself has no
clear delineation.

It saddens me because Ubuntu is a dominant product that could be so much
more if the grassroots movement would allow itself to have direction.  But
after years of infighting in politics and other open source products, I
didn't have the constitution to go toe to toe with the embedded members of
our community here who were putting up a fight.

My feeling is that the only way this will ever change is with the direction
of Canonical.  Until that time, we will continue to get our collective rears
handed to us by companies that have the discipline and cohesive message
necessary to establish any sort of mainstream market awareness or
saturation.

Good Luck,
John


On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:45 AM, Martin Owens <doctormo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey Danny,
>
> On Wed, 2009-10-21 at 01:30 -0400, Danny Piccirillo wrote:
> > Cross-posting just to get the word out.
>
> I've added the Ubuntu LoCo Contacts lists, a group very pertinent to
> this topic.
>
> > Many lengthy and interesting discussions have come up about what to do
> > with the Marketing Team. Ultimately, it comes down to how motivated
> > people are to create their own projects under the team. Just like any
> > other LoCo, this depends on individual involvement, but i don't want
> > to start yet another discussion on this.
>
> Well, what might be needed is someone to head up the team. Some artist
> or designer (not developer) who stands like a poised like a hero against
> the backdrop of the Ubuntu Community landscape and to whome we can all
> look up and say: "I bet if I ask him, he'll know where I can get a
> poster for my event"
>
> As the moment I produce content, I don't tend to produce it under the
> banner of the marketing team. The website for spread ubuntu isn't linked
> very well with the marketing team and the marketing team has no grand
> vision or responsibilities.
>
> > I merely wanted to propose changing or adding to the scope of the team
> > to include general activism. Dropping all focus on marketing probably
> > isn't going to be any better, not to mention that just like marketing,
> > activism is also something done by local community teams, BUT adding
> > simple activism to the scope of this team, might give the team more
> > purpose and drive up activity in other areas. Yes, marketing Ubuntu
> > *is* activism, but i'm talking about officially recognizing general
> > FOSS activism as one of the functions of the team.
>
> I'd advise against including activism. You don't need to widen the
> scope. You just need to find someone or some people willing and able to
> drop their own LoCo's work and come higher into the world community. A
> leader perhaps?
>
> > The mailing list can be used to share ideas for activism and pass on
> > things like this open letter to Obama in support of FOSS (reddit
> > link: http://www.reddit.com/tb/9w23y/ original
> > link:
> http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20091020050110241).
> If you're in support of this idea, just pass on any simple actions you come
> across to the list. There's also this nifty activism guide:
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ActivismGuide
>
> Interesting, thanks for posting Dan.
>
> Best Regards, Martin Owens
>
>
> --
> ubuntu-marketing mailing list
> ubuntu-marketing at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at:
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/attachments/20091021/16df5325/attachment.html>