[osol-mktg] Proposal: s/Marketing/Evangelism/

[Jim Grisanzio]

Simon Phipps wrote:
> On Oct 6, 2005, at 19:24, Ben Rockwood wrote:
> 
>> Phillip (Flip) Russell wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think that Marketing and Evangelism are very different things.
>>>
>>> While things are small right now, there is heavy overlap.
>>> But that should change in the future as the communites grow
>>> and I'm sure the community at that time will have clear
>>> boundaries between the two.
>>>
>>
>> I'm curious what those boundaries might be?  Can you expand on that?
>>
>> I see the primary diffrence as being cash.  Marketers have cash,  
>> evangelists don't.  Marketers generally get paid, evangelists  don't.  
>> But those are minor diffrences in the grand scheme of things.
>>
>> We're seeing a foundational shift in the world of marketing.  Many  of 
>> us have blogged about this, I have, Jim has, Claire has, etc.   I'm 
>> suggesting that we stay ahead of that curve.
> 
> 
> Having been in marketing in a job in the mid 90s and then held the  
> title of 'Evangelist' for the ten years ending last month, I'd assert  
> they are different.
> 
> Marketing is about the stuff that makes markets. It's about creating  
> materials, messaging structures, events and so on that make the  market 
> for the product. This is the space that's being transformed  for open 
> source. "Making the market" now means "supporting and  expanding the 
> community", so the materials have a different structure  and the process 
> by which they are created is transparent and  collaborative.
> 
> Evangelism is about communicating with people. Evangelists often use  
> the materials and resources that marketers create, but evangelists  are 
> subject experts looking to honestly find a win-win between the  project 
> the love and the people they meet who don't know about it.  This role is 
> largely unchanged in open source - maybe easier as the  transparency of 
> open source means people can clearly see you're being  honset with them.
> 
> The best term to join these two distinct areas is "advocacy". maybe  
> this team should be called "OpenSolaris Advocacy" as it includes both  
> groups of people.


This is interesting ...  I was just talking to Sara and Laura today 
about a related topic that may plug in nicely here. Ben is pointing out 
that Sun people have to live in two worlds, Simon is drawing a 
distinction between marketing and evangelism, and Flip mentions the 
overlap we have right now. I think all are correct in various 
circumstances, and we can leverage all mind sets in this marketing 
community.

So, Sara, and Laura and I had this idea to build out and maintain an 
"OpenSolaris Marketing & Community Development Plan" on the site. We all 
have to do plans around here, so why not develop these plans as a community?

The macro plan would contain multiple documents licensed under an open 
source license (suggest: http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/PDL.html). 
Something along the lines of what OpenOffice has done 
(http://marketing.openoffice.org/strategy/). I see Tim has posted a 
bunch of excellent stuff on the marketing page already, so this would be 
a way to expand that effort and quantify it into a plan for all to 
contribute to. There has been some conversation already along these 
lines in this community and in the user group community in terms of 
sharing presentations and such. So, this could be a joint marketing 
community and user group community effort.

When Ben says, "For those of us external to Sun we're clearly in the 
Evangelism camp, however those at Sun are keeping feet planted firmly in 
both worlds." I think he has a point. I certainly feel. And I think Sun 
people have to balance this to a certain degree. So, here's the key: 
this plan we are proposing would be an *OpenSolaris community* plan, not 
a Sun plan written by a Sun employee for an executive that has some 
community feedback. Now, Sun marketing people and program managers in 
engineering like me may customize our plans for Sun purposes because 
execs want it in a certain format with more Sun-specific market content 
or whatever, but we should only do that after we have first contributed 
to the open content source base on the site. And the same goes for 
others ... they should be encouraged to contribute to the content source 
and then from there create derivative works (plans) if necessary. And I 
can certainly see that derivative plans will be necessary in some 
instances, but not in all. In other words, I should *not* create a 
community development plan that only I've written only to sit on my hard 
drive so I can report upline. And I'm not, of course. I'll write my plan 
on the site or my blog with whoever wants to contribute so most of it 
can be shared and I'll customize if necessary to report upline to
Sun (which in my case is not necessary).

Some ideas:

* We could call it the "OpenSolaris Marketing & Community Dev Plan"
* It will be based on merit and contribution, not status and title.
* It will be 100 percent community written and implemented, not Sun
   written and implemented.
* There is no Sun approval process since the community owns it.
* It will be shared among anyone who wants to participate.
* The format and style will take shape as the community proposes.
* It will tie together (for documentation purposes) as many efforts as
   possible, but it will not necessarily assert ownership over all parts
   of the project's outreach efforts.
* It will be developed 100 percent on the mail lists and the wiki.
* Resources to implement the plan will not come from Sun; instead all
   resources will come from whoever participates and whatever they can
   contribute. So, a Sun person may have some resources and may not, just
   as anyone in the community would.
* Sun people are free to create their own plans as derivative
   works and those works can sent upline for the typical "executive"
   approval process -- but that's a Sun corporate thing, not a community
   thing. The core source material is open for all to use and extend.

What this would do is (1) create a source repository of open documents 
that community evangelists can contribute to and extend and run with, 
(2) enable Sun-badged community members to contribute to the documents 
and also create their own derivative works for Sun managers and 
executives if necessary, and (3) enable others (distros?) to create 
their own derivative marketing plans that are still consistent with the 
core community values and documents.

What do you think?

Jim
---
Jim Grisanzio, Community Manager, OpenSolaris
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/



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