[ug-discuss] Re: [osol-mktg] Community Consolidation -- Marketing & UGs

[Simon Phipps]

On Apr 9, 2007, at 09:16, Ben Rockwood wrote:

> I'm in favor of a merger, although it seems more appropriate that  
> UG be folded into Marketing and then perhaps Marketing takes up a  
> kinder gentler name, but "merger" fits the bill.

I agree with this too. I especially like the idea of user groups  
being projects within a community of advocates. A restructuring like  
this is certainly needed. I'd suggest that rather than "folding user  
groups into marketing and then renaming" we just call it a root-and- 
branch restructure, with a destination something like:

Advocates Community:
- advocacy at opensolaris.org mailing list
- user-help-english at opensolaris.org mailing list
- user-help-chinese at opensolaris.org mailing list (probably with a  
better name)
- ...
- Writers project
- Events project
- Promotional Activities Project
- User Group Co-ordinators Project
- Location A User Group Project
- Location B User Group Project
- ...


> I'd personally oppose "Advocates".  Partly because we're describing  
> an act, thus the plural noun "Advocates" seems inappropriate...   
> instead, I _greatly_ prefer Evangelism.  To my mind it better fits  
> the marketing community and UG goals and actions more clearly.  For  
> instance, I'm a Core Contrib of the "Marketing Community"... but  
> I've never "Marketed" OpenSolaris nor have I advocated it (meaning;  
> to represent, support or promote on behalf of another), I've  
> evangelized it.

I cant't agree with this. I used the job title of "Evangelist" for  
many years (I pretty much introduced it into IBM after seeing how  
well it worked for Guy Kawasaki) and when it was novel and needed  
explanation it was an effective conversation-starter. I stopped using  
it as a job title a few years ago when it became clear that it was  
too closely associated with "tele-evangelists" and with religious  
fundamentalism (and, again, been there, done that). If we are to be a  
global community we need a name for this role that has positive  
connotations. That's why I advocated "advocates" and still think it's  
the best term to describe a group of people promoting OpenSolaris.

In my handy pop-up dictionary, an "advocate" is "a person who  
publicly supports or recommends a particular cause or policy" (and  
this seems to be reflected in most definitions[1]). I believe that  
perfectly describes those who promote the use of OpenSolaris-based  
technologies including those who gather like-minded friends and  
colleagues into "user groups".

S.


[1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Advocate