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

[Jim Grisanzio]

Simon Phipps wrote On 04/09/07 21:30,:
> 
> 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



I'm liking the word Advocates more and more in this context. I'm looking 
into what's involved from a site perspective for us to do all this. 
We'll have to engage the OGB as well. But I think we have a good start 
and some good ideas.

Jim
-- 
Jim Grisanzio http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris