<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 06/04/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Jim Grisanzio</b> <<a href="mailto:Jim.Grisanzio@sun.com">Jim.Grisanzio@sun.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br>Kaiwai Gardiner wrote On 04/05/07 09:25,:<br><br>> Ultimately, however, the goals of the two organizations are different;
<br>> on one side you have users who simply want to communicate their<br>> pleasure/displeasure/concern and so forth with OpenSolaris and want to<br>> have nothing to do with the marketing side of the equation.<br>
<br>Hello, Kaiwai ...<br><br>I would argue that "community" marketing is very much the process of<br>communicating "pleasure/displeasure/concern," etc. Community marketing<br>(for lack of a better term, I guess) is based on open conversations and
<br>direct engagement, whereas corporate marketing has been traditionally<br>based largely on delivering messages into markets from the outside with<br>very little participation involved. The marketing community on<br>OpenSolaris is not about delivering messages; it's about creating a
<br>community effort based on open participation in community issues to<br>spread the word about OpenSolaris. In this discussion, I've been<br>advocating dropping the word "marketing" because it's obvious that it
<br>gets in the way. I also see UGs as being directly related since they<br>produce content, they evangelize OpenSolaris, they talk openly on lists,<br>they hold meetings, etc. They, quite literally, create something from
<br>nothing and they do it largely based on their own initiatives.</blockquote>
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<div>Ah, if it is done that way, then sure; the way I saw 'user groups' was along the lines of 'technical support' discussion list; as long as the marketing list doesn't end up getting unindated by requests for technical support, it should be all good.
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<div>The community could be called 'non-Technical' which embraced a general discussion list, marketing discussion and technical support discussion.</div><br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">> The problem is pretty much, where doesn't marketing sit in the grand<br>> scheme of things? in regards to Sun, for example, if Sun does marketing,
<br>> what is the OpenSolaris marketing for? if Sun's marketing the<br>> 'subscription and support packages' what is our aim?<br><br>Sun has formal marketing programs for products and services and<br>occasionally pitches in to help promote OpenSolaris. Sun spends millions
<br>on the effort, too, with all sorts of global programs. However, Sun does<br>not do a lot of grass-roots activities around OpenSolaris. That's just<br>not what big companies do for the most part. Sun, however, has given us
<br>a site, some code, and some tools and from that we can create our own<br>stuff. That's what I'm trying to say. Forget Sun in this conversation<br>and forget the word "marketing." Let's just talk about how the
<br>OpenSolaris /community/ gets the word out about the OpenSolaris and how<br>we as a community engage each other. We go to conferences. We talk on<br>lists. We design t-shirts. We build distros. We hack code. We form user
<br>groups. We do press interviews. Etc. How do we take all those activities<br>and quantify them a bit more? How do we engage new people? How do we<br>make it easier for people to get involved?</blockquote>
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<div>So the correct way of seeing it would be that Sun marketing is a member of the marketing community where by they contribute to the marketing of OpenSolaris as well as marketing their own services and products.</div>
<div><br>As for grass root 'activities' the problem with leaving up to a large business is this; its like leaving something up to a government department to manage - and we all know successful they are at doing something :-)
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<div>Getting back to a grass roots, my pet project will be on the hardware support documentation for first time installers then I'll worry about other things later :-)</div>
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<div>Matthew</div></div>