[opensolaris-summit] Advocacy Panel Discussion: An IdeaforDiscussion

[Stewart, David C]

OK, the reason I ask is that attracting the growth is a bit of a
different problem than the infrastructure to handle the growth.  One is
a marketing challenge and the other is an administrative / technical
challenge.

It might be good to think about Advocacy in terms of achieving a tipping
point for OpenSolaris.  There are a number of techniques described in
the Malcolm Gladwell book of the same name (recruiting Mavens, achieving
stickiness, etc) which perhaps have already been contemplated.  But this
could be a rich vein of discussion for further efforts.

On the other hand, the "scaling the infrastructure" discussion has a lot
of interesting challenges as well.  What are the inhibitors or barriers
present in the current infrastructure which put people off.  Some have
been addressed, now let's tackle the next set.

Should be a good discussion.  Thanks for proposing it!

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jim.Grisanzio at Sun.COM [mailto:Jim.Grisanzio at Sun.COM]
>Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 10:58 PM
>To: Stewart, David C
>Cc: opensolaris-summit at opensolaris.org
>Subject: Re: [opensolaris-summit] Advocacy Panel Discussion: An
>IdeaforDiscussion
>
>Stewart, David C wrote:
>> +1 on the panel concept
>>
>> Are you thinking it would be more about how to attract the next
100,000
>> users?  Or is it how we evolve the current structure to scale up to
>> handle the next 100,000?  I got the feeling from your description it
was
>> more about the latter, but the former seems more urgent.
>>
>
>Both. There are many tens of thousands of people who don't even know we
>exist, and we have tens of thousands who are already here but are not
>necessarily active.
>
>I just grabbed 100K out of the air. I have no clue what a right number
>would be, but my intention is to emphasize scale -- which is something
>we really haven't done thus far and need to figure out from an advocacy
>perspective. We will have new tools -- the distro, the package
>repository, etc -- that will enable us to engage very large numbers of
>people who we've never met. So how we use those new tools to build a
>community that sticks around and contributes back is the key question
to
>address. We already have community development operations under way,
but
>we are adding new stuff that is quite different, and that will require
>new thinking and new engagement models. Part of this is involves
>infrastructure constraints and opportunities and part of it is just
>getting existing people talking to new people at multiple levels and
>working those new guys into the community. Also, keep in mind that we
>will have two sites to work with going forward -- .com and .org. We'll
>have to figure out who plays where and with what and under what rules.
I
>don't have very many answers here, but these are some obvious issues we
>ought to talk about. :)
>
>Jim
>
>--
>http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/