Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 17:04:59 -0500 From: "GB" <gbrooks@BLUE-MOUSE.COM> To: <advocacy@FreeBSD.org> Cc: "'Michael Lucas'" <mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: FreeBSD PR (long, rambling -- bear with me) Message-ID: <006c01c25b71$9adf6940$6e01a8c0@CITYMOUSE> In-Reply-To: <20020913143941.A2346@blackhelicopters.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
(cc'd to Michael Lucas because some of my mail isn't making it to the advocacy list, apparently... Michael, if this doesn't show up on advocacy, please resend.) All (or rather, all who are interested): Think of communicating about FreeBSD as a process rather than an event -- handling PR, communications or whatever you want to call it as a one-shot is sort of like thinking about network security as a one-time event: Such efforts are largely destined to fail. Things to define include: * Who are our key audiences? By this I mean those most likely to adopt FreeBSD or influence the decision process. (Having said that, I recognize that focusing on potential adopters and their influencers is just my gut instinct -- can anyone identify other groups we should be reaching out to? Standards-setting bodies? Other *nix communities? Tim O'Reilly so he'll send us free books?) * What makes FreeBSD different/better for the newbie? For the person with a little Linux experience under his/her belt? For the I.T. pro? And, while we're at it, what does FreeBSD suck at? (Granted, we may think it sucks at nothing, but someone is going to identify weaknesses with the OS, and it's sound communications practice to have an answer for ever assertion likely to come up.) * What are we out in front on? Linux has a foothold in the corporate I.T. world, OpenBSD has security and NetBSD has portability. What's our niche? Related question: Out of this niche and our identified strengths, what's our "elevator story?" (The 1-2 minute spiel what says what FreeBSD is, why it's good and why it matters.) Ideally what we end up with are key audiences, key messages and a matrix of how they intersect. Then we have a roadmap for what we say and who we say it to. After that, building materials and/or channels is easier and (hopefully) more effective. So far, I've heard mentions of posters and some other materials. Any thoughts on how effective (if at all) any of the following might be: * Professionally formatted white paper comparing FreeBSD-based solutions to Windows/Linux in various situations. * FAQs or introductory documents directed at specific groups (again, I keep thinking of utter newbies, those who've dabbled in Linux and the I.T. professional, but there are likely other groups as well). In a perfect world, of course, everyone finds Perfect Wisdom by R-ingTFM -- but we don't live in a perfect world, so every bit we do to make the learning curve easier helps make inroads. * Some standard press materials/backgrounders that the media could download, such as: -- FreeBSD vs. Linux vs. Windows vs. Mac OS (a one-page table) -- Major sites running FreeBSD -- Uptime/reliability stats etc... Again, this is material that's already out there, but the No. 1 rule with the press is that reporters like to have things handed to them -- make it easy to do the research and even easier to write, and you'll have more press than the competition. OK, so this has gotten long. Anyone's/everyone's thoughts? Greg B. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Lucas [mailto:mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org] Sent: Friday, September 13, 2002 1:40 PM To: Arjan van Leeuwen Cc: advocacy@FreeBSD.org; GB Subject: Re: A real, live, PR person... On Fri, Sep 13, 2002 at 08:21:39PM +0200, Arjan van Leeuwen wrote: > *yes* this sounds good! I also think that a media section on the website, as > Greg proposes, sounds like a very good idea. Where do we begin? What's the > first or most important thing that should be done? First thing that should be done: Fix the newsflash page, so that "FreeBSD PR Director Quits!" is not near the top of the list. Get out your text processor and get to work. You may get a shiny new email address out of it. :-) Second, ponder FreeBSD's strengths. Make a list of what would appear to the public, to nerds, and to suits. Ponder some more. Then post it here. (This is taking advantage of a message that Greg sent me, but I'm going to let him handle the todo list; he knows what the heck he's doing, I'm just a writer. :) ==ml > > Arjan > > On Friday 13 September 2002 18:48, Michael Lucas wrote: > > ...who, like, gets *paid* to do public relations! > > > > I'd like to introduce Greg Brooks. Greg has a web page at > > http://www.janemobley.com/gbroo.html. He is one of the people who > > contacted me privately, and has offered to give us a hand with public > > relations. > > > > I'm forwarding this chunk with his kind permission, with some minor > > editing to trim out personal and/or irrelevacies that appear when you > > swap email with someone. I'll comment separately in another message. > > > > My personal opinion is: here we have someone who can guide us through > > a lot of the PR pitfalls we would encounter, and get us a jump ahead. > > Let's not waste him. > > > > ==ml > > > -- Michael Lucas mwlucas@FreeBSD.org, mwlucas@BlackHelicopters.org http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/q/Big_Scary_Daemons Absolute BSD: http://www.AbsoluteBSD.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?006c01c25b71$9adf6940$6e01a8c0>