[Marketing] [IAEP] Sugar on a Stick v2 Release Naming

Martin Dengler martin at martindengler.com
Wed Sep 9 18:30:06 EDT 2009


On Wed, Sep 09, 2009 at 11:56:25PM +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 11:13 PM, Martin Dengler<martin at martindengler.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 09, 2009 at 10:57:00PM +0200, Sean DALY wrote:
> >> In fact Martin if I remember correctly we had already discussed this
> >> on-list... I will try to find the thread.
> >
> > Please let me know.  I did google for 'sugar "ice cream" soas' before
> > I said I couldn't find anything besides the IRC meeting I mentioned.
>
> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/marketing/2009-June/001546.html

But that's just me asking again where the flavours policy came from
:), and you saying it came from the meeting I mentioned, and me saying
I didn't catch it then, and...is it still Groundhog day?

Well, Marketing decided Ice Cream flavours shall be the names of
releases.  Done.

>  The beauty shot of the branded USB sticks for example was designed
> to have the colors of the first four versions of SoaS, and hence be
> reusable... since we won't have a pro photographer willing to help
> us out every time.

Ah - so perhaps this:

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Logo_white_05.png

...is the logo you want, not the one I mentioned in my email:

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/File:Logo_white_04.png

...?  C'mon, it took a while to get the ice cream flavour choice sunk
in, please don't leave us hanging on the logo choice...what do you
want it to be?

> Other FOSS projects, distros likely have excellent software
> development methods... I can't comment intelligently on that. However,
> without naming names, I can say that most of them have sorry marketing
> indeed.

Yes, and that's why _I_ asked _you_ questions, which you...didn't
answer.  You did quite politely say "[geeks are bad at marketing]"[1].
I don't want to waste your time: you don't have to convince me of
that, and I doubt anyone else is going to ask you to prove it either.

So:

> >> The idea is to maximize launch impact by keeping the element of
> >> surprise on our side.
> >
> > Ok...who are we surprising, though?  The journalists?

...and:

> > [option a] Perhaps Fedora's "each code name is related to the last
> > in an insider-known way that it's fun to guess" might be a way to
> > speak to both needs?
> >
> > Or [ option b ] developers can just settle for talking about
> > [releases] in terms of integers, which isn't so bad.
> >

Which is it to be - a) or b)?  I'll listen, now, really.

> Sean.

Martin

1.
> This is not a reflection on the projects; geeks understand
> that they need to do marketing and PR (and of course community
> relations and recruitment, which are interrelated), they just don't
> have the experience. Although marketing/PR looks ridiculously easy to
> do from the outside, the reality is that if it were that easy,
> projects wouldn't have so much trouble getting known. The phenomenon
> of GNU/Linux desktops failing to gain marketshare on the desktop over
> the past decade has everything to do with poor marketing (as well as
> stiff - and not always fair - competition).
> 
> So rather than seek inspiration from other FOSS projects, I'd much
> sooner seek inspiration from organizations/companies/projects which
> broke out and grew quickly in recognition. Inspiration, but not
> copying: the Spread Firefox campaign for example was very effective
> indeed in 2004, but the methods used were specific to the browser
> market and the context of the time. We have the fabulous opportunity
> to break new ground, and innovate marketing on a shoestring which
> spreads the word better than capitalized companies... all we have to
> do is be smart, consistent if we can (damage control wastes precious
> resources), and create initiatives instead of waiting for the phone to
> ring.
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