The Marketing Team Needs Your Help!!

[Jenda]

[EDIT: Now on www.ubuntupeople.com - €10 bounty every month for best Marketing idea!]

Dear Ubuntu Users,

The times are tough, and the MT needs your help, it really does. It might be surprising - but we don't want any money! But we need a little bit of your time. Please start by giving two minutes to this notice.

The Marketing Team is the team responsible for fixing Bug #1 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1). It works in various ways, which I'll try to ennumerate here. Most importantly though, there are very few people active in it and there simply aren't enough to get it going. Perhaps the most comprehensive of the means of communication* is the MT forum, www.ubuntupeople.com. If you decide to join, you should also check wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam and add your name (please do remove yourself if you change your mind - but please don't change your mind :) ).
The Team might go through some changes soon, so hopefully, communication will be simplified in some way.

The Team doesn't go around shouting Get Ubuntu! whereever it goes. Rather, it is here to make sure that when Joe Sixpack of Nontux Town decides he would like to round up a few locals and preach the word about FLOSS and Ubuntu, we give him exactly what he needs. Joe would probably give up as soon as he found out how much work he has to do to gather material for such an activity, and that's where the MT comes in, doing all this workin advance and universally, to be used by not only Joe Sixpack, but also Jose, Iosefos, Josef and many others who might want to spread the word. Ideally, it should produce copious amount of posters, flyers, booklets, sites, pamphlets, magazines, books, libraries... unfortunately, this is not the case - yet.

At this moment, the Team's most prominent project is SpreadUbuntu, inspired by SpreadFirefox: a publicity website people can link to. Serously, see spreadfirefox.org . We already have some design and content, but we need more people to work on it. Feel free to sign in to the forum and have a go in this project, or expound liberally in the Brainstorm Box. The de-facto project leader is Leo now.
Another project, one which needs a lot of love because there are people demanding it, but none doing it - DIY Marketing. This is intended to provide resources to people/groups who wish to market Ubuntu locally. This, I believe is the essence of what the MT should be doing, while leeching the Doc Team for material. We must make it a one-afternoon job for volunteers around the world to Market Ubuntu. All that can be done centrally should be, and the MT is where.
And then there is of course, the petty Ubuntu People project, represented, for example by me right here, right now, the project that is meant to keep the marketing team running and ease the communication therewithin.

Please do have a look at the ubuntupeople forum, and feel free to ask questions there, here, IRC or on the mailing list.

Thanks,
Jenda,
Ubuntu People,
The Marketing Team.


*yes, there is more, we will try to make this simpler:
mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/people/marketingteam
IRC: irc.freenode.net / #ubuntu-marketing

[KingBahamut]

My closest friends and LUG members down here dont call me the Ubuntu Gideon for nothing (largely because I leave Ubuntu CDs anywhere I can find a place to put them in public places for people to find them and use them, that and I give them out on an almost daily basis).

So I understand your qualm about But +1.

[Stormy Eyes]

Nah, the Marketing Team doesn't need me. :evil:

[Jenda]

Yes, it does! :)

[Stormy Eyes]

Yes, it does! :)

Trust me, it really doesn't. I eat marketing people for breakfast.

[Jenda]

Hah! That's where they all went! So you owe us a few, for sure...

[Jenda]

Special OFFER!
The marketing team now offers a 10 Euro bounty to the best marketing idea every month (till exhaustion of supplies :-D).
Come join the Marketing Team Forum and do some serious brainstorming!!!

[zubrug]

Stormy, you are only putting emphasise on your qualifictions.
I will lok into this.

[Stormy Eyes]

Stormy, you are only putting emphasise on your qualifictions.
I will lok into this.

What qualifications? I'm a programmer of moderate talent who writes bad science fiction as a hobby and reaches for a sledgehammer when dealing with people who won't listen to reason. :)

[browndog]

Jenda,

I've been a Ubuntu user for a little over 4 months now. Still plodding along, having had some prior Unix experience but nothing significant. I wholeheartedly believe in the open source movement and really love Ubuntu. Some of my strong points are writing and organizing. On that note, I'm going to start a Ubuntu user's group in my community of Southern California. I'd be glad to help with marketing and will get back to you soon.

BD

[Jenda]

Yay. That's the type of response I was waiting for, browndog.
Writing and organising skills are definitely needed - in connection with artwork and knowledge of Ubuntu (not necessarily too technical), it is all the Marketing Team needs, really. That and tons of good ideas.
Be sure to check out www.ubuntuforums.com - DIY Marketing might be of interest to you considering your local effort.

[plb]

Geeks on the Streets - Also posted on Marketing Forum......

I always had this interesting idea where a bunch of *nix users or in this case ubuntu users would get together in a major city on a sidewalk promoting Ubuntu. For example they could set up a booth with stacks of free ubuntu cds and laptops demonstrating Ubuntu. For example one day we could have a "NYC Geeks on the Streets" or a "London Geeks on the Street" etc etc. Thoughts?

[mishranurag]

There is an install fest at Virginia Tech (http://www.vtluug.org.vt.edu), where we'll be displaying different linux distros. I am gonna show Edubuntu on my laptop. We'll have lots of CDs there too, but I am goona download UBUNTU (Dapper Drake) Beta version.

Anurag
---------------------------------
My blog about firefox for n00bs (http://mishranurag.blogspot.com/2006/04/what-is-firefox-for-complete-newbies.html)

[slider2800]

Well now. that sounds like something i would have fun with.
Count me in!

[ShanghaiTeej]

I will sign up when I get a little less school work. I'd love to give at least something back to the community, but getting my teaching degree comes first.

[Jenda]

Sounds great guys - we'll always be glad to have you aboard!

[encompass]

I am wanting to promote Linux in my University. I goto school in HGelsinki Finland. I was looking for people in the area that would be willing to give some talk and demonstrations at my school at the beginning of the school year in fall. Or if faster but the end of the school year this year. I have a small list of people, but it is hard to find email addresses. Anyway, I was about to post asking for advise on how to help promote Ubuntu and OSS and sure enough I hit this forum. I have given demonstrations before and started a linux club with a great following in Wisconsin. But now live in Finland. What can you do you help me promote linux at my school and elsewhere... I am a very outgoing person.
Infact, last week, I randomly asked a person who had there lappy on the table and not using it if I could show them something and I promised it woudl be amazing. They thought I was kidding, but when I popped in Karorra Linux cd I quickly had a crowd of about 15 looking on as my rubber windows wiggled, and my right clicks popped out.
Anyway, I can handle the groups and the organization. What would you like me to do.
PS I represent the Business Information Technology Class as Helia Applied Science University. So I have power to make things happen at the school.

[Jenda]

Encompass, I would love to offer you anything to help out. You are the third person who has shown interest in promoting Ubuntu or FOSS in their university, the first of which actually initiated my will to revive the Marketing Team.
Unfortunately, The Marketing Team is only beginning to move (Spreadubuntu actually seems to go the right way, so far, but DIY Marketing, press and industry relations have advanced by bits as well).
If you are truly interested in promoting Ubuntu/FOSS in your university, perhaps you could help the DIYM Project to move, or at least its university subsection (which will be created for this purpose). I believe there will be many people willing to help you out with that: getting together a 'Preacher Pack', a bundle of documentation that would come in handy to University seminars/demonstrations. Now although this is not what you originally asked for - if it gets done, you will have the great feeling that _any_ university student/prof around the world will have the option to start Ubuntu demonstrations and speeches with all the material ready.
So: Yes, the Marketing Team is here for this very purpose, you are at the right spot.
But: No, we don't have anything yet. The Marketing Team, as you see it now has, in a way, 'woken up' on April 6 with basically _nothing_ to start with but a forum and about 3 or 4 formers, who decided they would like to resume activity when they were reminded of the existence of teh Marketing Team (and their former membership).
So, once again... the Marketing Team needs your help - in order to help others - for those to help poor users, who have not yet decided that Ubuntu is the way.

[Minyaliel]

Well, I've joined up and would like to do my share of work to make the distro a mainstream affaire ;)

[VoiceOvGod]

Ubuntu kept me from going back to windowsXP.

I have become quite zealous in my promoting of the distro.

Perhaps a marketing packet for distribution to people, including a CD of the distro, and nifty little trinkets, as well as some paper info on what ubuntu is about and what it means, etc?

[Jenda]

VoiceOvGod: We'll start with an electronic packet - please check out www.ubuntupeople.com to see what's current.
Spreadubuntu - a website for new people (you can point them there) and for spreaders, where it turns into:
DIY Marketing - resources for local marketers, with an emerging subsection "Geeks on the Streets" (self explanatory?) etc... (sorry, in a rush)

[Rikostan]

I signed up, but my marketing skills are less than zero. I will contnue to check the site and see if there is anything I can help out with though.

[Jenda]

Check out the forum, you'll see that you need no 'skills'. Talent is, of course, necessary - but the advantage is that you'll never know if you have it or not :-D

[MasonM]

I'm a truck driver who travels all over the USA. I always carry my laptop into the truckstops and other places I visit. It usually doesn't take long for people to start asking about my desktop and giving me the chance to tell them about Ubuntu. (Especially when I'm helping them fix their Windows problems LOL)

That reminds me, I need to order more CDs. I gave them all away.

My background is in Communications Electronics and Networking before I got into trucking a decade ago. I'll check out the forum although I'm not sure how much help a "Joe Sixpack" like myself could be.

[Jenda]

Wow! That's amazing, MasonM. Hmm.. I think I'll start collecting posts like this and display them as testimonials on spreadubuntu...
Would you mind?

A Joe Sixpack is exactly what we need - because from my experience with the Marketing Team, anyone can do a lot of work for it.

[khightower]

I run a small IT company in Atlanta (7 years). As of last month I have started adding Linux and other open software to my offerings. I chose Ubuntu for the Desktop because it gives users a nice 1st experience with Linux.

When I get a call for a PC that has crashed, I asked them what they use their computer for. Most say "Internet, and MS word stuff". Thats when I take the opportunity to ask them to try Linux.

I tell them it comes with a Office suite thats just like MS Office. I also tell them that they have no need to run a pop up blocker or a virus scanner.

The live CD goes a long way. I get to show them proof. I let them try it out. They say install it. So I back up their old data files and install Ubuntu.

As a safe guard I tell them if they don't like it I will switch them back to Windows for free.

It's hard for people to turn down something new when Windows is giving them trouble at the moment.

All to say, I would love to join the Marketing Team.

[MasonM]

No, I wouldn't mind at all. Always happy to help. :)

[Jenda]

khightower - very nice. i answered more extensively in the bounty discussion thread on www.ubuntupeople.com

[khightower]

khightower - very nice. i answered more extensively in the bounty discussion thread on www.ubuntupeople.com

Has the winner been named. I will read.

Thanks

[lapsey]

Many (legal*) internet cafes will probably spend a fortune on Windows as it is. Given that their requirements tend to be:

1) internet/email/IM
2) ease of administration
3) security (when was the last time you found bonzibuddy left over from somebody else's session?)
4) and all the other benefits of free software

it's astonishing that more of them do not use linux.

Even those that cater to starcraft addicts may well be sorted out with wine or a cheap cedega licence.

Not only does it make good business sense from their point of view, but also for their customers: they will get the full experience of a working, cutting edge linux desktop environment without even having to run a live cd (which I fear most people won't do without convincing). With the right gnome or kubuntu config there needn't even be a learning curve for them to do what they would have on windows.

* While the proprietary win32 codecs and soforth are more important than ever for a successful internet cafe, but I don't think the inclusion of them would worry most intercafe owners much. Certainly not as much as being busted for illegal installations of windows XP :P

I'd love to do this when dapper comes around.

[RAV TUX]

[EDIT: Now on www.ubuntupeople.com - €10 bounty every month for best Marketing idea!]

Dear Ubuntu Users,

The times are tough, and the MT needs your help, it really does. It might be surprising - but we don't want any money! But we need a little bit of your time. Please start by giving two minutes to this notice.

The Marketing Team is the team responsible for fixing Bug #1 (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1). It works in various ways, which I'll try to ennumerate here. Most importantly though, there are very few people active in it and there simply aren't enough to get it going. Perhaps the most comprehensive of the means of communication* is the MT forum, www.ubuntupeople.com. If you decide to join, you should also check wiki.ubuntu.com/MarketingTeam and add your name (please do remove yourself if you change your mind - but please don't change your mind :) ).
The Team might go through some changes soon, so hopefully, communication will be simplified in some way.

The Team doesn't go around shouting Get Ubuntu! whereever it goes. Rather, it is here to make sure that when Joe Sixpack of Nontux Town decides he would like to round up a few locals and preach the word about FLOSS and Ubuntu, we give him exactly what he needs. Joe would probably give up as soon as he found out how much work he has to do to gather material for such an activity, and that's where the MT comes in, doing all this workin advance and universally, to be used by not only Joe Sixpack, but also Jose, Iosefos, Josef and many others who might want to spread the word. Ideally, it should produce copious amount of posters, flyers, booklets, sites, pamphlets, magazines, books, libraries... unfortunately, this is not the case - yet.

At this moment, the Team's most prominent project is SpreadUbuntu, inspired by SpreadFirefox: a publicity website people can link to. Serously, see spreadfirefox.org . We already have some design and content, but we need more people to work on it. Feel free to sign in to the forum and have a go in this project, or expound liberally in the Brainstorm Box. The de-facto project leader is Leo now.
Another project, one which needs a lot of love because there are people demanding it, but none doing it - DIY Marketing. This is intended to provide resources to people/groups who wish to market Ubuntu locally. This, I believe is the essence of what the MT should be doing, while leeching the Doc Team for material. We must make it a one-afternoon job for volunteers around the world to Market Ubuntu. All that can be done centrally should be, and the MT is where.
And then there is of course, the petty Ubuntu People project, represented, for example by me right here, right now, the project that is meant to keep the marketing team running and ease the communication therewithin.

Please do have a look at the ubuntupeople forum, and feel free to ask questions there, here, IRC or on the mailing list.

Thanks,
Jenda,
Ubuntu People,
The Marketing Team.


*yes, there is more, we will try to make this simpler:
mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing
Launchpad: https://launchpad.net/people/marketingteam
IRC: irc.freenode.net / #ubuntu-marketing


Cool I am here to help. I just joined.

https://launchpad.net/people/marketingteam/

[Jenda]

Perfect. Be sure to join ubuntupeople.com as well (unless the last user was you...?), because we don't really use launchpad much... not at all.

[stanz]

Be sure to join ubuntupeople.com as well
Hi All...
Geeez~ there's allot of "catch-up" reading to do...but- count me in!
:mrgreen:

[daller]

Just a single question!

Who registered spreadubuntu.org? - Seems that some domainshark did?

Well... Are you guys supporting kubuntu as well?

[tikal26]

We are trying to get a magazine started on the forum, but we need more input and we will need help writting the articles. I feel that it is a good project for anyone that wants to help. check out the wiki
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine?highlight=%28ubuntu%29%7C%28magazin e%29
As for support of Kubuntu this is a perfect opportunity to help on exposing kde and Kubuntu to all. You can help on defining the content of the magazine. I am myself a Kubuntu user and want to create a magazine that show the many faces of the ubuntu distribution and the community.

Jenda - I hope you don't mind bumping your post, but I figure that it was a good place to recruit people.

[dinda]

Hi Jenda et al,
I've signed up on the mailing list and will try to hit the websites you've mentioned as well. I have a pretty good background in documentation/writing training/education/UI design/instructional design/technology evangelism/fishing/flying airplanes/etc. so I hope to start contributing soon. ;-) I'm still finding my way around the forums and wikis so I hope to be up to speed soon. Since I'm a non-programmer (gasp!) the language here sometimes seems a bit foreign. Talk to you soon.
Dinda from Houston

[sophtpaw]

Well, hoorah, stumbling into this thread. This is good news. I will check out ubuntupeople.com Its inspiring as well as encouraging to hear all the stories of people all over the world in different ways sharing Ubuntu. It prooves that sharing something we love comes naturally and expresses itself spontaneously in different ways. For this reason ubuntupeople.com is a good initiative to further inspire, and support and consolidate what has already being going on.
For my part what happened is i got up one day and thought it would be fun to do a little write up by way of introduction in three parts. 1st the concept of GNU/Linux itself and then Ubuntu proper with 3rdly offer of help and advice on my part and a friend who installs (mostly Fedora)Linux on peoples desktop. I laminated that and along with a stack of cd's ordered from shippit i went to my local library where they were happy for me to pin up the writeup and leave the stack of cd's to give away free. In a couple of weeks all the cd's were gone. I had planned on doing the same again when Dapper came out. I shall be ordering a whole bunch and thought of doing the same again by going around to even more libraries. I live in London. Unfortunately, someone took my laminated writeup and i don't have another copy which is a shame. but if there are some standardized marketing 'stuff' that would make my job easier, as i don't enjoy writing things up like that too much.
my friend, lets call him Fedora man, thought i was crazy. He reckoned that people would just use the discs as frisbees. My retort was that that wasn't my business. I was just making it available. He thought it would be better to just leave a contact # for os's available to people if they were interested as a screening strategy. Hmpf...He just doesn't understand the spirit of Ubuntu! :KS

[Jenda]

Yay, y'all! Welcome.
tikal: no problem - although maybe once you have something to lure people for, be sure to make a new thread to catch eyes (maybe get it stickied).
sophtpaw: Well, it's one of the goals... however, if it so happens that you do write something like that up, be sure to share it with the Team. In fact, my friend is working on something like that - we'll see if the quality is comparable.

[teia]

Here in Norway many schools are realizing that computers for children are extremely important. The School Linux program is well established here and this is very good bechause the children get used to Linux on a very early stage in life.
Maybe some of them wants to have a Linux system on their computer at home too, and this I belive is a very fine way of getting Linux out to ordinary people. Children can be really tough when they really want something and if they like Linux at school better than the crappy old MS PC at home, then it's very important that Linux systems are available to them.

In Norway I have never seen an add promoting Linux, exept from in the computer magazines. Bechause of high prizing, children and parent's seldom buy these magazines. I have worked several years in different newspapers, and I know that if the Marketing Team contact the newspaper organizations, you can get a pretty good deal, getting adds in all the local newspapers in Norway for a fraction of the cost of a double page coloured add in a computer magazine.

Several organizations in other countries have the same offers for group adds and this really is an easy way of getting the message out to the ordinary people who read their newspapers after dinner.
FREE is a powerfull word when you come home from work tired as a dead horse. And when you sit down by your crappy MS computer to pay the bills, maybe you remember the add and starts downloading.

But they have to know that Linux is THERE!

I really think approaching the newspaper organizations with the intention of promoting a FREE OS trough these very affordable and wide spread adds, would get a lot of attention and probably spin off som nice articles too.

Just a thought

Teia

[teia]

By the way, 99 percent of the newspapers uses Mac and have no feelings what so ever about Microsoft ;)

Teia

[Jenda]

Hmm... someone would have to fund that - seems to me that it wouldn't be very cost-effective...

[teia]

Hmm... someone would have to fund that - seems to me that it wouldn't be very cost-effective...

Well I guess that depends on how you define your target of marketing. If you target young people between 15 and say 25 years, the computer magazines are perhaps the correct medium. But if you want to reach out to the mainstreem users you have to go trough mainstream medias. Look what other supplyers do, HP, Dell, Symantech, etc. They all use mainstreem media as their main channel of information.
Maybe that's why they sell their stuff in piles too?

I know it costs money to market a product, but if you plan to live up to the goal of software to the human beings on this planet, well then maybe you have to think about how to get the message out to ordinary, plain human beings with limited interest in computers other than "It needs to work when I need it to".

Ubuntu can prowide them with an OS that works when they need it to, and I meen that if you want to get this message out to them you have to go trough the channels that these people use as a source of information.

Teia

[Jenda]

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having ads in the mainstream media - but it's not the Marketing Team's business. If Canonical wants to pay zillions to market Ubuntu that way, great. Unfortunately, we simply do not have the budget to pay 'mainstream' media (in fact, we don't have a budget at all, yet) - and which ones would you choose and where?