To: Herb Peyerl <hpeyerl@beer.org>
Cc: Mason Loring Bliss <mason@acheron.middleboro.ma.us>,
  netbsd-advocacy@netbsd.org
Subject: Re: Something I noticed on the Yahoo site
References: <199812100549.WAA23043@beer.org>
From: cgd@netbsd.org (Chris G. Demetriou)
Date: 09 Dec 1998 23:31:35 -0800
In-Reply-To: Herb Peyerl's message of Wed, 09 Dec 1998 22:49:12 -0700
Message-ID: <87emq8312g.fsf@netbsd1.cygnus.com>
Lines: 73

Herb Peyerl <hpeyerl@beer.org> writes:
>  > > 	b) There was nothing to sell at the booth.
>  > 
>  > CDs? Anyway, having folks see a NetBSD booth would have if nothing else
>  > been nicely promotional.
> 
> Oh? you have CD's? 

*chuckle*  amusing: i was thinking "gee, there are few ways to
motivate people to help which are better than making sarcastic
comments at them!" but then i realized that that, itself, was a
sarcastic comment.

Seriously, I think I do understand your point of view Herb (I know how
hard it is to get people, esp. volunteers, to do the right thing), but
really, how does the attitude help the problem?


> The point I'm trying to make is that Charles and I have put in a huge
> amount of work in trying to do what little marketing we've done.  All
> I see on the advocacy list is a lot of people telling everyone else
> what should be done, and how disappointed they are that nothing was
> done, but no one actually doing anything.

Let me preface this by thanking both you and Charles for the work done
on the 1.3.2 CD, and the related marketing.  (Similar thanks are due,
however, to others who make, ship, and try to market other NetBSD
CD-ROMs, or prooducts which are based on or include NetBSD and raise
the project's visibility.  It's not like you're the only people
who'ever done this kind of thing.)  Without contributions of effort
like that, obviously, The Right Thing never could happen.

My personal thought here is that if the project really wants better PR
and better advocacy, what it really needs is better coordination.

Basically, we need a PR Czar, somebody who's reasonably organized, a
not-unreasonable people-person, and who has, on average, about half an
hour a day, sometimes more, to devote to the cause.

The Czar should be responsible for keeping track of "PR-related
opportunities," things like people who are shipping NetBSD on CD-ROM,
etc., and coordinating so that the right events are hit, with the
appropriate force (if the force can be mustered).  The Czar should
also be given the authority to do that, or at least, the ability to do
it without too much delay (i.e. guarantee that people with the right
authority will actually respond in reasonable time).

Obviously, this doesn't solve the problem where all the people who
volunteered to do something flaked, but coordination and planning --
and the occasional work to push roadblocks out of the way -- can help
make things happen.

No matter how you cut it, I think that a scheme like the one i've
described would be an improvement over the current situation (which i
see as: people suggesting things, nobody stepping forward and actually
doing stuff or keeping track of what's being done, and people
occasionally whining that nothing's being done).


Obviously, I'm not in any position to say "this will be done," but are
there people who think they are qualified are willing to volunteer?

(For the record, I don't feel that I can volunteer.  I may have some
of the necessary skills, but i'm already overcommitted at work, and
i've already got enough NetBSD-related projects -- e.g. making release
engineering suck less -- that i'm working into the wee hours many
nights already.  8-)


cgd
-- 
Chris Demetriou - cgd@netbsd.org - http://www.netbsd.org/People/Pages/cgd.html
Disclaimer: Not speaking for NetBSD, just expressing my own opinion.