Community Driven Marketing of Apache OFBiz

[David E Jones-3]

One of the things discussed at the recent conference (OFBiz Symposium  
@ ApacheCon US 2008) is to do more marketing of OFBiz. One of the  
weaknesses of the community-driven software model is that there is no  
central organization that consolidates profits from the software and  
can use them to market the software. While there are many advantages  
of community-driven software (and IMO that is why OFBiz is some of the  
best ERP/etc software available), marketing isn't one of them.

Or isn't it? One thing was discussed at the conference and that may  
work well is some community driven marketing for the project. There  
are 2 different forms of this discussed, and there could be many others:

1. grassroots "viral" campaign: the tag line is "I am Open For Business"

1.a. the first idea is to post this on social and business networking  
sites (facebook, myspace, linkedin, etc, etc), and to get others to do  
it as well, even if they aren't quite sure what it means (because it  
kind of sounds funny); if people google "open for business"  
ofbiz.apache.org is the first result; if people also link to  
ofbiz.apache.org then we'll have an even stronger position on google  
and other sites; I have already added this to my facebook account  
(just "is Open For Business" in the "What are you doing right now?"  
thingy, and on LinkedIn I'm not sure where is best, perhaps as a  
current position as it's most visible, and I've added a new group call  
"I am Open For Business" that everyone should join

1.b. to extend this the more gregarious among us should create funny  
videos and upload them to YouTube and similar sites, and funny  
pictures and upload them to Flickr and similar sites, and hopefully  
others will see these and make their own and share them, again even if  
they don't know what "OFBiz" even is; the videos or pictures should  
have someone in the foreground saying or holding up a sign that says  
"I am Open For Business", plus optionally something that describes  
what they are doing/showing, and something in the background that is  
related to a business they actually run (in front of the business, by  
products made/sold, in a warehouse or call center, etc), or to just a  
hobby or something they enjoy doing (bungee jumping, working on a  
laptop at Starbucks, whatever); in a way this is a variation on the "I  
am a PC" thingy, but actually this idea pre-dates that ad campaign...  
still that campaign may make this all the more interesting and  
successful

1.c. if you post things anywhere that represents a group, feel free to  
use "We are Open For Business"

2. paid advertisements driven by any company that wants to get  
involved; these can show collaboration and also further demonstrate  
the community driven nature of the open source project, ie with the  
open source project in the middle and not any company or what what;  
the adds we have a big "We are Open For Business" and would have the  
OFBiz logo in the middle (yes, we'd have to coordinate through the ASF  
PRC), and logos of each company spread around the add, and even logos  
of end-users who give us permission either connected directly to OFBiz  
or connected to one or more of the service providers; these ads would  
be paid for be the service providers; as part of this I think we  
should also add consideration for service providers who can't afford  
to sponsor it so that they can be included in the ads

The general idea is to emphasize the community-driven nature of the  
project. There is no individual or organization that represents OFBiz  
on its own, it is an open project driven by a number of individuals  
and organizations, so it's correct to say "I am Open For Business" and  
"We are Open For Business".

On a side note, I think both of these have been discussed before... so  
the main point of this message is to take action, now. So, go to your  
public profiles and add "I am Open For Business", and take a funny (or  
interesting) picture or video and post it around.

-David


============================
Related Note: OFBiz Alliance

Related to #2 there was also some discussion of some sort of "OFBiz  
Alliance" that would be an organization that owns a trademark, is run  
by all members of it, and the main points would be to qualify vendors  
(service providers mostly, perhaps product companies and end-user  
organizations and such as well) and certify them. This isn't really an  
activity that fits within what a non-profit open source organization  
is all about, ie I don't think we want the OFBiz PMC in the business  
of creating a stamp of approval for other organizations, so this would  
be something separate.

The main idea is that organizations could use the trademarked logo if  
approved by the members, and conditions for that approval would be  
things like using OFBiz internally to manage your business (eat your  
own dog food type of thing, ie for project/issue mgmt, sales  
automation, billing/accounting, etc), and to have a certain number of  
customization projects completed, with case studies for at least 1-2  
and preferably for all projects where the client allows the case  
study, and perhaps also to have a regular stream of contributions  
going back to OFBiz (preferably with committers on staff, or at have  
people contributing and moving toward becoming a committer because  
again it wouldn't be good to have an OFBiz PMC decision to be part of  
this. While those are the main criteria, there might be small fees to  
register and help protect the trademark and to maintain a web site  
that talks about what the alliance is all about, who are members, etc.

One neat thing that could come of this is an opportunity to  
collaborate in a more coordinated way on larger projects. If all  
members of the alliance are using OFBiz for their project management,  
and we added some "distributed delegation" features to the software,  
then we could do some really nice things with projects that are larger  
than any single service provider can handle, or where the client  
demands multiple service providers and common practices among them in  
order to mitigate risk.

So, in general the idea is to give organizations an incentive to do  
certain things that are good for them and for the community, and to  
encourage collaboration and such that make OFBiz what it is. In return  
they have access to a stamp of approval that prospective clients can  
look for to help in their decision making. There were a few people at  
the conference who expressed interest in this, so hopefully in the not  
too distant future more of this will materialize.

[David E Jones-3]

FYI: the LinkedIn group site is here:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=1233197

-David


On Nov 12, 2008, at 12:50 PM, David E Jones wrote:

>
> One of the things discussed at the recent conference (OFBiz  
> Symposium @ ApacheCon US 2008) is to do more marketing of OFBiz. One  
> of the weaknesses of the community-driven software model is that  
> there is no central organization that consolidates profits from the  
> software and can use them to market the software. While there are  
> many advantages of community-driven software (and IMO that is why  
> OFBiz is some of the best ERP/etc software available), marketing  
> isn't one of them.
>
> Or isn't it? One thing was discussed at the conference and that may  
> work well is some community driven marketing for the project. There  
> are 2 different forms of this discussed, and there could be many  
> others:
>
> 1. grassroots "viral" campaign: the tag line is "I am Open For  
> Business"
>
> 1.a. the first idea is to post this on social and business  
> networking sites (facebook, myspace, linkedin, etc, etc), and to get  
> others to do it as well, even if they aren't quite sure what it  
> means (because it kind of sounds funny); if people google "open for  
> business" ofbiz.apache.org is the first result; if people also link  
> to ofbiz.apache.org then we'll have an even stronger position on  
> google and other sites; I have already added this to my facebook  
> account (just "is Open For Business" in the "What are you doing  
> right now?" thingy, and on LinkedIn I'm not sure where is best,  
> perhaps as a current position as it's most visible, and I've added a  
> new group call "I am Open For Business" that everyone should join
>
> 1.b. to extend this the more gregarious among us should create funny  
> videos and upload them to YouTube and similar sites, and funny  
> pictures and upload them to Flickr and similar sites, and hopefully  
> others will see these and make their own and share them, again even  
> if they don't know what "OFBiz" even is; the videos or pictures  
> should have someone in the foreground saying or holding up a sign  
> that says "I am Open For Business", plus optionally something that  
> describes what they are doing/showing, and something in the  
> background that is related to a business they actually run (in front  
> of the business, by products made/sold, in a warehouse or call  
> center, etc), or to just a hobby or something they enjoy doing  
> (bungee jumping, working on a laptop at Starbucks, whatever); in a  
> way this is a variation on the "I am a PC" thingy, but actually this  
> idea pre-dates that ad campaign... still that campaign may make this  
> all the more interesting and successful
>
> 1.c. if you post things anywhere that represents a group, feel free  
> to use "We are Open For Business"
>
> 2. paid advertisements driven by any company that wants to get  
> involved; these can show collaboration and also further demonstrate  
> the community driven nature of the open source project, ie with the  
> open source project in the middle and not any company or what what;  
> the adds we have a big "We are Open For Business" and would have the  
> OFBiz logo in the middle (yes, we'd have to coordinate through the  
> ASF PRC), and logos of each company spread around the add, and even  
> logos of end-users who give us permission either connected directly  
> to OFBiz or connected to one or more of the service providers; these  
> ads would be paid for be the service providers; as part of this I  
> think we should also add consideration for service providers who  
> can't afford to sponsor it so that they can be included in the ads
>
> The general idea is to emphasize the community-driven nature of the  
> project. There is no individual or organization that represents  
> OFBiz on its own, it is an open project driven by a number of  
> individuals and organizations, so it's correct to say "I am Open For  
> Business" and "We are Open For Business".
>
> On a side note, I think both of these have been discussed before...  
> so the main point of this message is to take action, now. So, go to  
> your public profiles and add "I am Open For Business", and take a  
> funny (or interesting) picture or video and post it around.
>
> -David
>
>
> ============================
> Related Note: OFBiz Alliance
>
> Related to #2 there was also some discussion of some sort of "OFBiz  
> Alliance" that would be an organization that owns a trademark, is  
> run by all members of it, and the main points would be to qualify  
> vendors (service providers mostly, perhaps product companies and end-
> user organizations and such as well) and certify them. This isn't  
> really an activity that fits within what a non-profit open source  
> organization is all about, ie I don't think we want the OFBiz PMC in  
> the business of creating a stamp of approval for other  
> organizations, so this would be something separate.
>
> The main idea is that organizations could use the trademarked logo  
> if approved by the members, and conditions for that approval would  
> be things like using OFBiz internally to manage your business (eat  
> your own dog food type of thing, ie for project/issue mgmt, sales  
> automation, billing/accounting, etc), and to have a certain number  
> of customization projects completed, with case studies for at least  
> 1-2 and preferably for all projects where the client allows the case  
> study, and perhaps also to have a regular stream of contributions  
> going back to OFBiz (preferably with committers on staff, or at have  
> people contributing and moving toward becoming a committer because  
> again it wouldn't be good to have an OFBiz PMC decision to be part  
> of this. While those are the main criteria, there might be small  
> fees to register and help protect the trademark and to maintain a  
> web site that talks about what the alliance is all about, who are  
> members, etc.
>
> One neat thing that could come of this is an opportunity to  
> collaborate in a more coordinated way on larger projects. If all  
> members of the alliance are using OFBiz for their project  
> management, and we added some "distributed delegation" features to  
> the software, then we could do some really nice things with projects  
> that are larger than any single service provider can handle, or  
> where the client demands multiple service providers and common  
> practices among them in order to mitigate risk.
>
> So, in general the idea is to give organizations an incentive to do  
> certain things that are good for them and for the community, and to  
> encourage collaboration and such that make OFBiz what it is. In  
> return they have access to a stamp of approval that prospective  
> clients can look for to help in their decision making. There were a  
> few people at the conference who expressed interest in this, so  
> hopefully in the not too distant future more of this will materialize.
>
>