i, quaid

This morning we had a productive teleconference about Fedora marketing. We’ve got a group of interested, motivated, passionate, and experienced marketeers at Red Hat who want to help Fedora marketing. The teleconf was a chance for us to do some ideating about how to introduce that group into Fedora as leaders and doers.

A pause to consider the term ‘marketing’. Does that word bother you? What does it mean to mix the words ‘marketing’ and ‘Fedora’?

To start, I intend to use the word marketing. Marketing, marketing, marketing. Get used to it.

There is a temptation to use another word because marketing has so many different meanings to different people. Especially in the view where one group tries to control or deeply influence the message, it is hard to give up the control of what you are doing to the imaginations of others about what ‘marketing’ is.

But I say, call an egg an egg. The main reason is, it is honest. It is also accurate, as what we are doing is what most people mean when they use the word ‘marketing’. That means that with one simple word, we convey to the largest group of people the nature of our group’s undertaking.

Another reason is to weed out the nay-sayers. These are the folks who are going to hate what you are doing because of the word you use. Let’s be honest — you really don’t want them around poisoning your efforts. Give them a word to chew on in the corner.

In my experience, people who “hate sales” or “hate marketing” have a serious challenge ahead of them in finding success (bigger project, more contributors, more money, whatever.) You can hate an individual or personality type of practitioner of the art of sales and marketing, but that doesn’t devalue the skillset and tasks.

All that is a long way of saying that I welcome our marketing brothers and sisters. Your help is much appreciated and needed. Personally, I’m a total novice at this. I just follow my heart and my gut, in that order.