On Fri, 2005-09-02 at 11:19 +0200, Erwin Tenhumberg wrote: > I agree with the problem statement, but I'm not convinced that having > everybody saying what comes to his or her mind in the name of the > OpenOffice.org project would be a good thing.
I'm not suggesting that, I just think we need a way of solving the problem - improving the current situation. > As mentioned before, we have a PR list. So far many people have talked > about approaching the press, but I haven't seen a specific proposal > for an announcement from anybody, yet. Ok, how about "OpenOffice.org welcomes the MA decision" or something similar. That doesn't take long to draft and could be issued unilaterally by the Marketing Lead or if there was one, the PR Lead. Given the size of the project having a few trusted people authorised to do this, and indeed encouraged to do so would make it more likely that things wouldn't get missed. Whether this is all the Marcons or say a subset of the most experienced or those in particular geographical areas needs to be decided - by the marketing leads. > Yes, the MA news are a great opportunity and we should try to leverage > the momentum as much as we can, but the OpenOffice.org project should > speak with one voice and one message. Thus, we should at least put > together a short list of key messages we want to stick to. That should > not take very long and could also be quickly translated to various > other languages. Do we have any volunteers for that? > > > been from the marketing leads. If the only members of the hierarchy that > > post to the marketing list are Louis and Erwin, it undermines confidence > > in the marketing project leadership. What decisions will be taken as a > > result of these discussions and who takes them? > > I let the leads speak for themselves. Nevertheless, everybody hear can > make a proposal for PR activities. Proposals yes but decisions, no. We can have long and endless discussions amongst ourselves but if there is no definite decision at the end of that its just taking up time and leads to disenchantment. Consultation has no purpose if it ends without some definite outcome. Usually the main criticism is that political consultation is a sham because decisions have already been made and the consultation is just there for political correctness. Its powerful to be able to initiate the consultation from grass roots and the lists are good at that but we also need the Leads to then take that and fashion it into policy and make definite decisions about procedures and how the policy is implemented. The PR thing just seems not to be working very effectively at the moment. If it is the Leads need to come on the list and demonstrate that it is. > They only have to go through a > (quick) review process, if they're intended to come from the > project and not just from the individuals. There has to be a balance struck between delegation, collective decision making and leadership. Not all decisions can be arrived at by a collective vote, that's why leads are elected but equally leadership requires decision making based on consultation and accountability should the lead go against popular opinion based on outcome. That does not mean leaders should never go out on a limb against the popular view - the best leaders do do this - but they are accountable for the outcomes. > > But we also need people to be able to speak immediately. Its not just > > press releases, its being able to take opportunities. One of the > > strengths of Open Source in general is that it isn't - or shouldn't - be > > constrained by the same bureaucratic mechanisms as a Cathedral. > > If people get approached by the press, which definitely happens, > they can either refer to the "official" local project/marcon > lead or just comment as an individual, maybe as a community > member but not as a community representative. That's not really my point. My point is more related to management and leadership in the process. We can't be both an anarchy and a corporate cathedral. > I will see what I can do, but I personally for sure won't speak > in the name of the OpenOffice.org project of Sun. ;-) > > O.k., what PR activities do you suggest from an OpenOffice.org > project point of view? What would be the key messages we want > to talk about? What will be our news, to make sure the press > picks up what we have/want to say? I think first we need to know why this doesn't appear to be happening now and what needs to be changed to make it happen. The specific messages are not really the issue. -- Ian Lynch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ZMSL --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
