Marketing/PR cont'd

[Ra'id Al-Jamali <rjamali at omantel dot net dot om>]

Salam all

Thanks to Nadim and Mohammed for the clarifications to my questions.
This post will be mostly a quick summary and recap. I shall build upon
them in a followup...

(1) Conceptually, the PR/Marketing (the Front-shop) process should
operate in two main modes:
	a- An Outward, outreach or Show-and-Tell mode
	b- An Inward, information and intelligence gathering mode

(2) Outreach audience consist of:
	a- General public
	b- Institutes of higher learning
	c- Commercial organisations
	d- Major Linux distributions
	e- Linux User Groups
	f- (any more?)

(3) Inward intelligence will be on:
	a- General computer usage statistics and trends
	b- Penetration of FLOSS into Arabic world
	c- Market research studies and projections (Nadim?)
	d- (any more?)

(4) The outreach subprocess should exploit major media of mass
communication: print, audio/visual, digital/electronic. Each type of
media will require its own tools:
	a- Print: Pamphlets, handouts
	b- A/V broadcast: presentations, etc..
	c- Digital: Web (online), Live CD (offline)

(5) Initial objective of the PR process is to preach the Free (see
below) and Open Source model and help increase its penetration.
[ DEFINITION: Free as in not under restriction, compulsion or restraint.
Freedom from cost, or cost-free, might be a fringe benefit but that's
not guaranteed. Unless specified otherwise, I will henceforth refer to
the state of freedom or liberty as being 'free', while absence of price
is always qualified as 'cost-free']

(6) Current recommended action:
	a- Assemble list of contacts in universities (2b)
	b- Assemble list of contacts in LUG (2e)
	c- Assemble list of contacts in Linux distros (2d)
	d- Assemble list of contacts in Linux Businesses (2c)
	d- Assemble list of contact for media (see 4)
	e- Focus on creating the appropriate outreach tools (see 4)
	f- Look into how to acquire intelligence on point 3c

A quick reponse:

* Introductory material section
I've had a look and my short answer is: No, it's no longer fit for the
outreach purpose. Obviously the types of audience in point (2) above
have different needs. Some screenshots and layman's FAQs are the first
thing that comes to mind for the broad-base audience. Also require
specific introductory content for each type of audience. I have a few
ideas, but as mentioned more on that in a follow-up.

In the meantime, comments, additions, corrections...

Ra'id