Re: Count me in

Hi Stephen,

Thank you.
Those are all good points, let me address inline below.

On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 11:50 PM Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> wrote:

> Greetings Valeria,
>
> * Valeria Kaplan (vk(at)dataegret(dot)com) wrote:
> > I gave a talk at pgconf.eu about marketing and proposed an idea of
> having a
> > centralised working group that will be initiating and implementing
> advocacy
> > and marketing activities that will develop and strengthen Postgres brand.
>
> This sounds very much like what this list is actually intended to be,
> with a set of smaller groups who manage particular activities (Press
> Releases, Twitter, Updates to postgresql.org, etc).
>
> What would be different with this "working group"..?
>
First, if there is a list somewhere listing all those different subgroups
and who is a part of them can you please direct me since that would be
incredibly helpful.

The idea is to have a small group that can be strategic about all the
different activities that need to be done for Postgres and will be very
active (have regular catch ups and follow ups, will move activities forward
and so on). One of the problems with a mailing list that there is a problem
that people tend to "hide" behind the list if there is a need for some
action. Also, it is much easier to have a manageable size group of up to
about 10 people to actually function (that's from my personal experience so
maybe you'd have a different opinion on that).

This is not to say that there isn't a place for advocacy mailing list and I
think it actually a perfect forum to bring forward the shortlisted and
structured tasks that the smaller working group come with and ask for
members on the list to join a specific activites (for example the Twitter
managing team , as you have now).

> > At the moment, Jonathan does a lot that has to do with press releases
> (and
> > more..) and there is a small group of people who maintain community
> Twitter
> > account where there is a lack of consistency there and need for more
> > people.
>
> I agree that it'd be great to add more people to the twitter team, we
> had some good steam there at the start but the folks currently on that
> team (which includes myself) have gotten over the excitment of it, I'm
> afraid, and aren't being as active (though there's been some recent
> efforts to try and improve on that). What is the lack of consistency
> though? I can believe that to exist, though I suspect it's largely due
> to the people being busy and not as active with the account than
> anything intentional.
>
> The consistency it's exactly that, if people are busy there is obviously a
need to maybe rethink how the group works and what can be done for them to
be on the ball with Twitter content. Planning content ahead would help
(with events etc. it's actually pretty straight forward), but also to make
sure that if somebody is busy and can't do it there is a process in place
to replace that person and get help from somebody else. So in my view the
working group would come up with an activity and guidelines but for the
implementation one will need a dedicated subgroup who will focus on that
activity only.

Since we all do this in an open source manner (for free) each single one of
us can't be expected to do many activities. This will help to break the
activities into bite size pieces.

> > So there is a need to be a bit more structured about it and
> > actually implement, perhaps even small changes that will help with
> Postgres
> > and overall community accessibility, transparency etc.
>
> I'm certainly in support of making changes that will make the community
> more accessible, transparent, etc, though it's unclear what's
> specifically being suggested here.
>
> It is about education probably more than anything. Will give you just one
example, following my talk I've been approached by a member of the
community asking me how they could get funding for a local meetup -
form what I know you just need to ask, however, it's not clear from the
website or if that information is there it's not easy to find. So when I
say transparency I probably mena that. To think about procedures and to
make sure that information is very intuitively located.

> > A mix of technical and marketing people would be great, so let me know
> > who's in.
>
> I'd be happy to be involved (and I would think we'd probably want to at
> least ask the individuals who are involved in the existing teams who
> support the existing efforts in this area if they wish to be...), though
> unfortunately I wasn't able to be in Milan and can't join in person (and
> the meeting might have already happened now anyway?).
>
>
The meeting is later today, I'll add you in.
If you can point me onto lists of people who are already doing advocacy
activities please do. I just don't have this information at hand.

We miss you here in Milan :(

> Thanks,
>
> Stephen
>