Re: List of regional contacts up, please revise!

Josh,

What I don't understand from our pr-company is that what we expect from
our contact persons. I understand what I do when I promote postgresql in
private IT gathering or answer endless emails, but I don't understand
what could do contact person - alone in huge Russia without any
PR-kit. btw, do we have something like booklet, pens, etc.

Oleg

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004, Josh Berkus wrote:

> Simon,
>
>> How will you handle the situation that most people's phone numbers won't
>> be answered "PostgreSQL", but actually will be various companies? This
>> might lead to some confusion - should that be mentioned, or not?
>
> Hmmmm ... good question.
>
>> Could you list me as the press contact for UK & Republic of Ireland?
>> Thinks some more...what other countries are missing...
>
> Are you certain that Ireland *wants* to be lumped in with the UK?
>
>> I notice also that we have no press contacts for:
>> Denmark - .dk Troels Arvin?
>> Netherlands - .nl
>> Norway - .no
>> Spain - .es there is a "spanish" list, but they're in way different
>> timezones...
>> Portugal - .po perhaps Armando Halpern?
>> Czech Republic - .cz there is a czech list
>> Greece - .gr Alexander Antonakakis <alexis(at)maich(dot)gr>?
>
> I'm a little reluctant to tap people as Regional Contacts if they aren't on
> this list, and haven't volunteered. It's better not to have a contact at
> all for a region than to have on who doesn't answer his phone/email -- or
> even answers it wrong.
>
>> South Africa - .za Anton de Wet <adw ( at ) obsidian ( dot ) co ( dot )
>> za>?
>
> Yeah, he just sent me contact info.
>
>> also there are no contacts from Africa or the Arabic world at all, which
>> is not good at this time.
>
> Actually, I just got a potential volunteer from Iran. Waiting to see if he
> wants to do RC.
>
>> Nigeria? - http://www.postgresql.org/news/185.html
>
> Hey, if you know someone there ...
>
>> You're also missing NZ and English-speaking Canada. Perhaps it might be
>> politic to list the US and Australian contacts as covering those
>> countries also?
>
> Hmmmm ... yeah. Mind you, if we had a French-speaking Canadian contact, they
> would be separate.
>
>> I thought Afilias was actually an Irish company...
>
> Nope.
>
>> I'm in the same timezone as SouthAfrica, and it is common for the UK to
>> be associated with Northern European countries (who typically speak
>> English better than we do...). It might be an idea to list me as the
>> contact for Rep of Ireland, South Africa, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark
>> until we find a better spokesperson for each. So list me as "UK &
>> Northern Europe".
>
> I'm a bit reluctant to have people covering "beats" that don't include their
> actual countries/areas. After all, have you ever actually *been* to Norway?
> Would you be able to travel there to meet someone? We're a volunteer
> organization, not a commercial company with a sales budget. More than that,
> I find that a lot of countries resent having foriegners "speak for" their
> country and there could be a negative reaction.
>
>> ...or maybe don't group them together, just have an additional section
>> at bottom, saying "if your country does not have a dedicated press
>> contact volunteer, please contact one of these regional contacts:
>> Northern Europe Simon Riggs
>> Nordic & Baltic Jussi Mikkola
>> Central & Eastern Europe Ewald Geschwinde
>> Southern Europe & Middle-East Devrim Gunduz
>
> This makes a lot more sense to me. However, I'd tend to think that people
> could figure it out on their own. What to others think? We'd also need:
>
> Mexico & Central America Alvaro
> Pacific Islands Gavin
> East Asia Shridhar or JPUG
>
>

Regards,
Oleg
_____________________________________________________________
Oleg Bartunov, sci.researcher, hostmaster of AstroNet,
Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow University (Russia)
Internet: oleg(at)sai(dot)msu(dot)su, http://www.sai.msu.su/~megera/
phone: +007(095)939-16-83, +007(095)939-23-83