Media coordinator? [was: Re: ZFS committed to the FreeBSD base. (fwd)]

[Jeremy C. Reed]

On Sun, 8 Apr 2007, Sam Lawrance wrote:

> Would it be worthwhile to form a "media coordinator" role?  I can think 
> of two areas of value for this role: announcement coordination and media 
> liaison.

FreeBSD has a media coordinator -- it is made up of marketing 
professionals, book authors, active announcement and/or press release 
writers, freelance writers and a few others.

> Announcement coordination would be provided as a service to our 
> developers and the community.  For example, before committing or MFC'ing 
> some hot new feature, people can ask the media coordinator for 
> assistance with the announcement.  This might involve helping to draft 
> the primary announcement, writing articles for submission to news sites, 
> the sort of information described above by Robert.  The work can be 
> delegated, the key is simply to provide all the right information to the 
> right people and channels when an announcement is made.

This is frequently done, but usually the marketing team contacts the 
developers. We do need to remind developers to contact the marketing 
team.

Also the marketing team doesn't have defined goals or any set schedule -- 
and also no single person to accept responsibility. Nevertheless, the 
volunteer marketing team has done a good job over past couple years -- 
take note of the several press releases distributed. (In a few cases, 
press release writing and distribution has been paid for. Also I have 
personally contacted many print publications for several news stories over 
past couple years.)

> Media liaison is around providing a single point of contact for media
> requests, to make it easier for people unfamiliar with the project to find
> their way to the right people and resources.  Maybe this extends to writing
> articles (or finding people to do so), and submitting them to journals or
> magazines.
> 
> I'm sure there are other areas of value.  The two points above just 
> spring to mind based on recent messages to advocacy at .
> 
> Any thoughts on this?

  Jeremy C. Reed