TWiki Marketing Meeting, 11th February 2008

Attendees

• ArthurClemens
• MichaelCorbett
• OliverKrueger (Facilitator)
• PeterThoeny
• MartinSeibert
• AmirShobeiri
• SvenDowideit
• ManfredMislik
• LarsEik
• KoenMartens (joining later)
• LynnwoodBrown (joining later)

Place & Time

• IRC Server chat.freenode.net, channel #twiki_marketing
• 21:00 GMT (105min)

1. Blogging

• Champion: KoenMartens
• Supporting topic: TWikiBlogAndNewsletter

• Blogging slowed down in the current past
• Possible reasons
  • group membership is needed to gain write access (might be a barrier for new contributors)
  • the "howto contribute" might not be clear enough
• Different forms of larger buttons are discussed
• ArthurClemens realtime implements a short instruction on BlogPostCreator
• a staging area for unfinished blog posts is proposed

• Blog posts in different languages are suggested
• MartinSeibert has some german texts ready for publication (examples are here and here) (first posts online)
• pros and cons are collected for mixing up languages

• Action items
  • PeterThoeny: add big rss icon to .org home and encouraging note to particitape
  • MartinSeibert: create English summaries for available Weblog-Entries in German

2. Usability & Home Page Redesign

• Champion: ArthurClemens, CarloSchulz
• Co-Champion: PeterThoeny
• Supporting topic - NewNavigationModelForTWikiDotOrg & WebPageAudience & WebPageAudienceSiteStructure, UsabilityIdeas,

• ArthurClemens introduces his sketches on NewNavigationModelForTWikiDotOrg

• Action items
  • all: comment on NewNavigationModelForTWikiDotOrg, give feedback

3. Testimonials

• Champion: RodBeckstrom, MichaelCorbett
• Supporting topic: YouTubeDemoContest2008

• MichaelCorbett hopes the contest can start this week (valentines day?)
• Action items
  • MichaelCorbett and AmirShobeiri define a (short) list of criterias

4. TWiki.org Performance

• Champion: PeterThoeny
• Supporting topic: NewTWikiOrgServer2007

• Sun still has not delivered the three webservers and the nas storage server
• PeterThoeny was looking for a cheaper hosting site and came back to plug & play

• Remaining question
  • Will there be an initial setup so we can test and customise for performance?
  • Is there a hold up? Can the community help?

• Action items
  • PeterThoeny: create and maintain topic in Codev web on (delivery) status
  • PeterThoeny: update twiki.org to 4.2 within the next two weeks

5. Press Releases

• Champion: PeterThoeny
• Co-Champion: MichaelCorbett
• Supporting topic: TWikiAdvocacy04x02

• Learning from our press release experience (open discussion)

• There was no direct coverage to the press release regarding to Peter
• PeterThoeny: we had some ups and down on 4.2 press release
• Reference to TWikiGovernanceProposal1 and CommunityDecisions
• Summit on thursday and friday will cover this topic

7. Merchandising

• Champion: KoenMartens
• Supporting topic: TWikiMerchandise

• A Spreadshirt account has been opened here
• Different shapes and colors were discussed

• Action items
  • all: comment on TWikiMerchandise

8. TWiki Meetups

• Champion: AmirShobeiri
• Supporting topic - TWikiMeetUps

• Report on TWikiMeetUpInHolland.

• Next Meetup will be in Silicon Valley on friday 2/15 from 5:30pm right after the developer summit at Yahoo! Inc.

9. Positive influence management-decisions

• Comparison with other Wiki-Systems (open and honest list advantages and disadvantages of compared systems): MediaWiki, Confluence
• Online-Help-Videos for TWiki-Introduction and virtual trainings (Screencasts with Jing: e.g. "How to edit a topic (1 min)")
  • It is very easy and straight forward to create Screencasts with Jing: see this demo-video (2 min). It might not be "superprofessional". But it is perfect to enhance the user experience for those who just want easy to understand and absorb information for managers.
• German version of twiki.org (Peter Thoeny speaks German. A lot of other users speak German. Why not create a German duplicate of the main content for the decision-makers in German Companies?)
• The PlugIns are TWikis strength: Have the manager in mind with the PlugIns. There must not be any PlugIn without screenshots of the outcome. Each PlugIn should have a decent list with advantages and features to install. (The form for PlugIns should be enhanced.)
• Do not focus on new wikis only, but convince struggling and unhappy users of different software solutions to convert to TWiki. (See confluence as example for TWiki-, MediaWiki- and other converters.)

IRC Log

To be supplied after the meeting Previous/Next meeting: TWikiMarketingMeeting2008x01x28, TWikiMarketingMeeting2008x02x25

Back to: TWikiMarketing

-- PeterThoeny - 13 Jan 2008

Discussion

My todos:

1. Create english management summaries for the weblogs and integrate them.
2. Create new topics / enhance existing topics for the marketing stuff (demo-links in plugins, sample translations, requirements for plugin-descriptions, comparisons, ...)
3. Create some sample training videos on TWiki in German

-- MartinSeibert - 11 Feb 2008

For the publicity, why couldn't anyone also write one or two blogs about TWiki on use.perl or perlbuzz? I'm just starting to use TWiki and afraid not in the position to write anything.

-- WenjianYang - 13 Feb 2008

A far reaching and more organised online howto video site is Expert Village.

-- KwangErnLiew - 15 Feb 2008

Martin, what exactly do you mean with 'Create english management summaries for the weblogs and integrate them'? I missed the first part of the meeting due to an IRL meeting that ended late, so i might have missed it.

-- KoenMartens - 15 Feb 2008

Koen: We decided, that I would create short texts for these two blog entries (http://blog.seibert-media.net/2008/01/arbeitstechniken/wikis-sind-der-kitt-der-intranets-zusammenhaelt/ & http://blog.seibert-media.net/2007/11/arbeitstechniken/warum-in-jedes-intranet-ein-wiki-integriert-sein-sollte/). But meanwhile I have ordered our translator to translate them in a whole.

-- MartinSeibert - 16 Feb 2008

Ah, i just read the irc logs.. i would not put german articles on the blog.. or should i then start putting dutch articles on there, who knows, next thing we have danish, chinese, japanese, and (god forbid french articles on there, that's just silly i think.

-- KoenMartens - 16 Feb 2008

As for the slowing down of the posting, that is probably a direct result of me not getting behind everyone's back to post something. Those blog posts don't just happen, i know that from other domains. You have to keep your antennae out for interesting stuff, and ask those people to write a post about it. There have been spontaneous posts on the blog, yes, but those are mostly from very active community members. Those that are not very active community members need a little encouragement. I'll try and get some more people to write a post!

-- KoenMartens - 16 Feb 2008

• irc.log: 12 Feb 2008 meeting