Form A PR Committee

stephane ducasse stephane.ducasse at free.fr
Mon Jan 8 19:40:41 UTC 2007


hi chris

I agree that this is important. Do something, my english is too bad  
but I support effort in that direction if Brad wants to help.

Stef

>> well... the squeaky wheel.... The front page of the website has been
>> updated from comments here.
>>
>> (What I think we need is a PR team to come up with great evangelistic
>> ideas and coordinate messages with the web team, news team and doc  
>> team.)
>
>
> Dear Squeak Committee and Community,
>
> I have been reading the comments about the composition of the  
> Squeak.org
> home page this weekend with great interest. As I have started a web  
> host for
> Smalltalk (SeasideParasol.com), I am confronted by the same  
> problems you are
> about getting the word out about what I offer. I am working  
> actively to
> generate publicity for my project -- and Squeak should be actively  
> working
> to generate publicity for Squeak.
>
> I was fired up enough about it to call Brad Fuller in Palo Alto  
> (I'm in
> Toronto). I just got off the phone with him. I liked the things he  
> had to
> say on the message board, and felt I'd ask him about how to  
> volunteer to
> assist the Squeak.org project, and to ask how a public relations  
> committee
> could be formed for Squeak. He told me that he made mention of a  
> similar
> proposal some time ago and it was met with indifference.
>
> That is simply not acceptable. It is imperative that a committee of  
> Squeak
> Committee people (or hey, I'll join) convene on a regular basis to  
> do the
> bare minimum to promote Squeak. If you think that public relations  
> is not
> important, well, see if you disagree with either of the techniques  
> that I
> tried last week. They failed for me, but they could work for Squeak.
>
> 1. I posted to Slashdot and was rejected. I think that's because  
> saying
> "World's First Commercial Smalltalk Web Host" says I'm a business,  
> and not a
> non-profit. Squeak is a non-profit project. It's a no-brainer that  
> every
> time a new version of Squeak is launched that somebody take 30- 
> seconds to
> post to Slashdot. I would point out that recently there was a post
> announcing the release of the Amiga 4.0 operating system. Amiga.  
> But that's
> not the best part. The kicker is that there is no hardware yet  
> built on
> planet Earth that can run this OS. It's expected sometime this year.
>
> 2. I posted to Digg.com. I had no success with that. Digg raises  
> the profile
> with votes. It would be no problem to announce on this list that  
> people
> should go to Digg, register and vote up the news item about a Squeak
> project. Mark Guzdial sits on 200 undergrads that he could announce  
> to at
> Georgia Tech, and ask them to visit the site to vote an item up. I  
> would
> point out that Avi Bryant did this for Dabble DB, and he asked on the
> Seaside message board for people to vote his item up.
>
> These are simple things to do. But hey! If you have a better idea,  
> great!
> The important thing is to have four or so Squeak people in a committee
> thinking about this on a regular basis. The "how" is debatable; the  
> need for
> such a body is not. I am moving from journalism (dynamicword.com)  
> to web
> hosting for Smalltalk. This stuff, from where I come from, is a no- 
> brainer.
> If you don't respect public relations, because you are above it or
> something, then I say two things to you: 1. You have no concept of  
> how the
> world works; and 2. If you ever complain that Squeak is  
> underappreciated,
> and you let this call to action go without the immediate and  
> determined
> formation of a Squeak public relations committee, then you have no  
> right to
> complain.
>
> There is a reason why Tide and Coke-a-Cola are the top of mind when  
> people
> are asked -- suddenly! -- to name a laundry detergent or a soda  
> pop. It's
> mere, simple repetition. That's marketing, that's public relations.  
> Squeak
> is better than both. It's practically divine.
>
> I get so incensed about this issue I could bite a rock. The bare  
> minimum
> public relations awareness must come to the Squeak community. A  
> committee
> doing the obvious must be formed immediately.
>
> If Karl Rove worked for Squeak our problems would be over with  
> very, very
> quickly. ;)
>
> Chris Cunnington
> Toronto
>
>
>




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