Media / Press Kit

Problem

Debian awareness not as high as other Linux distributions. Some people don't take Debian seriously because of it's organizational structure. Target audience lacks education. Most current Debian users are rather skilled and sometimes PERCIEVED as arrogant. "Non-technical" participation is not fully recognized.

Target Audience

• non-users without any experience of Debian.
  • Technically-minded people will often be convinced already of why they should use Debian
• casual users who might be interested in Debian
• ammunition for those who are campaigning to have Debian used
  • With our backgrounds, we could emphasize that we can provide material in the langauge that decision-makers can understand.

Debian Resources

It's important to identify and work with the existing infrastructures for this type of thing. More research about who is out there that is interested in press relations needs to be done before showing the work completed to others.

• Contacts page includes press@debianNOSPAM.org but I don't know who's behind that alias. I'll send an email right now to find out.
• Events team
  • Mail list debian-events-na
  • Mail list debian-events-eu
• Debian Weekly News DWN and their mail list debian-news
• debian-announce and their News page
• DebianPlanet.org
• Others?

Solution / Goal

• persuade people to use Debian
• give target audience realistic expectations of running GNU/Linux
  • skills expected
  • differences from what they already know
• educate target audience about benefits and advantages of Debian.
• give target audience realistic expectations of running Debian
  • skills expected
  • differences from what they already know
• background materials, "marketing collateral"

You have proposed two documents that sound on target to me.

?WhyDebian

A bullet list meant to give a quick answer.

?DebianProductSheet

includes interesting facts

The third is a collection of success stories which is more of a process than a clearly defined deliverable in itself. That sounds wonderful.

I think another active process for tracking recent news (if it doesn't already exist) should also be useful for similar purposes.

Result

• two documents: Why Debian? & Debian Product Sheet
  • these will be documents of a Debian media/press kit
  • processes to keep these documents updated over time. For example, every release.
  • beginning of a central repository for info about Debian
• a web repsitory for success stories
  • some kind of link or integration with current website.
• increased appreciation by official Debian organization for non-technical participation.
• increased non-technical Debian user involvement
• increased adoption of Debian GNU/Linux by users.
• consideration for using SPI funds for hiring part-time PR resources

-- ?GrantBow - 13 Jan 2003

This article was in the most recent version of the Debian Weekly News.

-- ?GrantBow - 15 Jan 2003

Here are some interesting urls from this issue of the Debian Weekly news:

Debian Presentations. Wolfgang Borgert was looking for a set of slides on dpkg, apt-get and debconf. Javier Fern�ndez-Sanguino Pe�a intends to provide a 'presentations' section in the Debian Documentation Project (DDP) and has already created an archive of slides. Whilst the Debian web site does link to talks given by developers and some sample slides, it is difficult to gather this information and publish it in a homogeneous way. Talks should be reported to events@debianNOSPAM.org and forwarded to him.

-- ?GrantBow - 22 Jan 2003