Linux Mint and public relations?

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gevera

Linux Mint and public relations?

Post by gevera »

Hi there! It seems to me, that Achilles Heel of any GNU/Linux distribution, specially Linux Mint, is not compatibility or performance. No. It is a matter of public opinion. So I am looking for same-minded people who have knowledge in public relations or interested in "propaganda". Is there a team that is responsible for public relations? If not, lets have an open discussion here.

Questions for Linux Mint Team Members:

* What would you view as success? What do you want to accomplish?
* How will you measure your success?
* What other types of PR do you do now or plan to do in the future?
* What problems are you facing?
* Who Are the Decision-Makers, and What is the Approval Process?
* What has been your most successful public relations effort to-date?

“Whatever of social importance is done today, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture, charity, education, or other fields, must be done with the help of propaganda.”

"In our present social organization approval of the public is essential to any large undertaking. Hence a laudable movement may be lost unless it impresses itself on the public mind. Charity, as well as business, and politics and literature, for that matter, have had to adopt propaganda, for the public must be regimented into giving money just as it must be regimented into tuberculosis prophylaxis."

“Big business will still leave room for small business.”

― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
lib2know

Re: Linux Mint and public relations?

Post by lib2know »

Hey :)
goof to read your thoughts and interesting subsequent questions.
gevera wrote:...Is there a team that is responsible for public relations?...
I don't know, but we have a Linux User Group in Andorra. For new users we recommend regularly Linux Mint. The meeting is meant to help people to trust in a Technik they are not used to. I wrote two tutorials to explain the idea in detail:
  1. Create a Local Linux Mint User Group Meeting
  2. GNU/Linux Install Party
I am not a team member but I like your questions so I share my opinions just for the local Linux group.
gevera wrote: * What would you view as success? What do you want to accomplish?
We have only small "success" which is about 60 installations in a country with 70.000 inhabitants which seems few. But we advertised only in the small English speaking community. So we hope to find more later on.
In general I think Linux should be installed on thirty percent of Desktops and LapTops. Linux Mint as the most popular distro should be number one here. At first we should address older hardware which still hardly works with WinXP, Vista and Win7. Then all who miss the "free" update to Win10. A nice goal would be to double the market share from 3% to 6% (Marketshares according to Wikipedia).
gevera wrote: * How will you measure your success?
It seems most look up http://distrowatch.com/ and lean back widely as long Linux Mint is still first by far. But I love your idea to force things. It should not be the goal to keep the first place in a tiny Linux market. It should be to fulfil the responsibility as the leader on desktops and laptops.
gevera wrote: * What other types of PR do you do now or plan to do in the future?
I think expanding the meetings to a bigger town once a month. And a low level webpage which addresses newbies to help each other because some are tired of several attitudes they experience in experts forums. Linux Mint is so good that 90% of questions can be solved without direct contact to experts.
gevera wrote: * What problems are you facing?
There enough people with good knowledge and others to appear at the meetings from time to time.
The problem is to find some to contribute time to install parties and other action. Hopefully my improvements in abilities of the local languages will help to find some.
gevera wrote: * Who Are the Decision-Makers, and What is the Approval Process?
This is informal in our group. In Linux Mint it most depends on Clem and maybe some important contributors. This group is not as big as with Debian or Ubuntu. Like someone said once there are distros which are a dwarf on the shoulder of a giant. Linux might be some where in the range between dwarf and giant.
gevera wrote: * What has been your most successful public relations effort to-date?
With our group it was a install party with twenty guests and 10 installations ;) Ok, it's tiny. It is still tiny even compared to chess or bridge clubs ... But it would be fine to have group like this in most towns of that size and improve this base.

Since it is already a problem to find enough people in a small town to establish regular and visible contact on social media about a local meeting it would be much of help to establish contact between other local groups to exchange information.

Who is ready to broaden that movement?
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z31fanatic
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Re: Linux Mint and public relations?

Post by z31fanatic »

gevera wrote:Hi there! It seems to me, that Achilles Heel of any GNU/Linux distribution, specially Linux Mint, is not compatibility or performance. No. It is a matter of public opinion. So I am looking for same-minded people who have knowledge in public relations or interested in "propaganda". Is there a team that is responsible for public relations? If not, lets have an open discussion here.

Questions for Linux Mint Team Members:

* What would you view as success? What do you want to accomplish?
* How will you measure your success?
* What other types of PR do you do now or plan to do in the future?
* What problems are you facing?
* Who Are the Decision-Makers, and What is the Approval Process?
* What has been your most successful public relations effort to-date?

“Whatever of social importance is done today, whether in politics, finance, manufacture, agriculture, charity, education, or other fields, must be done with the help of propaganda.”

"In our present social organization approval of the public is essential to any large undertaking. Hence a laudable movement may be lost unless it impresses itself on the public mind. Charity, as well as business, and politics and literature, for that matter, have had to adopt propaganda, for the public must be regimented into giving money just as it must be regimented into tuberculosis prophylaxis."

“Big business will still leave room for small business.”

― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

Are you writing a paper for school?
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