Fedora experienced a significant amount of growth and development over the last year. With the growth and recent changes, there were new challenges that Fedora and the Marketing team had to face. The Magazine went really well with significant growth concerning the overall traffic (many thanks to Paul, Ryan, Joe, Chris, Justin) and with more infrastructure stability (thanks to Chris again and Patrick). On the other hand, the institutional part of Marketing experienced difficulties in keeping current with the changes that 2015 brought.

There were many strengths that were preserved (organizing tasks, using a ticketing workflow, discussion in the IRC channel, and communications in general), but the Year in Review analysis is targeted towards identifying and setting goals for improvement in this current year.

Marketing Highlights of 2015

Fedora Magazine

In the 2015 marketing retrospective wiki article, Justin (jflory7) pointed out the Magazine broke records for the number of views. This can be attributed to a good organization of the Magazine publication workflow, the weekly editorial meetings, and to the publication dates scheduled for each article.

Marketing tasks

In the remaining part of the Marketing workflow, Gabri (mailga) emphasized the cooperation among the various sub-projects, especially for the editing of Talking Points for the Ambassadors and for the Release Announcement, which is read by thousands. Additionally, the page summarizing the tasks scheduled for each release cycle was updated for Fedora 24.

Brainstorming

Some good ideas came out in several discussions in the Marketing mailing list and also in the IRC channel (#fedora-mktg) on Freenode.

Marketing Goals for 2016

Grow the Marketing Team

• The number of people working on the Magazine outnumber the ones working on the remaining parts of Marketing. The group needs new people joining either the Magazine or Marketing because such an important part of the communication of the Project can’t live off the shoulders of just a few contributors.
• Marketing usually gets great participation and contributions from a new member, but only for a short time. Usually, this is because of their later participation in other groups, or if they are young, they become inactive when they return to classes or later in their semester.

Re-establish Leadership

• No one is constrained to do anything they don’t want, but Marketing has a strategic role in the Project, so it needs someone running the show during the release cycle.

Cross-Project Integration

• The road to get some more glue across groups has already been determined. Going ahead in this direction will be easy for FOSCo to take over the process.
• One of the Marketing duties is working closely with the Ambassadors, who must be aware about strategies and kept updated on the new features of the releases. We hope to improve this communication in 2016.

Regular Meetings

• Without meetings, it’s almost impossible to coordinate all of the jobs and tasks for getting things done. The ticketing system is working well, but being face-to-face is crucial in a people-oriented group which is working with the larger group in the Project: the Ambassadors. In 2016, we hope to resume regular Fedora Marketing meetings in IRC.

Conclusions

2015 had its challenges for the Fedora Marketing team, but it was a challenge brought upon by growing pains. After reflecting on the past year, our efforts in 2016 are focusing on getting off to a new start with the planned tasks and coordination would be ideal for a renewed Marketing team.

Links and contacts

If after reading this post, someone has the desire to give a real help to the group, please apply to the Fedora Marketing group in the Fedora Account System and send an introduction to our mailing list.

Further information can be found in the Marketing wiki page and, of course, by joining the channel #fedora-mktg on Freenode.