2023-03-15 - Marketing Team Minutes

Attendees: @garbas @idabzo @Ericson2314 @tomberek @fricklerhandwerk @btjh @pxc

  • Doing the intro round since many members of the marketing are new
  • update the marketing portion of the website and add Ida(@idabzo), Patrick(@pxc) (assigned to @garbas)
  • @fricklerhandwerk’s questions:
    • What is the team’s capacity?
    • Is there a team handbook?
    • Is there a set of goals, a roadmap?
    • What are current priorities?
  • @garbas: will try to answer that today as we go

Topic: Nix release videos

  • @garbas: by far the most popular thing we are doing so far and we are focusing on it as a priotity
  • Script for the video: What's new in Nix 2.13.0 - 2.14.0? - HackMD
    • @tomberek and @djacu are pairing on the announcement role
    • @tomberek: no updates yet, probably more time for it over the weekend
    • Delay in video may be prudent due to concerns about existing releases.
  • @fricklerhandwerk: not excited about exciting people about things that are broken
    • we had three regressions in two releases
    • Please instead market things that produce great experiences, doesn’t have to limit itself to Nix specifically
    • Bryan: getting more eyeballs will provide more feedback
    • @fricklerhandwerk: disagree, the process is too broken and this is making false promises
  • @pxc: is it possible to address the two different audiences of conservative and risk-inclined users clearly?
  • @garbas: This is for existing users to follow new features
    • Still developing the process for even deciding what should go in and out
    • Whoever will contribute will drive the direction
  • @pxc: small suggestion which may help: include some playful language characterizing the intended audience as ‘brave’, or trying the exciting new features as part of an ‘adventure’
    • Something that conveys that trying out the latest version of Nix right away is both exciting and a little risky. or even including an explicit call for testing and feedback in the announcement, which will send the same signals
  • @Ericson2314: hope as we work through the backlog of untested functionality, Nix releases will become more stable, even with no changes to the release process
  • @garbas: will also cut the videos in chunks and post them separately to Twitter
  • @fricklerhandwerk:
    • How can the Nix team help the marketing team? (ideally at zero cost, e.g. by shifting focus slightly)
    • How can the documentation team help?
      • @tomberek: produce static artifacts that we can use, such as release notes, use case examples
      • @fricklerhandwerk: multiple months ago we discussed with Bryan about simply reading ready-made tutorials (which are known to work well) out loud; it’s a content mill which can churn out many episodes
      • @garbas: we need to be concise, the purpose is to create an end-to-end story; tutorials are too long
      • @btjh: still think it’s a good idea, but probably youtube shorts is a better place for this
    • Can you imagine a feedback loop back to the Nix maintainers and docs team?
      • @tomberek: is there anything we can produce that would complement doc team efforts?
      • @fricklerhandwerk: Yes, showcase major use cases that work flawlessly (stress: not oriented around novelty, but quality!)
  • @pxc: should we reach out to existing Youtubers for collaboration opportunities
    • @garbas: have to figure out attribution, e.g. if someone working at a company does a video
    • @Ericson2314: supposedly youtubers will want to publish from their own channels
    • @tomberek: “yes”

Survey (survey.nixos.org)

Team Q/A recordings (live.nixos.org)

  • Next recording is going to be documentation team (@fricklerhandwerk will) around April
  • Add Twitch to the streamyard platform
    • @btjh will do that
  • Reach out to the NixOS release team to have a Q/A around the channel freeze date
    • @garbase will contact them
  • @fricklerhandwerk will invite @Arsleust to the next marketing meeting calendar event

Create a communication pipeline for community/teams to use

  • Set up a monthly newsletter
  • Weekly schedule Twitter/LinkedIn posts
  • @garbas: waiting for access to mailchimp from weekly.nixos.org (@domenkozar)
  • @idabzo is going to help
  • Add everybody to the lists, set up forwards/aliases
    • webmaster@nixos.org, marketing@nixos.org
  • figure out a way to share credentials (for sites like hootsuite, Twitch, YouTube, …)
  • Tool needs 2FA support

Agenda for next time

  • @tomberek: nixpkgs stories Blog → Tales from Nixpkgs | Nix & NixOS
  • @fricklerhandwerk: what about the website rewrite
    • it’s a pain for essentially every team, and we have to do double book-keeping to maintain team information
    • keep it low tech" no pre-processors, no SASS/LESS… the more common, the better, regardless how primitive or clumsy it is
    • @garbas: must not do a big bang change, this was attempted multiple times and never materialised
      • @fricklerhandwerk: have to set up a proper project and plan, break down into manageable tasks
        • then volunteers will be able to pick up units of work
    • Write down the plan and publish it (@garbas)
  • @Ericson2314: could need help reaching out to contributors for doxygen improvements and hackathon
    • @fricklerhandwerk: in general, the marketing team should leverage their “reach” into the various audiences
      • amplify the team needs/announcements/feedback
      • be a unique sink for information that should go outward
      • help teams with phrasing communication, factor it for the different channels
  • @jeremiahs: looking at the information structure of the website
    • @fricklerhandwerk: will get you in touch with people from the documentation team
    • @Ericson2314: how can we keep the pressure on setting up sites on the other domains?
      • @garbas: all for it, but it adds a lot of work and we’re barely handling one website
  • @garbas: question is where documentation ends and marketing starts
    • currently we meet at the Learn page
    • marketing’s goal is to reach out to the audience and capture users and retain them enough to become invested enough in learning the ecosystem
      • example: the Nix language tutorial is great but really long
        • our job is to get people excited about it, and e.g. provide a 3 min summary, highlighting the 10% of the language people will use most often
        • convince users to jump into documentation
  • (some discussion on setting up the team’s mission statement)
    • @garbas: the team discussed this on and off, it’s scattered in the notes
    • @tomberek: also have some past effort in the drawer
  • @fricklerhandwerk: what’s the currently most important thing for the team to work on?
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