Thread: A cohesive sales message

> As a company, we felt that if we were to benefit from
> using the product of other people¹s efforts, we should give something
> back. I offered our services to Josh and was advised that the most
> useful contribution we could make would be in helping to develop
> marketing material ­ to begin with: brochures or other printable
> matter.

Marketing material needs to be made with a specific purpose in mind.  So
before you create something, you need to ask yourself who the audience
is and who will carry it to that audience.

Likely audiences in the near term are guest at expositions and
conferences.  Flyers (to pass out) and posters (to decorate) are the
obvious types of material for these occasions.  So talk to the people
who are going to staff these events to see what they need.

Alternatively, and additionally, devise other scenarios where printed
matter or brochures could be used.  I can't think of any right now, but
maybe you can.

Folks,

IF we could get back on topic for a minute ... not that the discussion of
copyright infringement isn't interesting, but in the meantime Rob has been
left hanging.

To quote Peter:
> Marketing material needs to be made with a specific purpose in mind.  So
> before you create something, you need to ask yourself who the audience
> is and who will carry it to that audience.
>
> Likely audiences in the near term are guest at expositions and
> conferences.  Flyers (to pass out) and posters (to decorate) are the
> obvious types of material for these occasions.  So talk to t

Absolutely.   The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all it
requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most advanced Open
Source database").   Aside from the design, our main challenge is deciding
how many languages to do posters in.

For flyers & brochures, I see three audiences.   At conventions like OSCON and
PHPCon, we will be talking pretty much exculsively to fellow geeks, and our
materials should focus on the technical and community benefits of PostgreSQL
in a buzzword-free way.  They should answer the questions "What can I do with
PostgreSQL that I couldn't do otherwise?  What resources exist to help me
work with PostgreSQL?"

The second audience shows up at conventions like Linuxworld and Macworld ...
the suits.   These people, in my experience, are mostly interested in being
reassured that they won't be fired for choosing PostgreSQL over MSSQL or
Oracle.  For them, we'd mostly want testimonials, and buzzword-compliant
lists of features and comparisons.  These materials should answer the
question "Is PostgreSQL equal to major proprietary databases?"

The third audience is the press.   Depending on the reporter and the story,
most of what they want to know can be answered with the materials for either
of the two groups above (more the "suits" than the "geeks").   However, they
will also want the answer to the question "What is PostgreSQL?  Where did it
come from?"  which would include a brief history and an explanation of
ORDBMS.

Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two "packages" -- a
"geek" and a "non-geek" package.

Opinions?   Thoughts?  Rude noises?

--
-Josh Berkus
 Aglio Database Solutions
 San Francisco

Quoting Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>:

> Folks,
>
> IF we could get back on topic for a minute ... not that the discussion of
> copyright infringement isn't interesting, but in the meantime Rob has been
> left hanging.
>
> To quote Peter:
> > Marketing material needs to be made with a specific purpose in mind.  So
> > before you create something, you need to ask yourself who the audience
> > is and who will carry it to that audience.
> >
> > Likely audiences in the near term are guest at expositions and
> > conferences.  Flyers (to pass out) and posters (to decorate) are the
> > obvious types of material for these occasions.  So talk to t
>
> Absolutely.   The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all it
> requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most advanced Open
> Source database").   Aside from the design, our main challenge is deciding
> how many languages to do posters in.
>
> For flyers & brochures, I see three audiences.   At conventions like OSCON
> and
> PHPCon, we will be talking pretty much exculsively to fellow geeks, and our
> materials should focus on the technical and community benefits of PostgreSQL
>
> in a buzzword-free way.  They should answer the questions "What can I do with
>
> PostgreSQL that I couldn't do otherwise?  What resources exist to help me
> work with PostgreSQL?"
>
> The second audience shows up at conventions like Linuxworld and Macworld ...
>
> the suits.   These people, in my experience, are mostly interested in being
> reassured that they won't be fired for choosing PostgreSQL over MSSQL or
> Oracle.  For them, we'd mostly want testimonials, and buzzword-compliant
> lists of features and comparisons.  These materials should answer the
> question "Is PostgreSQL equal to major proprietary databases?"
>
> The third audience is the press.   Depending on the reporter and the story,
> most of what they want to know can be answered with the materials for either
>
> of the two groups above (more the "suits" than the "geeks").   However, they
>
> will also want the answer to the question "What is PostgreSQL?  Where did it
>
> come from?"  which would include a brief history and an explanation of
> ORDBMS.
>
> Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two "packages" --
> a
> "geek" and a "non-geek" package.
>
> Opinions?   Thoughts?  Rude noises?
>
> --
> -Josh Berkus
>  Aglio Database Solutions
>  San Francisco
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>       subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>       message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

Actually Josh that was pretty on point.  I'm trying to plan an OSS
mini-conference in Philadelphia for later on this year (if I can get it
together) and one of the things me and my staff are going to be doing it putting
together demo's of all the things were going to be talking about.

This might be a little out of the scope of advocacy but I think if we could
agree as a community on what things can and should be be show to impress a
prospective client, I know that would go along way to promote PG and get more
business.

In my experience this OSS vs. Commercial religious war tends to need things that
are "explosive"- for instance, one of the sessions I'm planning on doing is
using Apache and PostgreSQL running on Linux vs. IIS and MS-SQL running on
Windows.  Not only would I cover things like cost of ownership and support
issues but I would actually (literally) pull the plug on both servers and show
the atendess what happens when both restart.  This demo of a "disaster" (i.e. a
power failure) will allow me to showcase the filesystem resiliancy and recovery
techniques for Linux (along with an imaging solution I have) as well has the
resiliancy of PG.

Simply put human being are visual so if you have people in front of you, you're
going to have to "wow" them because that is what they are going to remember.
From there, then they'll remember to even look at the marketing literature and
then hopefully someone will get a call.

This to me play to both geek and non-geek audiences because:

1) the geeks need to know how to do this types of demos
2) the suits need to see it and say, "wow <some other product> can't do that"
3) the press needs to make noise about what the geeks did to make the suit say
   "wow"

Ok, that -$0.25 I think  :)

--
Keith C. Perry, MS E.E.
Director of Networks & Applications
VCSN, Inc.
http://vcsn.com

____________________________________
This email account is being host by:
VCSN, Inc : http://vcsn.com

Josh Berkus wrote:
> Absolutely.   The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all
> it requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most
> advanced Open Source database").   Aside from the design, our main
> challenge is deciding how many languages to do posters in.

Once a poster in any language is done, it should be easy to replicate it
on some other language, I think.

> Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two
> "packages" -- a "geek" and a "non-geek" package.

I think this approach is not ideal.

At the large expositions over here (LinuxTag and LinuxWorld), the crowd
is very mixed.  You can't take one approach or the other.  In fact,
even if you take the approach of being as business-like as possible,
the suits might dislike that because then you're just like the other
commercial guys.  If they come all the way to a LinuxFoo event, they
want to see a little bit of that spirit.  Those that can't comprehend a
message if it is not full of buzzwords won't go there anyway -- they
will send some IT guy who has a clue.

The challenge and the mission is to find and follow that middle ground.
If think the 7.4 press release did that very well.  It got picked up by
publications across the whole spectrum and no one complained that it
was too vague or too detailed.  At LinuxTag we distributed a flyer that
was very successful with the whole audience, and that one also struck a
good balance.

In fact, the whole concept of a "geek" audience is kind of suspect
anyway.  A true geek will go to the web site and find out about the
product directly.

Let's just market to normal people, because that is the biggest market.

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

> Josh Berkus wrote:
> > Absolutely.   The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all
> > it requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most
> > advanced Open Source database").   Aside from the design, our main
> > challenge is deciding how many languages to do posters in.
>
> Once a poster in any language is done, it should be easy to replicate it
> on some other language, I think.
>
> > Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two
> > "packages" -- a "geek" and a "non-geek" package.
>
> I think this approach is not ideal.
>
> At the large expositions over here (LinuxTag and LinuxWorld), the crowd
> is very mixed.

Just a point here ... just because we make two distinct packages, doesn't
mean that both packages shouldn't be available at the shows ... nor does
it mean that bits from each package can't be pulled/merged into a "show
package" ... IMHO, we have two camps here ... one that is strong into
"techno-advocacy", and the other into "suit-advocacy" ... each "package"
should be the culmination of that groups work ...

No?

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> IMHO, we have two camps here
> ... one that is strong into "techno-advocacy", and the other into
> "suit-advocacy" ... each "package" should be the culmination of that
> groups work ...

Who are these groups?

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > IMHO, we have two camps here
> > ... one that is strong into "techno-advocacy", and the other into
> > "suit-advocacy" ... each "package" should be the culmination of that
> > groups work ...
>
> Who are these groups?

nothing so formal ... I'm just saying that we tend to have two focii on
this ... you tend to be more focused on the techno-advocacy, while I see
Josh more on the suit-advocacy side ... ack, I'm not trying to label
anyone in this, just that, with you and Josh as examples, altho its all
under "advocacy", there are ppl who tend to weigh heavier on one side or
the other ...

The end result is a mix, but it ensures that we haren't heavily lopsided
towards either ... make sense?



----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Peter Eisentraut wrote:

> At the large expositions over here (LinuxTag and LinuxWorld), the crowd
> is very mixed.  You can't take one approach or the other.  In fact,
> even if you take the approach of being as business-like as possible,
> the suits might dislike that because then you're just like the other
> commercial guys.  If they come all the way to a LinuxFoo event, they
> want to see a little bit of that spirit.  Those that can't comprehend a
> message if it is not full of buzzwords won't go there anyway -- they
> will send some IT guy who has a clue.

I once used this to great advantage and a bit of fun.  I came back with
flyers and friends, some techie and some suitish.  Told my boss he could
only look at the suitish stuff though the techie looked more interesting.

Point has been mentioned in another message.  We should have all types
available.


Rod
--
    "Open Source Software - You usually get more than you pay for..."
     "Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL"

Josh Berkus wrote:

>Folks,
>
>IF we could get back on topic for a minute ... not that the discussion of
>copyright infringement isn't interesting, but in the meantime Rob has been
>left hanging.
>
>To quote Peter:
>
>
>>Marketing material needs to be made with a specific purpose in mind.  So
>>before you create something, you need to ask yourself who the audience
>>is and who will carry it to that audience.
>>
>>Likely audiences in the near term are guest at expositions and
>>conferences.  Flyers (to pass out) and posters (to decorate) are the
>>obvious types of material for these occasions.  So talk to t
>>
>>
>
>Absolutely.   The posters are easy from a *content* perspective; all it
>requires is a logo & name and our motto ("The world's most advanced Open
>Source database").   Aside from the design, our main challenge is deciding
>how many languages to do posters in.
>
>For flyers & brochures, I see three audiences.   At conventions like OSCON and
>PHPCon, we will be talking pretty much exculsively to fellow geeks, and our
>materials should focus on the technical and community benefits of PostgreSQL
>in a buzzword-free way.  They should answer the questions "What can I do with
>PostgreSQL that I couldn't do otherwise?  What resources exist to help me
>work with PostgreSQL?"
>
>The second audience shows up at conventions like Linuxworld and Macworld ...
>the suits.   These people, in my experience, are mostly interested in being
>reassured that they won't be fired for choosing PostgreSQL over MSSQL or
>Oracle.  For them, we'd mostly want testimonials, and buzzword-compliant
>lists of features and comparisons.  These materials should answer the
>question "Is PostgreSQL equal to major proprietary databases?"
>
>The third audience is the press.   Depending on the reporter and the story,
>most of what they want to know can be answered with the materials for either
>of the two groups above (more the "suits" than the "geeks").   However, they
>will also want the answer to the question "What is PostgreSQL?  Where did it
>come from?"  which would include a brief history and an explanation of
>ORDBMS.
>
>Ideally, I'd like to find a way to condense things down to two "packages" -- a
>"geek" and a "non-geek" package.
>
>Opinions?   Thoughts?  Rude noises?
>
>
>

I think we need to consider first, what is it that we want the people to
do, after they get the material. Personally, my opinion is, that the
focus is on getting people to www.postgresql.org . Since the handouts we
give, contain only some information, and we hope that the people
receiving them get interested. And we hope that they will install
PostgreSQL. And to be able to install, they need to get the software.
And for that, the web site is the place, they should go to. (Okay, you
can also get a distribution, and install from there, but for more info,
www, is the place.)

I think that we should more think of the path of getting the people to
install postgresql. Once it is installed, they can show that it works.
They can test it, and show that this is what happens. They can create a
test set and run several databases with it. And they can get the test
set approved. And all that work well, they will have a good chance of
beeing accepted. But the point is to get people to install PostgreSQL
for the first time. Or, for a CTO, it can be that someone else tests it
for him.

Of course the material we hand out, can not say only, that go and read
the web site. There has to be some interesting points, that you want to
read more. And to read more, you would go to the web site. (Of course,
you would also want to read other sources, to see if there are
complaints etc.) On the web site, we should perhaps think more of what
we want the people to do, rather than having different links available.
So, if you are new to PostgreSQL, go here. If you want to now, what's
new in PostgreSQL, go here and so on.

I also think, that people are more familiar with Oracle/mssql style of
packaging the database. There the advocacy site is "on top" of the other
packages and involved in marketing the stuff. The client (for example
pgadmin3), is part of the package as well as replication, documentation,
etc. (Okay, you might need to pay some extra, to get some specific parts.)

One thing that I think we could consider, is having an iso image, with
Knoppix and postgresql. Or something similar. It could be that the
database would be totally on a ramdisk. (That would be fast atleast ;-)
But the main point here is that it would be easy to test. It could make
it easier for the next step, to install PostgreSQL on to your own harddisk.

Or perhaps creating packages, where there are for example in one tar.gz
file, the server, "all" drivers, several clients etc. People download
distributions that are on several CD's to their harddisk. Would they not
want one package that contains "all" of PostgreSQL?

I think that the "geek" and "non-geek" distributions are the same. Both
of them are interested in things that are new and fancy, and things that
are proven good. (And make their life easier.) If you are a "geek", it
is very propable that if you fall in love with PostgreSQL, you need to
sell it to your boss. And if you are the boss, you need to sell it to
the "geeks" (and customers).

Windows support, well, for some it might be easier to install PostgreSQL
into their laptops, and test it, or do some developement, but I would
not run any production database on Windows.

In Finland, about 99,9% of the people somehow related to evaluating
databases are satisfied, if the material/documentation is in English. As
long as the database supports our character set.


Rgs,

Jussi

This is a bit like tapping a microphone to do a sound check, but I am
suspicious that some of my messages are not getting through.

Firstly, I keep getting two copies of all posts to the list. Not sure how to
stop that.

Also, I sent a post two days ago with two attachments. Did that email get
through? Is there a block on sending attachments?

Rob Napier

Rob Napier wrote:
> Firstly, I keep getting two copies of all posts to the list. Not sure
> how to stop that.

Set the "eliminatecc" option on your mailing list subscription or have
your procmail do it for you.

> Also, I sent a post two days ago with two attachments. Did that email
> get through? Is there a block on sending attachments?

No, but there's a block on sending too large messages.

On Thu, 2004-01-08 at 17:11, Jussi Mikkola wrote:
> One thing that I think we could consider, is having an iso image, with
> Knoppix and postgresql. Or something similar. It could be that the
> database would be totally on a ramdisk. (That would be fast atleast ;-)
> But the main point here is that it would be easy to test. It could make
> it easier for the next step, to install PostgreSQL on to your own harddisk.
>
> Or perhaps creating packages, where there are for example in one tar.gz
> file, the server, "all" drivers, several clients etc. People download
> distributions that are on several CD's to their harddisk. Would they not
> want one package that contains "all" of PostgreSQL?
>

There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.


> I think that the "geek" and "non-geek" distributions are the same. Both
> of them are interested in things that are new and fancy, and things that
> are proven good. (And make their life easier.) If you are a "geek", it
> is very propable that if you fall in love with PostgreSQL, you need to
> sell it to your boss. And if you are the boss, you need to sell it to
> the "geeks" (and customers).
>

I can't really imagine a suit seeing postgresql and deciding he wants to
push it on to his developers... and even less likely the developers
would resist.  ISTM we should focus on getting people interested in
postgresql based on technical reasons, and then provide those people
with the arguments they will need to sell it to their management.


Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert Treat wrote:
> There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
> flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
> think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
> postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
> that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
> won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.

Making a CD image wouldn't be all that hard.  I can't quite see a big enough
market for it yet, though.  People use Knoppix CDs to try out Linux without
hosing their existing OS installation, but PostgreSQL is much easier to
install.

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

>Robert Treat wrote:
>
>
>>There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
>>flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
>>think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
>>postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
>>that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
>>won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.
>>
>>
>
>
>

A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.



>
>

On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 06:52:53AM -0500, Robert Bernier wrote:
>
> Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>
> >Robert Treat wrote:
> >
> >>There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
> >>flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
> >>think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
> >>postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
> >>that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
> >>won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.
>
> A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.

Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?

--
Alvaro Herrera (<alvherre[a]dcc.uchile.cl>)
"La experiencia nos dice que el hombre peló millones de veces las patatas,
pero era forzoso admitir la posibilidad de que en un caso entre millones,
las patatas pelarían al hombre" (Ijon Tichy)

On Friday 09 January 2004 17:57, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 06:52:53AM -0500, Robert Bernier wrote:
> > Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > >Robert Treat wrote:
> > >>There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
> > >>flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
> > >>think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
> > >>postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
> > >>that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes.
> > >> I won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.
> >
> > A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
>
> Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
> read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?

tmpfs data mount?

The distro. I use, archlinux, mounts /tmp as tmpfs. Don't know how good/bad
that is. But doesn't cause any harm to a typical desktop machine either..

 Shridhar

It runs well. It is presently in the hands of No Starch Press and
pgsql.com. It's going to be a companion CD to a Postgres book that is
looking to be on the market this coming summer.

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

>>A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
>>
>>
>
>Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
>read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?
>
>
>

The knoppix variant has been designed to showcase Postgres. It has ALL
the bell's and whistles including pgpgsql, plperl(u), tcl(u), pythonu,
odbc, Java etc. The desktop includes links to documentation, pgadmin3,
pgaccess. When it boots up it even uses the postgres elephant instead of
the usual Tux.


Robert Bernier wrote:

> It runs well. It is presently in the hands of No Starch Press and
> pgsql.com. It's going to be a companion CD to a Postgres book that is
> looking to be on the market this coming summer.
>
> Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>
>>> A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
>>>
>>
>>
>> Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
>> read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>      subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>      message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>

On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 06:40, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Robert Treat wrote:
> > There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
> > flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
> > think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
> > postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
> > that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
> > won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.
>
> Making a CD image wouldn't be all that hard.  I can't quite see a big enough
> market for it yet, though.  People use Knoppix CDs to try out Linux without
> hosing their existing OS installation, but PostgreSQL is much easier to
> install.
>

Well, if it has aready done the work of initdb and creating an initial
database, i think it would make it signifigantly easier for people to
test. Other bonuses would be that it could pull together some of the
ancillary applications that go along with postgresql, and that windows
users could test it out without having to install another os or cygwin.

Don't you think it would be nice to be able to hand these out to folks
at conventions? (

Robert Treat
--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

So how do we get a copy of it? Say if we wanted to include a copy of it
in the OSCon goodie bag?

Robert Treat

On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 07:46, Robert Bernier wrote:
> The knoppix variant has been designed to showcase Postgres. It has ALL
> the bell's and whistles including pgpgsql, plperl(u), tcl(u), pythonu,
> odbc, Java etc. The desktop includes links to documentation, pgadmin3,
> pgaccess. When it boots up it even uses the postgres elephant instead of
> the usual Tux.
>
>
> Robert Bernier wrote:
>
> > It runs well. It is presently in the hands of No Starch Press and
> > pgsql.com. It's going to be a companion CD to a Postgres book that is
> > looking to be on the market this coming summer.
> >
> > Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> >
> >>> A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >> Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
> >> read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
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> >      message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
> >
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--
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL

Robert Treat wrote:
> Don't you think it would be nice to be able to hand these out to folks
> at conventions? (

Yes.  It's just a matter of the price vs. benefit ratio.  But perhaps we could
get our hands at the one that Robert Bernier is talking about.

Let me ask Bill Pollock (No Starch Press) and Geoff Davidson (pgsql.com).



Robert Treat wrote:

>So how do we get a copy of it? Say if we wanted to include a copy of it
>in the OSCon goodie bag?
>
>Robert Treat
>
>On Fri, 2004-01-09 at 07:46, Robert Bernier wrote:
>
>
>>The knoppix variant has been designed to showcase Postgres. It has ALL
>>the bell's and whistles including pgpgsql, plperl(u), tcl(u), pythonu,
>>odbc, Java etc. The desktop includes links to documentation, pgadmin3,
>>pgaccess. When it boots up it even uses the postgres elephant instead of
>>the usual Tux.
>>
>>
>>Robert Bernier wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>It runs well. It is presently in the hands of No Starch Press and
>>>pgsql.com. It's going to be a companion CD to a Postgres book that is
>>>looking to be on the market this coming summer.
>>>
>>>Alvaro Herrera wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
>>>>read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>>TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>>>     subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>>>     message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>>TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate
>>      subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your
>>      message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
>>
>>

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 09, 2004 at 06:52:53AM -0500, Robert Bernier wrote:
> >
> > Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> >
> > >Robert Treat wrote:
> > >
> > >>There have been people on other disks asking about getting knoppix
> > >>flavored distros to carry postgresql for their own demonstrations, I
> > >>think it would be great if someone could put together a distro with
> > >>postgresql, pgadmin, pgaccess, phppgadmin, and maybe a few other tools,
> > >>that could boot from a cd to be handed out for demonstration purposes. I
> > >>won't pretend like it wouldn't be a good sized project to undertake.
> >
> > A knoppix variant with Postgres installed has already been done.
>
> Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
> read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?

In theory, you *should* be able to build memory file systems for those
parts that require r/w ... ie. xlog stuff ... but even then, if you don't
do any update/insert/deletes, and just use the database read only, not
sure how "required" that is ... but, all you'd need to do is:

mount_mfs a memory file system
cp the xlog directory to the memory file system
mount_union (or equivalent) back to the xlog directory


----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Marc G. Fournier wrote:

>On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Alvaro Herrera wrote
>
>>Does it actually run?  I thought Postgres was not prepared to run on
>>read-only media.  It needs a separate PGDATA area, doesn't it?
>>
>>
>
>In theory, you *should* be able to build memory file systems for those
>parts that require r/w ... ie. xlog stuff ... but even then, if you don't
>do any update/insert/deletes, and just use the database read only, not
>sure how "required" that is ... but, all you'd need to do is:
>
>mount_mfs a memory file system
>cp the xlog directory to the memory file system
>mount_union (or equivalent) back to the xlog directory
>
>

The distribution that will come with the No Starch Press book  will
allow for full-blown read/write abilities and can be adopted to work
with a database cluster of 'any' size.

Thank you for the brochure detail Peter. I rushed to my German-English
dictionary when I opened page one. And was through it before I found the
English version on page two! But it was good practice. I don't get enough
opportunity to practice my German.

And thank you everyone for your spirited discussion. It was an interesting
demonstration of how the PostgreSQL development community works. And
frankly, I found many of the directions that your conversation took
interesting, if somewhat time consuming to get through. But it soaked up a
few hours this week that could have been more usefully devoted to working on
the task that I had undertaken to do.

But here is the problem: I have a company to run and clients to support on
four continents, the next generation of our software to design, PostgreSQL,
Java and WebObjects to learn. And somewhere in the middle of all that, find
time for my wife, family, friends and the boat I am building. Let's leave
taking time out for sleeping, eating, et al.

In short, I am as busy as the rest of you.

I can't delegate the role that I have offered to perform for your community
because, frankly, I am the only one in my firm with the skills to help you.
So if I am to assist, it must be efficient or I have to withdraw my offer.

There is another equally important point to consider: I have long believed
that people who do their own marketing have a fool for an advertising agent.
There is a lot to be gained by having someone stand on the outside and to
look objectively at the product, the market, the message, etc. So
independence and remoteness from the daily cut and thrust of what you do is
actually to your advantage. The message will be more effective, more
creative and more powerful.

You are clearly very intelligent and capable people, yet you have devoted so
much time to debating various topics this week while there has been
virtually no response to my specific questions. Does this mean that no one
has the answers? I expected to be inundated with information and ideas.

I see no point in trying to second guess the target market, product profile,
features, advantages, benefits, etc. Sure, I can make reasonable calculated
guesses and get it pretty close. Then I could spend time writing marketing
material and submit it for consideration and receive hundreds of emails
(perhaps thousands if this last week is anything to go by) telling me where
I missed the mark.

That is not how things are done in marketing: The agency gets a brief. They
take that information and prepare the marketing plan, advertising material,
etc. That is what I am offering to do.

I have enough understanding now of how things are done. Now I need something
solid to move onto. Otherwise, we will still be talking about making a start
a year from now. That will do your community no good. If that is the case, I
may as well stop now.

Sorry about the length of this post but I wanted to be as complete in my
position as possible.

I await your advice.

Kind regards

Rob Napier

Rob Napier wrote:
> But it soaked up a
> few hours this week that could have been more usefully devoted to working on
> the task that I had undertaken to do.

Welcome to the world of unmoderated mailing lists!

A number of options to help reduce the time we have to spend reading the
list:

1) We could start a new list (eg: pgsql-marketing) which is moderated.
However, you have to find someone to moderate the list.

2) People could learn to change subject lines and include stuff like
"[OT]" or "[offtopic]" to indicate that a message is offtopic for the
thread or the list.

3) People could learn proper list ettiquette. ie: put answers right
after a question, don't quote portions of messages that aren't relevant,
don't quote the whole thread of a discussion, only the message you're
replying to, etc.  It's really annoying me that about 30% of the posts
to this list involve someone posting a "me too!" response to a two-page
message, where they quote the entire two-page message and stick their
one-line contribution at the bottom!

Then life would be easier for people who are trying to follow one
particular thread. That's not just you, but at least me, and I suspect
80% of the list readers. Once a thread becomes "old" or "stale" (in my
judgement), I don't bother reading followups. Saves a lot of time, but
then some donkey goes and replies on-topic in an off-topic branch... D'Oh!

> ... you have devoted so
> much time to debating various topics this week while there has been
> virtually no response to my specific questions. Does this mean that no one
> has the answers? I expected to be inundated with information and ideas.

Lessons to learn from Usenet: "Usenet is like a herd of performing
elephants with diarrhea -- massive, difficult to redirect,
awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind- boggling amounts of
excrement when you least expect it." Gene Spafford, 1992.

The trick is learning that the crap will come, it will be in high
volume, but somewhere in there will be something of value.

> I see no point in trying to second guess the target market, product profile,
> features, advantages, benefits, etc.

At present, the target market for PostgreSQL could probably be best
described as:
1) People who have chosen to use PostgreSQL for various reasons (these
people are the targets for "further education" such as books or courses
or certification)

2) People who are using that other database.  These people would need to
be targetted based on performance and ease-of-use.  They aren't going to
switch unless we can prove that switching to PostgreSQL is less
inconvenient than sticking with that other database (I believe the hook
term is "Cognitive Dissonance")

3) People who are looking to set up a dynamic website and don't even
know what a database is, much less that they need one in order to avoid
reinventing the wheel (and making all the old mistakes)

4) Conference attendees - but there are so many different conferences,
you'd really have to tailor the message to the conference. A standard
PostgreSQL CD would need to have documentation and sample databases
(along with some CGIs to interact with the database) so the potential
user could see how PostgreSQL could work for them.

(4) is where we get into all that marketspeek such as "branding" and
"awareness" - getting the Label out there everywhere so that by the time
the word "database" has flitted across some poor victim's brain, the
association has already been made with "PostgreSQL" or at least "Elephant".

Josh Berkus pointed out that we'd need to have two distinct sets of
material:
A) the geek-oriented buzzword-free version that addresses technical
issues (eg: foreign keys, outer joins) with examples that illustrate how
the technology works and how it saves you heaps of time (and keeps your
data clean).
B) the suit-oriented buzzword-compliant motherhood statements
accompanied with check-box items comparing PostgreSQL to other DBMSes
such as MySQL and Oracle.

Robert Bernier's CD may be of interest as part of a CD-kiosk for a
conference. Even if some suit just gets a copy of "one of each" from
whatever kiosk is set up, PostgreSQL will end up in some techies hands
eventually ("hey guys, I just got back from my all-expenses paid holi...
business trip, and here's a grab bag of stuff you might be interested in").

> Then I could spend time writing marketing
> material and submit it for consideration and receive hundreds of emails
> (perhaps thousands if this last week is anything to go by) telling me where
> I missed the mark.

What you could do is ask the list if someone is willing to collect and
moderate the responses on your behalf, and post summaries. Perhaps
someone out there is willing to help the marketing effort to this extent.

> That is not how things are done in marketing: The agency gets a brief.

But *that* is not how things are done on Internet mailing lists - in
most cases, people subscribe to mailing lists to share angst, not to get
things done ;)

If we're going to run a "Switch" campaign, we need to have testimonials
(and not manufactured ones like the Ellen Feiss one, either ;), feature
comparisons and a whole lot of effort into "Migration HOWTOs".

If we're going to run a "further education" campaign, we need to have
references such as:
  - Mr. Momjian's PostgreSQL book,
  - decent database design books (one of which I'm aiming to
    obtain for myself and review by the end of this month),
  - some books on user-interface design.
  - courses in database design
  - courses in PostgreSQL management/maintenance
  - certification (for user, DBA, sysadmin)

To support a "you need a DB" campaign, there would have to be some way
of triggering the association of "manipulating data" -> "DBMS" ->
"PostgreSQL".

A "branding" campaign would raise market awareness if nothing else.

regards
Alex Satrapa

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Alex Satrapa wrote:

> 1) We could start a new list (eg: pgsql-marketing) which is moderated.
> However, you have to find someone to moderate the list.

and how much on this list is/was ontopic for the list, just offtopic for
the thread?


----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


> (4) is where we get into all that marketspeek such as "branding" and
> "awareness" - getting the Label out there everywhere so that by the time
> the word "database" has flitted across some poor victim's brain, the
> association has already been made with "PostgreSQL" or at least "Elephant".

Problem is, "elephant" is also associated with PHP. Maybe we can make
PostgreSQL's logo a mammoth or a mastodon? :)

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg@turnstep.com
PGP Key: 0x14964AC8 200401112103

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Hi!

Greg Sabino Mullane wrote:
>>(4) is where we get into all that marketspeek such as "branding" and
>>"awareness" - getting the Label out there everywhere so that by the time
>>the word "database" has flitted across some poor victim's brain, the
>>association has already been made with "PostgreSQL" or at least "Elephant".
>
>
> Problem is, "elephant" is also associated with PHP. Maybe we can make
> PostgreSQL's logo a mammoth or a mastodon? :)

Well, PHP does not have an official mascot. Elephant *is* used, but I think
mostly by french PHP community.

Besides, the biggest problem with PostgreSQL logo is that it is impossible to
find. If it was shown all over the web, no one will dare choose elephant as
their mascot. ;

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Alexey Borzov wrote:

> Besides, the biggest problem with PostgreSQL logo is that it is
> impossible to find. If it was shown all over the web, no one will dare
> choose elephant as their mascot. ;

Difficult to find?  Its right at the top of http://www.postgresql.org ...
how much more prominent would you like it? :)

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


Hi,

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Alexey Borzov wrote:

> Besides, the biggest problem with PostgreSQL logo is that it is impossible to
> find. If it was shown all over the web, no one will dare choose elephant as
> their mascot. ;

Google'able:

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=slonik+PostgreSQL&sa=N&tab=wi

Regards,
- --
Devrim GUNDUZ
devrim@gunduz.org                devrim.gunduz@linux.org.tr
            http://www.TDMSoft.com
            http://www.gunduz.org
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Hi!

Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>Besides, the biggest problem with PostgreSQL logo is that it is
>>impossible to find. If it was shown all over the web, no one will dare
>>choose elephant as their mascot. ;
>
> Difficult to find?  Its right at the top of http://www.postgresql.org ...
> how much more prominent would you like it? :)

This is *quite* prominent, but not the kind of logo one can put on his own
website. To reiterate my previous point: will anyone try to choose a penguin as
their mascot?

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Devrim GUNDUZ wrote:

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> /usr/local/libexec/ppf_verify: pgp command failed
>
> gpg: WARNING: using insecure memory!
> gpg: please see http://www.gnupg.org/faq.html for more information
> gpg: Signature made Mon Jan 12 05:24:05 2004 AST using DSA key ID 748F7D0E
> gpg: Can't check signature: public key not found
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
>
> Hi,
>
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, Alexey Borzov wrote:
>
> > Besides, the biggest problem with PostgreSQL logo is that it is impossible to
> > find. If it was shown all over the web, no one will dare choose elephant as
> > their mascot. ;
>
> Google'able:
>
> http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=slonik+PostgreSQL&sa=N&tab=wi

any idea on how to get rid of those?  if you click on them, to go to the
respective sites, you'll see that none of them are current, nor have been
for almost a year :(

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

Rob,

> Thank you for the brochure detail Peter. I rushed to my German-English
> dictionary when I opened page one. And was through it before I found the
> English version on page two! But it was good practice. I don't get enough
> opportunity to practice my German.

I also have some suggested materials from Jussi Mikkola, which I'll forward
you if I get his permission to do so.

> And thank you everyone for your spirited discussion. It was an interesting
> demonstration of how the PostgreSQL development community works. And
> frankly, I found many of the directions that your conversation took
> interesting, if somewhat time consuming to get through. But it soaked up a
> few hours this week that could have been more usefully devoted to working
> on the task that I had undertaken to do.

Well, now you'll understand the delays.   Here's how I think we'll do things:

You will not get list mail or be cc'd on any mail from this list.  We will
spend one more week discussing your questions, and I will get a collated set
of responses to you next weekend.

Then you can ask follow-up questions, and we can proceed.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco

Alexey Borzov wrote:
> This is *quite* prominent, but not the kind of logo one can put on his
> own website. To reiterate my previous point: will anyone try to choose a
> penguin as their mascot?

Perhaps we need a smaller version of the logo with the text "I use
PostgreSQL" or "Built Using PostgreSQL" - one of those metal plate link
graphics that everyone seems to be using these days. Just the elephant
head, the text "I use PostgreSQL", and a standard block of HTML for
presenting the graphic as a link to the PostgreSQL.org website.

Alex Satrapa

On Tue, 13 Jan 2004, Alex Satrapa wrote:

> Alexey Borzov wrote:
> > This is *quite* prominent, but not the kind of logo one can put on his
> > own website. To reiterate my previous point: will anyone try to choose a
> > penguin as their mascot?
>
> Perhaps we need a smaller version of the logo with the text "I use
> PostgreSQL" or "Built Using PostgreSQL" - one of those metal plate link
> graphics that everyone seems to be using these days. Just the elephant
> head, the text "I use PostgreSQL", and a standard block of HTML for
> presenting the graphic as a link to the PostgreSQL.org website.

http://www.pgsql.com/graphics/propaganda/poweredby_postgresql.png

<A HREF="http://www.postgresql.org"><IMG SRC=poweredby_postgresql.png
BORDER=0></A>

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664

On 13 Jan 2004 at 9:11, Alex Satrapa wrote:

> Alexey Borzov wrote:
> > This is *quite* prominent, but not the kind of logo one can put on his
> > own website. To reiterate my previous point: will anyone try to choose a
> > penguin as their mascot?
>
> Perhaps we need a smaller version of the logo with the text "I use
> PostgreSQL" or "Built Using PostgreSQL" - one of those metal plate link
> graphics that everyone seems to be using these days. Just the elephant
> head, the text "I use PostgreSQL", and a standard block of HTML for
> presenting the graphic as a link to the PostgreSQL.org website.

You mean like the one at bottom of
http://www.freshports.org/about.php ?
--
Dan Langille : http://www.langille.org/