openSUSE Marketing Hackfest 2011

On the 15th and 16 of September 2011, following the oSC, the marketing team held a Marketing Hackfest at the SUSE headquarters in Nuremberg, Germany.

I was asked to attend this event for several reasons aside from the normal Marketing related things, two of which were the most important to me being new to this event. One, was to observe how the marketing team functions as a unit. And second, to hold meetings with different people to discuss certain issues with an outlook of solving them for the benefit of the openSUSE community. Moreover, many of us had a chance to further discuss (in person) initiatives started at the oSC, since we had a chance to digest them and come with some valuable input that was used to move things forward ;-)

The first day, was quite chaotic for one who had never attended and/or understood the process of how the team administered their hackfest. There were some communication issues, which eventually turned the event into an understanding of organized chaos on my part ;-) Things started out slow, but by the second day many people had an idea of the workload and were producing some awesome ideas and collaborating together to help each other implement those ideas. On the last day in the afternoon, Amie Johnson (SUSE's PR Manager) gave us a quick presentation on press releases: How to do them and the format that should be taken into account. Amie was nice enough to offer the community help with PR by collaborating between the community and SUSE, so we can work together on leveraging the messages we both have in common.

Given the circumstances and meeting place, we were able to have some other people from SUSE contribute, who were happy to join and help out also by demonstrating their commitment to the openSUSE community. So, Thanks to Jan Weber, Susanne Oberhauser, Michael Miller, Greg K.H, Alan Clark, Andreas Jaeger, and Amie Johnson for helping out and filling in the gaps were needed.

Also a great big thanks again for the input and work performed by the marketing team and those that attended: Bruno, Francoise, Manu, Kostas, Stella, George, Izabel, N.B. Prashanth, Bryen, Jos, Andrew, Sebastian, and JDD. You guys did a great job coming up with new ideas, as well as, building on the current ones!

Last, but not least, thanks to Jos for the Stroopwaffles (Dutch Treacle Waffles) and SUSE for the lunches, drinks and the use of there offices and infrastructure.

Thanks Geekos for once again demonstrating the openness and collaboration that is so specific to the openSUSE community culture. Looking forward to help make one of the best, even better!!!