Publicity

May 16 19:46 UTC 2002

Given that there is a publicity group, I thought it made sense 
to iron out precisely what we want for Grex.  In what boundaries are the 
publicity folks allowed to operate if any, and what type of audience, 
if we even choose to define it, do we want to (this sounds so 
irritatingly "ad agency") target.  Although not as well articulated as I 
would like, these and other related issues ought to be discussed. I 
believe that the whole concept of publicity for Grex should be more 
defined than it is, so at least the publicity folks know what they have 
to work with and know their limits.  

This is something mta and I have talked about in e-mails over the past 
couple of months, and I mentioned that I would create an item to discuss 
this very issue. Hopefully the need for this is understood, but I would 
be happy to expound on this subject.  

response 2 of 55:

May 16 20:31 UTC 2002

I have never been privy to those conversations of yours, jp2, so it's 
new to me.  Thanks for your imput, honestly.

response 4 of 55:

May 16 22:15 UTC 2002

Is there a publicity budget?

What sorts of things would the publicity group be interested in doing?  
Is the shirt item part of it?  Are you interested in purchasing 
advertising in newspapers?  Making cable TV ads?  Striking up 
partnerships with ISPs?  Sending spam mail?  I think this would have a 
lot to to do with the parameters.  As a member, if you guys are gung-ho 
about doing something, I'd be willing to go along with it (except spam) 
and probably contribute extra money to support you.  I'm not interested 
in telling you what I want you to do and then finding out it's a lot of 
work, unrewarding to you, and not what you think is useful.

I can think of possible worthwhile cooperative ventures between M-Net 
and Grex.  I don't think there's any real adversarial feeling between 
the two.  (No one on Grex is against helping M-Net, for example.)   
Maybe a Top of the Part movie, a newspaper ad, or something else of the 
sort would benefit both.  Cooperative ventures take extra work; you 
have to decide who contributes what resources and who gets what amount 
of the take (if any).  The extra coordination effort is the biggest 
objection I see to joint publicity ventures.

response 6 of 55:

May 17 13:55 UTC 2002

These are the main things I'm trying to determine, about cash flow I 
mean.  Unless I had a good idea of what we've got to work with, and the 
vision that people had when the decided that Grex needed a publicity 
committee in the first place.

response 8 of 55:

May 17 14:27 UTC 2002

Re #5:  Really?  Then why am I here?  Or Brooke?  Or jep?  Or Cyklone?
        Or Slynne?  Or...

        Considering how many people are active on both systems, I'd have
        to say that you're wrong.

response 14 of 55:

Jun 7 15:08 UTC 2002

Does the membership committee still exist?  Way back in the Jurassic, when I
was publicity chair, there was a publicity committee that focussed on bringing
in new users and increasing our visibilityin the community,  and a membership
committee that focussed on keeping people aware of the need for a certain
number of memberships to keep the system up and running.

One thing we did away back then, which it's time to think about if we're goping
to do it, is to make a large stack of fliers and get a large stack of
volunteers to distribute at art fair.  People are in from all over the country
for that, so it's actually a reasonable way to get the word out more than
locally.

Another thing we've done is paper the student part of town soon after student
move in ... before the kids have settled into a routine and while they're
looking to meet people.

They're not original, and they take a fairly concerted volunteer effort, but
they're worth considering, at least.

response 16 of 55:

Jun 7 19:33 UTC 2002

Maybe you could find an ISPich will give you money to offer free shell
accounts to its members.

response 20 of 55:

Jul 29 19:29 UTC 2002

Weee!  Damn, that's service.  What do folks think about this logo?  Was 
this something that was already created, or did you create this Eric?  
(Or both?) Pardon if it's a silly question.

Cab this, and other items be put on a "How can you support Grex" type 
page?

response 22 of 55:

Jul 29 20:06 UTC 2002

I just whipped that up based on the Grex logo on our home page.  Same 
colors, except that the letters in GREX are darker so they'll stand out 
better.  It is free for all to use.

response 24 of 55:

Jul 29 22:05 UTC 2002

How does one "[s]ee also /usr/local/www/favicon.ico?"