Merge into the Marketing Drupal Group

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Anonymous's picture

The Marketing Drupal group was created so we can begin to open source Drupal's marketing process and build a framework for freedom to happen as has been done for the code itself.

At the moment many who have expertise in this area simply have no say in the process and thus we do not currently benefit from their many cumulative years of experience.

The results of Mark Boulton's brand work clearly notes "Reinforcing the Brand: Everyone Plays a Role":

http://drupal.org/node/1164620

Furthermore:

continuing to build a community that welcomes and respectfully encourages participation from all types of users; constantly showing people access points to the community, and pointing out that usability experts, designers, accessibility experts, and others, can all contribute (and showing them where they can do that)

If this group would merge with the marketing drupal group, the above plan would work.

Please let's work together and not make this brand just about what a few people think but adhere to our passion for principles.

I don't like the energy over the last few days on this, please let's sort this out - we all love the drupal brand, and however "right" you may feel about something, Drupal's not just about you, or me, etc. which is why we need a way for everyone who wants to be involved to be able to get involved.

Comments

+1 for the merge

dougvann's picture

Fragmenting this discussion is not ideal. While I do appreciate the logical distinction between the finer points, my desire and appreciation for simplicity [and the productivity that comes from it] compels me to join the call for a merge.
I know how it goes at BoFs. We rally around some idea or ideas and, as the clock brings the Bof to an end, the natural unanimous answer is to create yet-another-GDO group in hopes of keeping the momentum.
I support the merger of this group with BAM.
[1] it ends the "this post doesn't belong here" problem immediately.
[2] it avoids the hesitation of "... hmm where should I post this thing I want to post?"
[3] it avoids the temptation to cross post to two groups OR embed cross-links as will surely be the practice.

Unless some one can establish a clear set of "rules of engagement" for this group and, by doing so, succinctly communicate the difference and value that this group provides in comparison to BAM.... Then I say the answer is clear. Merge the groups and do it soon before we get lost in the weeds any further.
I also advocate for deleting some of the posts in this groups AFTER the authors have copied [if they desire] any portion of their posts over to BAM. I don't think we need archived conversation about a past group appearing in BAM.

  • Doug Vann [Drupal Trainer, Consultant, Developer]
  • Synaptic Blue Inc. [President]
  • http://dougvann.com

I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding here

gdemet's picture

The motivation behind the creation of this group was not to "fork" the efforts of the Drupal Association's BAM committee or to restrict participation to a small group of individuals; it was to provide a resource for creative individuals within the community who are interested in working on improving the visual branding of Drupal. It is an open group that was created to foster the existing brand principles that Steve quoted above and encourage open participation.

Before the Munich BoF, there were folks who were talking about going away and doing this kind of work privately, then presenting it fully fleshed-out to the community. That approach may work well for some, but it's not consistent with the goal of encouraging community investment in the Drupal brand. As the Drupal branding guide states,

A brand...is co-created by the organization and its users/visitors; it is interactive rather than etched in stone by the Drupal Association.

The work that the BAM committee is doing is awesome and sorely needed, but at the end of the day, the tools, process, and language used by marketing people is different than the tools, language, and process used by designers and other creative professionals, and we need to respect that.

After the Munich BoF, Marta and I had a good conversation about the improving the ways we work with designers in the Drupal community and how to make sure that their efforts are not done behind closed doors, but in a manner that's transparent and coordinated with the work that the Association is doing to promote Drupal events around the world and the work that the BAM committee is doing. As Steve points out, we're all on the same team here and we should be working together.

However, I do feel that trying to merge this group with the BAM group would undermine the idea of having a place where designers and other creative professionals can collaborate and geek out on typography and other design-specific topics, and we might lose some of the positive energy that we have now.

Of course, I might be wrong, and if there's a clear consensus that the folks who participated in the creation of this group want to merge with the Drupal BAM group, then I'm totally fine with that too.

A Partnership

stevepurkiss's picture

Thanks for clarifying. I feel we are already feeling the effects of it not being "under one roof" which is why I'm pushing for getting it all under one architecture.

There are establishes categories for the great work your group is doing and as we are also trying to develop the site itself as we go I really feel your input into that process would be limited under the current structure.

I'd at least like to try and give it a go - you know how to use the system and we, quite frankly, don't. By seeing the work you're doing, without having to jump groups, etc. others who also do similar work to yourselves can see the process too.

By being separate it, to me, shows a crack right from the start and not good foundations for what is after all a joint effort.

Does this make it a little clearer? Better together!

Mirroring the community

stevepurkiss's picture

I've spoken to literally hundreds of people in person over the last year alone at various CxO, dev, local meetups who have no idea how to participate in the process - you know how to do this and for them to see the group develop and for them to finally be able to be more involved in what their passionate about would be great.

From the outside communities always look a little strange - we just need to open up more and they demystify - and it easily shows up the ones who don't want to be open, and that is then when I guess we work out what we want as a community going forward - more openness or more splinter groups?

We don't have the luxury of the circles described as Joomla does in terms of governance, but we do have what we have and it's incredible and slowly opening up more, and that's something we should all be proud of, whatever our contributions to the project.

George - can you help the transition go smoothly or are just going to bikeshed?

Misunderstandings

stevepurkiss's picture

I believe you're right about the fundamental misunderstandings - I've not voiced my opinions in the community much publicly before now on "the system" as, like others, I've felt a certain amount of animosity.

I've since found out why that is, for me at least, and it's mostly because we don't use the software we're building to communicate what we're doing. Part of doing that involves creating some kind of structure, and we are limited with the tools we have at the moment so the 'first round' so to speak is to set up one space where everyone can play the roles they want in without as much hassle as in one big issue queue.

We're going to have to figure out how it's all going to work but that's what we're doing now isn't it? I want to know what it would take to get this group's work into the marketing-drupal structure.

If that's heading up an appropriate section then that's best - seems to work well with the software side with initiatives.

I approved this group because

yoroy's picture

I approved this group because I thought it would actually concern itself with with a higher-level branding effort than the existing marketing group, along the lines of what Ben posted here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/250768

Seems its goals are much more tactical than that, even more so than the existing marketing group. Had I understood that while reviewing the group I would probably not have approved it. I'd say better together as well, but I wasn't part of the initial discussions.

Thanks!

stevepurkiss's picture

Thanks for clarifying - we have nothing but good intentions and just need to work out where best everything slots into place. When I say "we", I mean all of us who have an interest - not me, not Ben, not the DA, but we the people.

At the end of the day...

Ben Finklea's picture

Let the designers design.
Let the marketers market.
Let the coders code.

While I agree that the current situation is confusing (I think I have an entire thread about that...) I think it's fair to say that, in most people's perceptions, the BAM Committee didn't provide a place for people to participate. That's why this group was created in the first place.

Frankly, it's on me. I didn't really understand how D.o worked until tvn took some time with me at Drupalcon Munich and showed me how marketers could do our thing on D.o. It was enlightening.

@George: I can completely understand your desire to have a separate group. A place where you designer-types can geek out. And I greatly appreciate your changing the name of the group. I've said it many times: You're a class act, my friend. Even when we disagree (which seems to be more frequent lately) I'm impressed by your integrity and class. You're a good guy.

@StevePurkiss and @DougVann: If we do merge (and that is not our decision, fellas, but George and Morton's) then we MUST make George and possibly Morten in charge of the Visual Branding part of BAM. We need to give them group admin rights in the Marketing Drupal group. They've earned it in this do'ocracy of ours.

My primary concern in this context is that our BAM work gets adopted. By designers, coders, themers, programmers, the board, Dries, etc. I'm ok with having a separate group as long as you guys adopt our findings and research about the higher level brand stuff into your visual designs. You're highly encouraged to participate in coming up with those findings and research. We're not trying to impose our views. But once we've done it, we need your support to push it out into your designs.

Enough bike shedding. Either merge with Marketing-Drupal or don't but let's move on to the tasks at hand.

Indeed!

stevepurkiss's picture

Absolutely agree - it's not about anything personal but simply systematic. At the moment there are quite a few cross-over areas within our structure, and perhaps by the sounds of it, the BAM Branding section seems to be the most appropriate area for this to be housed.

We can alter, expand, contract, do anything with the current structure we have so nothing is set in stone, I'm not saying "this is how it should be", I'm just starting somewhere and seeing how it goes.

I would like to ensure this does happen though as otherwise it's excluding those less technical people coming into the conversations now to know that there's branding stuff going on elsewhere, as long as we're under the same hood, navigatable to easily under the same hood, able to see what's going on and join in, etc. then I'm fine, otherwise as said we just have one effort and a splinter group (how it seems from the outside).

Cant we just have a group

mortendk's picture

Cant we just have a group where we talk & create(!) the Graphics for Drupal and not have to bikeshed or have to merge into a subject that maybe is under another roof - this is one of the reasons that designers are getting tired of opensource.
So please let the designers Design, that is what we do - we dont care about marketing plans etc - we just wanna have a beatifull looking Drupal, threads like this kills the creative juice.

/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale

Exclusive club

stevepurkiss's picture

Sure, if you want to have an exclusive club of designers within the community then go ahead, I was just trying to give others who are also as passionate the opportunity to join in.

Perhaps we can just link to your group prominently from within the branding section: "Want to get on and do stuff? Join this group: link etc."

I'm really not trying to stop you doing what you're doing, I'm just trying to open up the process because for far too long the code has been all about the community and pretty much everything else has just been about what a few people think it should be, and to me that's not open source, and this is an open source project, right?

yup that is exactly what i

mortendk's picture

yup that is exactly what i want a group of designers that gets the job done.

/morten.dk king of rock
morten.dk | geek Royale

Link is up

stevepurkiss's picture

I've put a link to this group from the Branding and Marketing group home page.

I believe I may be able to feed in latest conversations too, will work out that at some point.

Case Made for Non-Merger

dougvann's picture

George came out of the gate with some solid points and Morten followed suit extremely well.
In my mind, the case for non-merger has been made.
Thanks for the great discussion on this!

  • Doug Vann [Drupal Trainer, Consultant, Developer]
  • Synaptic Blue Inc. [President]
  • http://dougvann.com

Yes, thanks!

stevepurkiss's picture

Yes, thanks for bearing with me and my words, I am just trying to ensure everyone has the freedom and opportunity to join in the community and at the moment it's not that easy to find out what's going on and where, hence why I wanted to work out some kind of linking... which I think we've done now.

Happy for this discussion to be closed and hidden/removed as suggested previously, no worries if not, whatever M&G think is best for their group!

Visual Branding of Drupal

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