Обсуждение: Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

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Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rob Napier
Дата:
FMTCW

Below is an email I received a couple of days ago from one of the best-known US PR distribution companies.

The software promoted in this email is interesting in that it draws attention to one of the problems involved with doing PR well.

I agree with the principal that it needs to be led by a professional, not volunteers. The actual distribution and local content scouting might be done by volunteers but the core PR strategy needs someone who can string an effective message together. From my observation, that is an essential skill that is not common.

Handling PR well is as difficult as designing databases well. If we want great PR, it needs to be regular, well written, relevant, interesting, timely and of public interest. There are people who could take on this work who could be quite affordable. Certainly, the value would justify the investment.

Rob Napier


------ Forwarded Message
From: Kay Guindon <kguindon@enr-corp.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:48:11 -0700 (PDT)
To: rob@doitonce.net.au
Subject: Avoid the PR Blacklist

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Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 4:08 AM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> FMTCW
>
> Below is an email I received a couple of days ago from one of the best-known
> US PR distribution companies.

How amusing. So they're spamming you with a pitch based on avoiding a
spammer blacklist?

> Certainly, the value would justify the investment.

How does it result in Postgres being better software?

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rob Napier
Дата:
Greg

No. Firstly, I have been a customer of theirs, so it is not spam.

Secondly, they are a PR distribution house. They maintain a database of contacts for journalists. This is the bread and butter of PR consultants. The ad is simply claiming to offer more targeted mail outs to avoid being seen as a spammer.

And at the risk of suggesting that your response confirms my point, PR is not a simple process. It needs to be done by people who really understand the complexities of getting quality stories placed.

On 20/8/09 8:03 PM, "Greg Stark" <gsstark@mit.edu> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 4:08 AM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
>> FMTCW
>>
>> Below is an email I received a couple of days ago from one of the best-known
>> US PR distribution companies.
>
> How amusing. So they're spamming you with a pitch based on avoiding a
> spammer blacklist?
>
>> Certainly, the value would justify the investment.
>
> How does it result in Postgres being better software?

Regards

Rob Napier

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> No. Firstly, I have been a customer of theirs, so it is not spam.
>
> Secondly, they are a PR distribution house. They maintain a database of
> contacts for journalists. This is the bread and butter of PR consultants.
> The ad is simply claiming to offer more targeted mail outs to avoid being
> seen as a spammer.

Well I don't think we should be spamming no matter how targeted and no
regardless of how a PR person thinks it should be seen.


> And at the risk of suggesting that your response confirms my point, PR is
> not a simple process. It needs to be done by people who really understand
> the complexities of getting quality stories placed.

I still don't see how getting stories "placed" leads to good software.
I would rather believe that good software will lead to stories than
the other way around.

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rob Napier
Дата:
Public Relations 101:

Identify/create a newsworthy story that will be regarded by one or more sectors of the media as being of interest to their readership/viewers/listeners.

Prepare a media release that has the main ‘grab’ in the first paragraph. Media releases are hierarchical: Most important paragraph at the top down to the least important paragraph at the end. Why? Because journalists and editors are basically lazy. When a story doesn’t fit, they just cut sentences off the bottom of the story until it does fit!

Now we’re on to distribution. And the example I gave of EPR – one of the most respected PR distribution houses – helps PR consultants/in-house PR staff to get their stories to the right journalists at the right publications. There is no point sending a story about PostgreSQL to Zoo News – even if your logo is an elephant! It must be relevant to the readership. And in large media outlets, targeting the Journalist who has a history of covering a particular topic adds credibility and increases the likelihood that a media release will be well received and will run.

Anyway, I think I have said enough on the topic. This started as a discussion about getting timely media releases prepared. Selena suggested that it could be done by volunteers. I don’t think it can. But if there are people who want to try, I wish them luck. As I wrote earlier. It is bloody hard work! It’s not simply a matter of writing a story and expecting journalists to run it.

On 20/8/09 11:03 PM, "Greg Stark" <gsstark@mit.edu> wrote:

> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
>> No. Firstly, I have been a customer of theirs, so it is not spam.
>>
>> Secondly, they are a PR distribution house. They maintain a database of
>> contacts for journalists. This is the bread and butter of PR consultants.
>> The ad is simply claiming to offer more targeted mail outs to avoid being
>> seen as a spammer.
>
> Well I don't think we should be spamming no matter how targeted and no
> regardless of how a PR person thinks it should be seen.
>
>
>> And at the risk of suggesting that your response confirms my point, PR is
>> not a simple process. It needs to be done by people who really understand
>> the complexities of getting quality stories placed.
>
> I still don't see how getting stories "placed" leads to good software.
> I would rather believe that good software will lead to stories than
> the other way around.

Regards

Rob Napier

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> Anyway, I think I have said enough on the topic. This started as a
> discussion about getting timely media releases prepared. Selena suggested
> that it could be done by volunteers. I don’t think it can. But if there are
> people who want to try, I wish them luck. As I wrote earlier. It is bloody
> hard work! It’s not simply a matter of writing a story and expecting
> journalists to run it.

No, at least according to gmail's threading this conversation started
with yet another ill-informed Forrester report and Josh saying that
the reason it was ill-informed was because he didn't have time to get
back to them.

I would dispute that premise and in fact say that it's probably for
the best that we didn't speak to Forrester. He said he would try to
reach them now but a) I doubt they'll be interested and b) I doubt it
would work out for the best.

Forrester has little more credibility than Gartner group or other paid
shill analysts. They publish reports which are invariably
complimentary for the companies on their client list. Anyone else who
speaks to them or provides data inevitably finds their own words or
data being twisted to benefit their paymasters.

In addition to Postgres not being as scalable or reliable as MySQL did
you know that Linux distributions take longer to release security
patches than Microsoft? Thank Redhat for providing the raw data which
led to that conclusion.

c.f.
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2004/04/05/201601/forrester-study-questions-linux-security.htm
http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=178601879

In short Forrester, Gartner, and others like them are not your
friends. I would urge Josh and others to avoid giving them any quotes
or data which will only lend them credibility.

If you want to rebut the article the strategy to use would be what
Redhat did to that linux security report. Make sure there's a contact
for responsible journalists to call and have at your ready rebuttal
arguments. There will be plenty of journalists who don't bother
calling, especially if as in this case Postgres is just an
afterthought, but real journalists will call whoever has the most to
lose and get "balance" quotes.

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
"Joshua D. Drake"
Дата:
On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 14:37 +0100, Greg Stark wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> > Anyway, I think I have said enough on the topic. This started as a
> > discussion about getting timely media releases prepared. Selena suggested
> > that it could be done by volunteers. I don’t think it can. But if there are
> > people who want to try, I wish them luck. As I wrote earlier. It is bloody
> > hard work! It’s not simply a matter of writing a story and expecting
> > journalists to run it.
>
> No, at least according to gmail's threading this conversation started
> with yet another ill-informed Forrester report and Josh saying that
> the reason it was ill-informed was because he didn't have time to get
> back to them.

You also have to remember that both Ingres and MySQL are companies. They
will always tend to show higher numbers than we do, as long as they
exist. It is just like the fabled, "Linux only has 2% marketshare"
because they can't track all the downloads.

I think we should ignore reports like this and focus on getting the word
out as a whole. The more users we have the more organic our growth. In
the end, it will all work out.

Let's focus on the project shall we?

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 503.667.4564
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
David Fetter
Дата:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 02:03:01PM +0100, Greg Stark wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> > No. Firstly, I have been a customer of theirs, so it is not spam.
> >
> > Secondly, they are a PR distribution house. They maintain a
> > database of contacts for journalists. This is the bread and butter
> > of PR consultants.  The ad is simply claiming to offer more
> > targeted mail outs to avoid being seen as a spammer.
>
> Well I don't think we should be spamming no matter how targeted and
> no regardless of how a PR person thinks it should be seen.

I agree.  Spamming is right out.

> > And at the risk of suggesting that your response confirms my
> > point, PR is not a simple process. It needs to be done by people
> > who really understand the complexities of getting quality stories
> > placed.
>
> I still don't see how getting stories "placed" leads to good
> software.  I would rather believe that good software will lead to
> stories than the other way around.

What you'd like to believe is not at issue here.  How people actually
behave is, and the scientific evidence to date simply does not support
your "supply the facts and rational people will simply draw the right
conclusion" model.  That idea was proposed back in the 17th century,
and it turned out to be wrong, just as decisively as Phlogiston
thermodynamics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory> turned
out to be.

See George Lakoff's work on framing, etc.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778  AIM: dfetter666  Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter      XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:17 PM, David Fetter<david@fetter.org> wrote:

> See George Lakoff's work on framing, etc.

I prefer John Badham's work. The only winning move is not to play.

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Dave Page
Дата:
On 8/20/09, Greg Stark <gsstark@mit.edu> wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 8:17 PM, David Fetter<david@fetter.org> wrote:
>
>> See George Lakoff's work on framing, etc.
>
> I prefer John Badham's work. The only winning move is not to play.

That quote just isn't the same without the dodgy voice synth.

--
Dave Page
EnterpriseDB UK:   http://www.enterprisedb.com

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open SourceDatabases

От
"Joshua D. Drake"
Дата:
On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 14:37 +0100, Greg Stark wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:21 PM, Rob Napier<rob@doitonce.net.au> wrote:
> > Anyway, I think I have said enough on the topic. This started as a
> > discussion about getting timely media releases prepared. Selena suggested
> > that it could be done by volunteers. I don’t think it can. But if there are
> > people who want to try, I wish them luck. As I wrote earlier. It is bloody
> > hard work! It’s not simply a matter of writing a story and expecting
> > journalists to run it.
>
> No, at least according to gmail's threading this conversation started
> with yet another ill-informed Forrester report and Josh saying that
> the reason it was ill-informed was because he didn't have time to get
> back to them.

You also have to remember that both Ingres and MySQL are companies. They
will always tend to show higher numbers than we do, as long as they
exist. It is just like the fabled, "Linux only has 2% marketshare"
because they can't track all the downloads.

I think we should ignore reports like this and focus on getting the word
out as a whole. The more users we have the more organic our growth. In
the end, it will all work out.

Let's focus on the project shall we?

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 503.667.4564
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering



Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
decibel
Дата:
On Aug 20, 2009, at 2:17 PM, David Fetter wrote:
> What you'd like to believe is not at issue here.  How people actually
> behave is, and the scientific evidence to date simply does not support
> your "supply the facts and rational people will simply draw the right
> conclusion" model.


Bingo. Getting people to actually try Postgres out or even better
actively promote it; that's what advocacy is about. And part of
advocacy *is* PR. Part is Marketing. Part is also making sure we have
a contact for the press to contact (as someone mentioned).

While some of that can certainly be done on an ad-hoc basis, other
parts can't (or would be extremely hard to find enough volunteer
effort for). Hence the idea of putting money behind this.

As for who the person would report to, presumably it'd be the
foundation providing the money. However, I also don't think the
person doing this has to be an outsider.

BTW, for those saying let's focus on the software... this is the
*advocacy* list. You're probably looking for -hackers. :P And keep in
mind that advocacy builds community, which builds better software.
--
Decibel!, aka Jim C. Nasby, Database Architect  decibel@decibel.org
Give your computer some brain candy! www.distributed.net Team #1828



Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
"Joshua D. Drake"
Дата:
On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 22:19 -0500, decibel wrote:

> BTW, for those saying let's focus on the software... this is the
> *advocacy* list. You're probably looking for -hackers. :P And keep in
> mind that advocacy builds community, which builds better software.

I do not think we should stop advocating. I think we should be doing so
smartly. Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a waste of
energy. Let EDB deal with that.

We as a community should be focusing on recruiting -hackers and people
who are going to use the database. Django developers, Rails developers,
PostGIS etc... We don't have to (nor should we want to) give donkey spit
about business uptick. The oustide developers and companies surrounding
us will take care of that.

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 503.667.4564
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Christopher Browne
Дата:
jd@commandprompt.com ("Joshua D. Drake") writes:
> On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 22:19 -0500, decibel wrote:
>> BTW, for those saying let's focus on the software... this is the
>> *advocacy* list. You're probably looking for -hackers. :P And keep in
>> mind that advocacy builds community, which builds better software.
>
> I do not think we should stop advocating. I think we should be doing so
> smartly. Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a waste of
> energy. Let EDB deal with that.

Not to be hard on EDB, but I'm not certain that the kind of work that
EDB's marketing-related folk would do dealing with Forestor et al would
necessarily be of as much use to "PostgreSQL as community" as it would
be to "EDB as company."

> We as a community should be focusing on recruiting -hackers and people
> who are going to use the database. Django developers, Rails developers,
> PostGIS etc... We don't have to (nor should we want to) give donkey spit
> about business uptick. The oustide developers and companies surrounding
> us will take care of that.

I don't think I have any competence to offer in the marketing area, but
that's not quite the same thing as thinking that our interest ought to
be solely at the "not give a donkey spit" level.

In the interests of keeping things entertaining, here's the funniest
stuff I saw today...

One of these posts refers to someone associated with One Of Those Other
Products as an "imperious twit," so obviously has the entertainment
attendant from watching insulting+sarcastic wit at work :-)

http://omnis-dev.com/pipermail/omnisdev-en/2009-February/005164.html
http://omnis-dev.com/pipermail/omnisdev-en/2009-February/005142.html
--
(format nil "~S@~S" "cbbrowne" "ca.afilias.info")
Christopher Browne
"Bother,"  said Pooh,  "Eeyore, ready  two photon  torpedoes  and lock
phasers on the Heffalump, Piglet, meet me in transporter room three"

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open SourceDatabases

От
"Joshua D. Drake"
Дата:
On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 22:19 -0500, decibel wrote:

> BTW, for those saying let's focus on the software... this is the
> *advocacy* list. You're probably looking for -hackers. :P And keep in
> mind that advocacy builds community, which builds better software.

I do not think we should stop advocating. I think we should be doing so
smartly. Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a waste of
energy. Let EDB deal with that.

We as a community should be focusing on recruiting -hackers and people
who are going to use the database. Django developers, Rails developers,
PostGIS etc... We don't have to (nor should we want to) give donkey spit
about business uptick. The oustide developers and companies surrounding
us will take care of that.

Joshua D. Drake

--
PostgreSQL.org Major Contributor
Command Prompt, Inc: http://www.commandprompt.com/ - 503.667.4564
Consulting, Training, Support, Custom Development, Engineering



Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 4:44 PM, Joshua D. Drake<jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:
> I do not think we should stop advocating. I think we should be doing so
> smartly. Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a waste of
> energy. Let EDB deal with that.
>
> We as a community should be focusing on recruiting -hackers and people
> who are going to use the database. Django developers, Rails developers,
> PostGIS etc... We don't have to (nor should we want to) give donkey spit
> about business uptick. The oustide developers and companies surrounding
> us will take care of that.

Uhm, yeah. What he said.

Who would have thought it would be JD who would bring this
conversation to a practical and productive place?

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
"Joshua D. Drake"
Дата:
On Friday 21 August 2009 03:50:26 pm Greg Stark wrote:

> Uhm, yeah. What he said.
>
> Who would have thought it would be JD who would bring this
> conversation to a practical and productive place?

I have my moments. They are few and far between but I do have them.

JD

--
PostgreSQL - XMPP: jdrake@jabber.postgresql.org
   Consulting, Development, Support, Training
   503-667-4564 - http://www.commandprompt.com/
   The PostgreSQL Company, serving since 1997


Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rob Napier
Дата:
Agreed...

I started my day reading JD's email. After realising that I agreed completely with what he had written, I checked with the weather bureau:

They confirmed that Hell had, indeed, frozen over!

According to the report, it had nothing at all to do with Global Warming.

On 22/8/09 8:57 AM, "Joshua D. Drake" <jd@commandprompt.com> wrote:

> On Friday 21 August 2009 03:50:26 pm Greg Stark wrote:
>
>> Uhm, yeah. What he said.
>>
>> Who would have thought it would be JD who would bring this
>> conversation to a practical and productive place?
>
> I have my moments. They are few and far between but I do have them.
>
> JD

Regards

Rob Napier

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
David Fetter
Дата:
On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 08:44:20AM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> On Thu, 2009-08-20 at 22:19 -0500, decibel wrote:
> > BTW, for those saying let's focus on the software... this is the
> > *advocacy* list. You're probably looking for -hackers. :P And keep
> > in  mind that advocacy builds community, which builds better
> > software.
>
> I do not think we should stop advocating. I think we should be doing
> so smartly. Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a
> waste of energy. Let EDB deal with that.

With all due respect, I don't think it's a complete waste of energy.
Hackers frequently need to deal with decision-makers who get their
information from sources much less truthful than pgsql-advocacy.
Sometimes, these decision-makers' hair is pretty pointy, and it's for
this case when having some PHB-friendly material can really, really
help.  This means getting our story out to the Foresters of the world,
repugnant as that may seem to you.

> We as a community should be focusing on recruiting -hackers and
> people who are going to use the database.  Django developers, Rails
> developers, PostGIS etc... We don't have to (nor should we want to)
> give donkey spit about business uptick.  The oustide developers and
> companies surrounding us will take care of that.

I wish I had your faith in this, but those people frequently have a
fiduciary duty to promote their own company as opposed--sometimes
pretty nastily--to promoting the stuff we do.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778  AIM: dfetter666  Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter      XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Ron Mayer
Дата:
David Fetter wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 21, 2009 at 08:44:20AM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>> Dealing with Forester or any of the other shills is a
>> waste of energy. Let EDB deal with that.
>
> With all due respect, I don't think it's a complete waste of energy.
> Hackers frequently need to deal with decision-makers who get their
> information from sources much less truthful than pgsql-advocacy.
> Sometimes, these decision-makers' hair is pretty pointy, and it's for
> this case when having some PHB-friendly material can really, really

The most PHP-friendly material I've seen are the actual customers - that
Skype can and *does* scale with Postgres carries a lot more weight
than Forrester saying it can't.

> help.  This means getting our story out to the Foresters of the world,
> repugnant as that may seem to you.

By the methodologies of Gartner, Forrester, Enderle, etc, I bet
you'd see Cigarettes and Cigars are both far more important
products in the "breathable gasses" category than Fresh Air is -
as proven by their revenue figures. [1]


Unless we intend to become a big-money customer of Forrester, I fear
their reports will sound much the same no matter how hard we try
to get the story out.

If they wanted to publish an objective report, no doubt they could
have done adequate background research in the report which started
this thread -- if only by googling the customers using postgres to
disprove their doubts of scalability avaialbility and performance.
Naively one would think that's their job, right?


   Ron


[1] I think I saw that analogy first on these lists; but can't
recall who it was to adequately credit them.

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Peter Eisentraut
Дата:
On tor, 2009-08-20 at 23:21 +1000, Rob Napier wrote:
> Public Relations 101:

On that matter, I recommend reading and viewing the videos here:

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/05/30/advertising-as-failure/

"[T]he ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is
that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and
thus sells; there is no need for advertising there. It’s only in the
case of failing at that idea that one needs to advertise."

This doesn't necessarily mean that we should shut down -advocacy and put
everyone to code.  But it does support that we should put resources into
making user support and the user feedback loop more efficient rather
than wondering about the layout of brochures and tipping of the right
analysts.


Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rob Napier
Дата:
Peter

It’s great that we are discussing advocacy issues. I applaud your initiative, though I entirely disagree with your premise.

Personally, as a former advertising creative director of some experience, I confess that I hate most advertising. I avoid commercial radio and TV and regard billboards as visual pollution. The main problem is that I KNOW the tricks so I know when and how I’m being ‘sold’ to.

But somehow we have to reach new markets. We can’t rely on a ‘Build it and they will come.’ view of the world. So advertising needs to be intelligent, engaging and respectful of our target audience.

Besides, we are not just talking about advertising. We are talking about marketing communications of which your preferred view (word-of-mouth referrals) is only one channel, PR, direct response and advertising are a few other examples.

While we are recommending reading on this topic, I’d like to mention two books that are worth taking the time to digest:

The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
by Al Ries and Jack Trout
HarperCollins, New York, 1994

A small paperback. This classic is 15 years old but as relevant as ever.

The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – 2002

Again, not a new text but a great read that will give you food for thought – particularly in the current environment.

Rob Napier

On 23/8/09 9:27 PM, "Peter Eisentraut" <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:

> On tor, 2009-08-20 at 23:21 +1000, Rob Napier wrote:
>> Public Relations 101:
>
> On that matter, I recommend reading and viewing the videos here:
>
> http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/05/30/advertising-as-failure/
>
> "[T]he ideal relationship a company should have with its customer is
> that it produces a great product the customer loves and talks about and
> thus sells; there is no need for advertising there. It’s only in the
> case of failing at that idea that one needs to advertise."
>
> This doesn't necessarily mean that we should shut down -advocacy and put
> everyone to code.  But it does support that we should put resources into
> making user support and the user feedback loop more efficient rather
> than wondering about the layout of brochures and tipping of the right
> analysts.
>
>

Regards

Rob Napier

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Sat, Aug 22, 2009 at 12:48 AM, David Fetter<david@fetter.org> wrote:
> Sometimes, these decision-makers' hair is pretty pointy, and it's for
> this case when having some PHB-friendly material can really, really
> help.  This means getting our story out to the Foresters of the world,
> repugnant as that may seem to you.

It's not that it's repugnant, it's that it just ain't going to happen.
The Forresters and Gartners of the world can make a whole lot more
money selling reports that are complimentary to Microsoft and Oracle.
A report which ends up saying users can get something better for less
money is worse than worthless to them, it's a threat to their
business. If their data led to that conclusion the report would never
see the light of day. If you give them any data or quotes it will only
come back to hurt you, as Redhat learned.

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Josh Berkus
Дата:
All,

Viewpoints of "we should ignore analysts" or "we should target them" are
too simplistic.  As with *every* advocacy activity (and, for that
matter, hacking) there's a cost/benefit ratio to everything.

Advocacy has several purposes:

1. to drive awareness of PostgreSQL so that people try it out and some
become users

2. to show PostgreSQL as a legitimate business option, so that companies
adopt PostgreSQL as well as individual developers

3. to make our users excited about current development and releases so
that they participate in our community, or even become contributors

4. to make developers aware that PostgreSQL has ongoing development and
new features so that we don't start losing users (and contributors) to
newer databases which appear more exciting.

No one method (word-of-mouth, analysts, press releases, blogging,
conferences, case studies, user groups, website, internal
communications) will accomplish all of the above.   We have to use
several methods; in fact, I'd prefer to use all of them (you'll note
that I omitted direct marketing, though, which I don't think is
appropriate for us).

And to those who think (2) isn't important: how many features would be
in 8.4 now if there weren't full-time paid developers contributing to
PostgreSQL?  Why do you think someone is paying those developers'
salaries?  It's not out of altruism.

So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or bad."

--
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
www.pgexperts.com

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Adrian Klaver
Дата:
On Sunday 23 August 2009 12:21:07 pm Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> Viewpoints of "we should ignore analysts" or "we should target them" are
> too simplistic.  As with *every* advocacy activity (and, for that
> matter, hacking) there's a cost/benefit ratio to everything.
>
> Advocacy has several purposes:
>
> 1. to drive awareness of PostgreSQL so that people try it out and some
> become users
>
> 2. to show PostgreSQL as a legitimate business option, so that companies
> adopt PostgreSQL as well as individual developers
>
> 3. to make our users excited about current development and releases so
> that they participate in our community, or even become contributors
>
> 4. to make developers aware that PostgreSQL has ongoing development and
> new features so that we don't start losing users (and contributors) to
> newer databases which appear more exciting.
>
> No one method (word-of-mouth, analysts, press releases, blogging,
> conferences, case studies, user groups, website, internal
> communications) will accomplish all of the above.   We have to use
> several methods; in fact, I'd prefer to use all of them (you'll note
> that I omitted direct marketing, though, which I don't think is
> appropriate for us).
>
> And to those who think (2) isn't important: how many features would be
> in 8.4 now if there weren't full-time paid developers contributing to
> PostgreSQL?  Why do you think someone is paying those developers'
> salaries?  It's not out of altruism.
>
> So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
> analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
> many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or bad."
>
> --
> Josh Berkus
> PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
> www.pgexperts.com

+1

--
Adrian Klaver
aklaver@comcast.net

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Josh Berkus<josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
>
> So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
> analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
> many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or bad."

Well, how much would it cost? Can you outbid Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM?

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Adrian Klaver
Дата:
On Sunday 23 August 2009 4:03:58 pm Greg Stark wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Josh Berkus<josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
> > So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
> > analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
> > many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or
> > bad."
>
> Well, how much would it cost? Can you outbid Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM?
>
> --
> greg
> http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

It is not a question of out bidding these companies. It is about having a
consistent message for when the PR firms come asking. And yes they can twist
the answer to serve their needs, the important part is they find Postgres
credible enough to contact in the first place. There is an old adage that
says 'it is only bad publicity if the don't spell you name right'. The key is
to get Postgres mentioned in the same breath as Oracle,IBM,Microsoft, etc.  In
the business world, if you are not a threat you are ignored. When companies
take the time to bad mouth you it is because they perceive a threat. It happens
enough times, other business are going to start asking why? That is when we
point them to the facts and the community.

--
Adrian Klaver
aklaver@comcast.net

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Markus Wanner
Дата:
Hi,

Adrian Klaver wrote:
> 'it is only bad publicity if the don't spell you name right'.

..and that's not exactly where Postgres, uhm.. Postgre, no, sorry,
PostgreSQL shines.

> When companies
> take the time to bad mouth you it is because they perceive a threat.

That in turn requires a large enough user base for the company to
notice, not a paid analyst, no matter how well we informed.

Regards

Markus Wanner



Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Adrian Klaver
Дата:

----- "Markus Wanner" <markus@bluegap.ch> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Adrian Klaver wrote:
> > 'it is only bad publicity if the don't spell you name right'.
>
> ..and that's not exactly where Postgres, uhm.. Postgre, no, sorry,
> PostgreSQL shines.

That is part of the 'consistent message' I mentioned in the post.

>
> > When companies
> > take the time to bad mouth you it is because they perceive a
> threat.
>
> That in turn requires a large enough user base for the company to
> notice, not a paid analyst, no matter how well we informed.

That has already happened. It is why PR firms are looking for quotes/info from the project.

>
> Regards
>
> Markus Wanner


Adrian Klaver
aklaver@comcast.net

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Ron Mayer
Дата:
Greg Stark wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Josh Berkus<josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
>> So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
>> analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
>> many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or bad."

Perhaps also add the question "what's the most cost effective way
to influence the analyst?" as well.

> Well, how much would it cost? Can you outbid Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM?

ISTM there are exactly 2 ways once can effectively influence such
analysts to say that Postgres is better than the alternatives.

1. For ethical analysts, the most cost effective way - and practically
   the only way - is to produce a better product than the alternatives.
   The analyst's job is to research the alternatives and honestly
   describe them to their audience.   If we can quantify the cost
   to make postgres better than alternatives, that answer's the
   cost question Greg and Josh are discussing.

2. For less ethical analysts, the most cost effective way is probably
   to spend money on them - *and* do the legwork for getting favoriable
   data for the report.  I don't doubt that if someone wanted to
   buy a report from Forrester to address the question "can postgres
   scale to handle databases like skype's" and then gave them
   willing skype contacts as references, they could write a glowing
   report.   But does that really accomplish much?   It gets one nice
   report, but has a one time effect while any resources spend on #1
   has recurring effects until the competition catches up again.

I'm guessing that the most cost effective way to influence analysts
in the long run is to spend the resources making sure the product
is better than the competition.


Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
David Fetter
Дата:
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:34:40AM -0700, Ron Mayer wrote:
> Greg Stark wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Josh Berkus<josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
> >> So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
> >> analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost,
> >> and how many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are
> >> analysts good or bad."
>
> Perhaps also add the question "what's the most cost effective way to
> influence the analyst?" as well.
>
> > Well, how much would it cost? Can you outbid Oracle, Microsoft,
> > and IBM?
>
> ISTM there are exactly 2 ways once can effectively influence such
> analysts to say that Postgres is better than the alternatives.
>
> 1. For ethical analysts, the most cost effective way - and
> practically the only way - is to produce a better product than the
> alternatives.

I wish that were enough.  This type of analyst type needs to have a
point of contact and that point of contact has to have backups just in
case, which can be handed off to the aforementioned analyst.
Maintaining a point of contact for such analysts is not cost-free, and
Josh Berkus has been doing an admirable job of being that person.  He
could really use some backup people.

> 2. For less ethical analysts, the most cost effective way is
> probably to spend money on them - *and* do the legwork for getting
> favoriable data for the report.  I don't doubt that if someone
> wanted to buy a report from Forrester to address the question "can
> postgres scale to handle databases like skype's" and then gave them
> willing skype contacts as references, they could write a glowing
> report.   But does that really accomplish much?   It gets one nice
> report, but has a one time effect while any resources spend on #1
> has recurring effects until the competition catches up again.

Bribing a Forrester analyst is not really in scope for a FLOSS project
of any description.  Making sure that their emails, phone calls, etc.
get returned promptly and in a coordinated fashion is, and we can do
that.  It takes efforts of a different kind from database kernel
hacking, and fortunately, there are people who believe this is worth
the time.

> I'm guessing that the most cost effective way to influence analysts
> in the long run is to spend the resources making sure the product is
> better than the competition.

I wish it were this way.  We already have a product that's better than
the competition.  We have for many years.  What we now need is to
further expand our efforts to let people know.

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778  AIM: dfetter666  Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter      XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Rafael Martinez
Дата:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

David Fetter wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 12:34:40AM -0700, Ron Mayer wrote:
[............]
>
>> I'm guessing that the most cost effective way to influence analysts
>> in the long run is to spend the resources making sure the product is
>> better than the competition.
>
> I wish it were this way.  We already have a product that's better than
> the competition.  We have for many years.  What we now need is to
> further expand our efforts to let people know.
>

+1000

- --
 Rafael Martinez, <r.m.guerrero@usit.uio.no>
 Center for Information Technology Services
 University of Oslo, Norway

 PGP Public Key: http://folk.uio.no/rafael/
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Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Greg Stark
Дата:
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Ron Mayer<rm_pg@cheapcomplexdevices.com> wrote:
> 1. For ethical analysts,

Ethical analysts go into other lines of work.

Seriously I'm not saying analysts are necessarily "for sale" to write
anything, true or not. They might very well be writing honest accurate
reports. They just aren't going to write the report which concludes
that Postgres is the best product since nobody will pay for it.
They'll write some other report instead that some paying customer
commissions.

The best we can hope for is that we could block an ethical analyst
from writing a report which would have been negative for us by giving
them information which shows they're wrong. But we're never going to
be the best at *everything* so they'll just aim the report at the
features which paint their clients positively anyways.

If you guys are really this excited to talk to PR industry people I
suggest you restrict yourselves to industry rag journalists rather
than analysts. At least they don't have an axe to grind except to
write an interesting narrative.

--
greg
http://mit.edu/~gsstark/resume.pdf

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
David Fetter
Дата:
On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 02:48:43PM +0100, Greg Stark wrote:

> If you guys are really this excited to talk to PR industry people I
> suggest you restrict yourselves to industry rag journalists rather
> than analysts.  At least they don't have an axe to grind except to
> write an interesting narrative.

Excellent idea!  Given the scarce resource that is people willing to
be the contact for PR industry people, it's important to target their
efforts for maximum benefit. :)

Any ideas as to which industry rags?

Cheers,
David.
--
David Fetter <david@fetter.org> http://fetter.org/
Phone: +1 415 235 3778  AIM: dfetter666  Yahoo!: dfetter
Skype: davidfetter      XMPP: david.fetter@gmail.com

Remember to vote!
Consider donating to Postgres: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate

Re: Forrester: Ingres and MySQL Lead Open Source Databases

От
Florian Weimer
Дата:
* Greg Stark:

> On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Josh Berkus<josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
>>
>> So in the case of analysts, it's a case of "can we influence this
>> analyst to produce a favorable report?  How much will it cost, and how
>> many people will it reach?"  Not an argument of "are analysts good or bad."
>
> Well, how much would it cost? Can you outbid Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM?

I think the general approach is to commission a few
independent/objective reports and then publish the most favorable
ones.  I don't think the reporting itself is strongly biased, it's
publication of the result.

--
Florian Weimer                <fweimer@bfk.de>
BFK edv-consulting GmbH       http://www.bfk.de/
Kriegsstraße 100              tel: +49-721-96201-1
D-76133 Karlsruhe             fax: +49-721-96201-99