[Linux-aus] AUUG to close? Will there be a rush of new members to Linux Australia?

[Steven Hanley]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2007 at 04:15:46PM +1030, Michael Davies wrote:
> Brand recognition and identity takes a lot to establish.  If we were  
> starting out afresh today our community might possibly choose  
> something different for our name - but I'm not sure having the correct  
> name for today is the most important thing.  Starting afresh with a  
> new name means starting afresh with our efforts, and I'm not sure we  
> should so easily toss aside those efforts.
> 
> Or put another way, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
> 
> We have lots to do on every side - from the technical, to the  
> advocacy, to the business of OSS, and many other things that I haven't  
> considered this moment.  My personal opinion is that we should be  
> spending our efforts "to facilitate enthusiasms within the Linux  
> Community to flourish" rather than re-invent the wheel time and  
> again.  We have in place an organisation that isn't perfect but is  
> doing a great job - and while hacking on the organisation is ok and  
> fun and cool, achieving Linus' World Domination, or RMS's "Free  
> Software is a matter of liberty, not price", or fixing Ubuntu's bug 1  
> is more important - and Linux Australia's job is to help in achieving  
> these and other similar efforts rather than just optimising itself.
> 
> Of course, this is all IMHO :-)

Full agreement from me on this.

Spending time and effort to reeducate on a new brand would be counter
productive. A brand really does have a huge place in mindset once it is
established.

LA and LCA are recognised both within and outside the community for the
great work and great product.

It may seem barely relevant however an obvious example of brand change
affecting people even though efforts had been made to educate them this year
was in the existance of two competing 24 hour mountain bike races in
Canberra.

CORC (Canberra Off Road Cyclists, non profit mountain bike club that
services ACT) has for 9 years now run a solo and all other categories 24
hour mountain bike race in Canberra. However last year there was a change of
major sponsor.

The race is "The Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Championships", however
affixed to the front of that long title has always been the major sponsor.

In the past the major sponsor was Mont Adventure Equipment. However the
sponsor changed to Scott. Thus last year and this year CORC has run the race
with the name "The Scott Australian 24 Hour Mountain Bike Championships".

This year an event promotions company teamed up with Mont Adventure Euipment
and some other sponsors and put their own 24 hour mountain bike race on, 2
weeks after the CORC race and called it the Mont 24 hour.

Now onto the branding, for two years now CORC has been educating people on
the change of sponsor and doing everything as CORC as it normally does. Yet
this year a large number of poeple were heard to say

"Oh I am doing the Mont as I want to support CORC and all the efforts put
into mountain biking in Canberra by the club"

Sure it could be suggested CORC failed in their efforts of reeducation if
that was heard by so many people, thinking CORC were involved with and
running the Mont race this year. However it would have been nice if
reeducation had not been necessary and if the confusion was not there in the
first place.

I agree with Michael, linux.conf.au and Linux Australia are not broken,
there is no need to "fix" them. We promote FLOSS and in the work and efforts
we do that as part of our message, we already educate people as to what we
do when we interact with them, the conference and the organisation can
attatch what we do to our existing strong brand rather than expending
effort to generate a new strong brand attatched to what we are already
pushing out and promoting and working towards.

	See You
	    Steve

-- 
Steven Hanley sjh at svana.org http://svana.org/sjh/diary
i'm going to go ahead and go boldly because a little bird told me
that jumping is easy, that falling is fun
up until you hit the sidewalk, shivering and stunned
   Swan Dive - Little Plastic Castle - Ani