Communication and buzz building - for May Drumbeat Launch

Critical things we need for 'launch'

1. We know what key messages are and they are present in everything (Dharmishta)
2. How projects work and what is in it for me are clear (Henrik), people can submit (Matt)
3. Plan for Drumbeat Festival and path to participation are clear (Nathan)
4. How to a organize, promote and document and event are clear (Nathan + Gunner)
5. 3 top projects compelling and real participation (Dharmishta)

Other ideas

1. [new suggestion!] Ambassador (meaning 1 person to tweet or blog per day) schedule filled for days leading up to and after launch (Dharmishta + whoever volunteers to help coordinate the schedule)
2. [new suggestion!] Drumbeat "arts" contest (we need a waaaaay better name) in place--prize for top 5 entries is going to Drumbeat Festival in Amsterdam (think robots running on open code playing drums, etc) (Dharmishta idea)

Things that are happening as part of 'launch'

May

1. Release of new version of site - content and platform
2. Main 'join the Drumbeat' donations campaign ( target 1700 people)
3. Announcement of first Open Web Fund grants (WMM, P2PU, UniSub)
4. Announcement of Mozilla / Shuttleworth Drumbeat fellowship
5. Berlin Drumbeat event (could use to announce things)
6. More Brasil Drumbeat events (to be confirmed)
7. T-shirt/Open Web Fund launch (snippet)

June

1. Be Open campaign w/ Wikipedia and CC
2. More Drumbeat events (need plan)

note: we need a longer narrative arc, but this is just for launch

Ways we will generate traffic and engagement

Ways to get people engaged:

• Sign up for Drumbeat now (what do you get for that? - Automatic entry into monthly random drawing for Drumbeat giveaway pack. Mozilla Drumbeat t-shirts, other garb and goodies, etc [ken])
• Follow up with a Welcome to Drumbeat e-mail with ways you can be a part of drumbeat right now
• Like a project, join a project, donate to a project,
• Tell a friend about drumbeat,
• Tell us your next great idea for the open web
• How your support helps (what contributing your time means, where your donations dollars go)

Ways to drive traffic:

• Mozilla blog
• Get Mozilla community members to blog about drumbeat Mozilla
• Social Media,
• Media pitches (get a hand from Melissa) for Mashable, etc.,
• Get Care2 to blog about Universal Subtitles,
• Reach out to other vocal and central open web people and orgs (berkman CC wikimeida etc)
• Blog/web site promotional buttons and graphics. Add to SFx affiliates too. [ken]
  • We could use our supported affiliates module on D.0 (See http://drupal.org/project/affiliates) Currently running on spreadthunderbird.com ( See http://www.spreadthunderbird.com/affiliates ) [booker]

outreach plan google doc: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Adfxrz4d0vELZGRwcHIzdnBfMjA2Y2QzNWhiaGQ&hl=en

Other promotional channels:

• Blogs, twitter, lists, social networks
• Firefox accounts – I million people
  • Could mozilla Drumbeat get a mention on the "Firefox Start" page ? [booker] [chelsea - already has one - went live on Friday, April 23]
  • Perhaps we could look into what we could achieve with a mozilla Drumbeat firefox extension , another Drumbeat project? [booker]
• About Mozilla newsletter
• Moz blog properties
• Creative commons blogs ( targeted at CC community lists, such as CC learn)
• Creative Commons Country leads - I can ping global network sometime be4 may 1st
• Wikimedia
• Richard S offered these outreach channels, great example of an ambassador to a specific audience:
• K-12 twitterers
• Active teacher groups in LinkedIn
• I'll try to engage Stephen Fry on Twitter and see if he will retweet about Drumbeat and see if he will rally to our cause like he has done recently for the FSF [booker]

Targets

Participation

Baseline: 50 - 100 people actively involved now at the once-a-week level
Target: grow by 25-50 active people/week after launch
Target: 5 awesome projects w/ 50 real participants by summer

List / accounts

Baseline: 500 registered accounts
Target: grow list by 500/week

Donations

Baseline: Support for mulitiple drumbeat projects (though Universal Subtitles will get the most because of Care2 & Snippet, as well as support for the Open Web Fund.
Baseline(?): 10K for Universal Subtitles (April/May Snippet)
Target: 20-30K to Open Web Fund [need to better integration of tshirt campaign targets]

Events

Target: 10 cities confirmed 

Questions we need to answer before the launch

• What are the main steps in the project life-cycle?
  • Mark has revised version -- let's update
  • What's the "checklist?" What are the 3 / 5 / 10 things this project needs to be awesome?

• How does voting work?
  • Proposal: the 10 / 20 projects with the most votes get flown to the Drumbeat Festival

• • Question: How do we prevent inauthentic voting? (perhaps a "karma" system could solve this...)
    • Maybe i could investigate this ? [booker]

• How do people participate in the Drumbeat Festival?
  • confirmed date/location -
  • clear pathway to participation

• What are the main differences between "beta" and "release" versions? How do we communicate that?
  • Proposal: Make the web site itself an active Drumbeat project. Eat our "maker / builder" dogfood.
    • I like it :-) [booker]
  • Proposal: main post-beta features are:
    • Localiaztion
    • Robust open-source community development
    • Social architecture
    • Theme / overall graphic design (Mozilla Creative Collective)
    • More robust project metrics. Easier to see how your project is moving up the lifecycle.
    • More robust web site metrics and analytics. Need to set realistic expectations here.