The organizers of the J and Beyond Joomla! conference just published a video recording of my talk Marketing is for Geeks:

I am excited that my talk for OSBC has been accepted: How U.S.-based FOSS Companies Effectively Market to Europeans. Furthermore, InitMarketing will exhibit as a sponsor at OSBC.

See you at OSBC in San Francisco, March 24-25!

Free and Open Source software is often being introduced through the back door in SMBs as well as large corporations. In-house developers can any time download it at no cost and install it to see if it fits the requirements for internal projects. Due to this kind of go-to-market strategy, MySQL’s Marten Mickos once stated: “We don’t believe in converting.”

The question is: How about internal converting? How about the day, when in-house developers need to justify the use of FOSS to their managers when they seek to consolidate the corporate IT infrastructure? Will FOSS speak for itself?

That’s the day, when enthusiastic in-house developers should start to act and regard themselves as internal Open Source evangelists. They will attempt to build support for FOSS within their organization to establish it as part of the IT landscape. What can they do in favor of FOSS and what should FOSS vendors and projects do to support them?

As much as it is important in the public to achieve a critical mass of FOSS supporters, it is critical within organizations to convince the critical minds, i.e. the decision makers. Here are some points how internal evangelists should be supported:

1. Internal Open Source evangelists might face the problem of being “the prophets in their own land”. They need to be supported in any possible way by external “objective” sources. For example, through publicly available marketing and sales material highlighting the business benefits of a certain FOSS product. Furthermore, FOSS vendors could have sales staff visit on site and talk to management directly. In general, it is highly important that there is enough easily accessible marketing material provided by FOSS vendors and projects that allow internal evangelists to pick or develop good arguments. A common mistake, especially by FOSS vendors is to hide valuable information, asuming that it will make potential clients call them, while it actually hurts the back door go-to-market strategy.
2. The still growing momentum and usually positive media coverage helps internal evangelists to advocate FOSS within their organization by refering to success stories.
3. The best argument in favor of FOSS is a working implementation. Given the easy availability and access to FOSS source code, in-house developers can quickly set up a proof-of-concept or even specific simple solutions for internal use.

In general, FOSS might benefit from general organizational changes going on in today’s companies that reward inidividual and bottom-up initiatives. Flat hierarchies are supposed to avoid the problem that the person actually purchasing software is not the person actually using it. Technical staff that enjoys building IT solutions with Free and Open Source software that actually works as advertised will not be frustrated by software purchased due to mesmerizing sales presentations.

FOSS as a movement can actually support companies in becoming more efficient and effective, not only in terms of TCO, but also in terms of reduced staff turnover and more innovation, because it supports a more open and egalitarian corporate culture. Once these two phenomena converge, proprietary vendors will have a hard time matching such a corporate culture and yes, then we won’t have to believe in converting any longer.

I am looking forward to discussing aspects of internal FOSS evangelism at the German OSMB workshop on FOSS as part of an IT strategy taking place Thursday, Jan 29, 11-13:00 together with moderator Heinrich Seeger (Heise) and the other panelists Matthew Langham (Indiginox), Dr. Uwe Schmid (McKinsey), Kristian Raue (Jedox).

The dates for the OSBF workshops on Open Source sales and marketing are now available online.

I’ll kick off the series of workshops together with Richard Seibt, former CEO SUSE, at February 18th in Nuremberg, Germany. From 10-13, I will introduce marketing Open Source software. Richard will talk about Open Source business models from 14-17.

The workshops will be in German and there will be enough time for discussions with participants.

OSBF members will not pay for attending the presentations, non-members will be charged EUR 150. Find more info on how to register for the workshops at the OSBF Web site.

I am a big fan of Clay Shirky. He presented “It’s not information overload. It’s filture failure.” at Web 2.0 Expo NY last year – a fabulous speech you should not miss:

Shirky’s talk made Matt Asay think about how filture failure applies to Open Source which again made me realize just how true Shirky’s call for a “mental shift” in organizations applies to companies switching from a proprietary to an Open Source business model.

Such companies face a cultural change related to what Shirky calls “the fight about information flows and access to it”. The reason being that “the Internet allows large systems that are freerider-tolerant” in contrast to the offline-world where “small groups defend theirselves against freeriders”. Proprietary companies is what I’d call a “small group” regarding their mentality, no matter how many employees they actually have. Proprietary software vendors constantly strive to defend themselves against freeriders e.g. with patents and non-permissive licenses. Their partner companies benefit from being a partner because they have better access to information provided by the proprietary ISV.

Now think of a proprietary company leaning towards a FOSS business model, opening up their code and consequently also their communications. This means a lot of change, because communicating about Open Source products is essentially about communicating on the Web, where – as Shirky pointed out – large systems can evolve that are freerider-tolerant. And of course every Open Source vendor wants to have a large community. So, suddenly the gates are open and information is supposed to flow much more freely between the former proprietary software vendor and its community, which just as well includes partner companies.

In such a situation, communication tactics of employees and partner companies will have to change dramatically to sustain a successful Open Source business environment.

Next week, Thursday, I will present in Istanbul, Turkey on “Does Open Source Software Needs Marketing? Why and How”.

Here’s further information from the invitation letter:

We would like to see you among us for the Open Source Marketing seminar
jointly organized by TUBITAK UEKAE and IBM-Bilgi Center for Advanced Studies,
to take place on November 27th at 13:00 in Istanbul Bilgi University
Dolapdere Campus.

The seminar will be delivered by Sandro Groganz, the founder of and consultant
for the open source marketing firm InitMarketing. Detailed info regarding the
seminar is provided below.

Date: November 27, 2008 Thursday
Time: 13:00
Plave: Istanbul Bilgi University Dolapdere Campus

Thank you in advance.
Best regards
Pardus Project // TÜBİTAK UEKAE

Does Open Source Software Needs Marketing? Why and How

The market share of Open Source software will double within the next four
years. More and more new companies provide Open Source products right from
the start and established players release their source code under an OSS
license.

These days, everyone knows that Open Source is a viable business model – but
how does one successfully market an Open Source product? A download link
alone will not suffice. It rather needs a strategy combinin traditional
marketing with community relations and social media marketing.

This presentation will showcase examples from the Open Source domain and
provide hands-on advice about how to unfold a vital Open Source ecosystem
where geeks and customers alike contribute to value creation.

Looking forward to seeing you there! Thanks to Erkan Tekman of Pardus fame for organizing it.

For all of you in the German-speaking regions of Europe, OSBF will offer various talks related to marketing Open Source software. As a founding member of OSBF’s Open Source Sales & Marketing Group, I’ll present a two hours introductory workshop about Open Source marketing and will be available for Q&A afterwards.

Yet, the dates are not set and we are still collecting feedback from OSBF members on the topics.

OSBF members will not pay for attending the presentations, non-members will be charged EUR150.

InitMarketing teamed up with Olliance Group and we’ll present a workshop entitled Building an Effective Commercial Open Source Strategy at Open Source in Mobile (OSiM) conference, Berlin, September 19th. My fellow Roberto already posted some details about the OSiM workshop.

I got some 25% discount vouchers for the conference (valid until Friday, Sept 5th) – shoot me an email or leave a comment and I’ll get one to you.

My talk entitled Marketing Open Source Software at LinuxTag in Berlin, Germany was very well attended and the audience asked some great questions.

Find below the slides. I have added three more graphs related to Open Source business models to the slides deck I had used at previous presentations.

I have also uploaded the German slides of my presentation Marketing von Open-Source-Software at Webinale in Karlsruhe, Germany.

I am happy to present again at LinuxTag in Berlin, Germany after skipping last year’s event. Come and see and hear me talk about Marketing Open Source Software in room “Berlin 2″ at Saturday, March 31st, 12:00-13:00.

If you would like to meet me in Berlin, I’ll be there Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon – just drop me a line.