Time donation to the Joomla Project - Feedback requested

[aleksanderk]

The Joomla! Project needs more contributors to match the rising expectations of our users.

There are companies who are a part of the Joomla ecosystem and are willing to contribute the time of their employees to work within our teams.

On the Board Meeting dated as of April 13th, 2017 the project leadership has decided to take a closer look at this opportunity. I am responsible for taking a closer look at this issue and see if we can develop a framework that could be used for such cooperation.

It's important for us not only to recruit new people but also to find ways to recognize the efforts of current contributions who donate their time they could have spent on a for-profit activity.

That is why I'm looking for people willing to share their perspective and previous experience with regard to that topic. Please contact me here, on Glip or via email: [email protected]

Thanks,
Aleksander Kuczek
Joomla VP

[darb]

Good initiative!

[alexred]

Good idea.
Please we need more help to fix many old bug. Many Joomla bug are more than 100 days old.

[mmx]

You need to advertise to promote the venture on as many communications outlets as possible.

I would start off with a both an online-accessible and printed press release.

The Unix/Linux magazines might yield good results.

Send the printed press releases to every trade-oriented printed and online magazine/newsletter/blog as possible.

Find someone with marketing experience to write the press releases.

Target the larger computer user groups such as the Boston Computer Society and the Silicon Valley Computer Society. They have thousands of users and many sponsors.

Use your own syndicated newsfeeds to announce the venture.

Advertise like you're going to war!

[mmx]

You might think about contacting your book authors to announce the initiative in their next revision or addendums. The associated book publishers might be able to help out with articles or blog posts on their web sites.

Joomla needs to regain market share! You should see about finding a volunteer marketing director for this endeavor as well as for the overall project itself. I'm semi-retired and in my seventies. I don't have the required industry connections anymore or would volunteer to do it myself.

The latest work on the framework needs to be promoted as a lean and mean web machine. It's pretty awesome in my mind, and I work with a lot of other frameworks. The installer is fabulous. Content management is much improved since my last customer build. Start marketing JED better as well as the large number of extension developers.

Get together with your guys and make a list of all the advantages Joomla has over the competition and promote those advantages.

You might try promoting the endeavor in a casual way on Amazon book reviews.

Do something about recognizing sponsors on your web site yesterday to see that they get some presitge and free institutional advertising out of sponsorship.

Start an international Joomla user group if you don't have one and encourage the formation of national, regional and city chapters.

You probably have good writers and editors hiding in the background. See if they are interested in publishing a Joomla magazine online with feature articles about Joomla, the latest extensions, tips and tricks columns, and industry editorials. Add some professionally formatted advertisements to the magazine as a Joomla revenue source.

Marketing is easy when you focus on marketing.

[mmx]

Put some feelers out that you're willing to do an interview about the initiative. Try industry magazines.

[mmx]

You have to make would be sponsors want to sponsor Joomla. You might think about that for a while or have a brainstorming session about the topic. Sponsors need to get some kind of incentive out of being part of the initiative. Presitge is one incentive. Seeing their logos plastered on your main page might be an incentive. Adding a 'Our Sponsors' option on the main menu might help.