# NixOS Marketing Team Minutes - 2023-03-15

Attendees: @garbas @idabzo @Ericson2314 @tomberek @fricklerhandwerk @btjh @pxc

- Doing the intro round since many members of the marketing are new
- [ ] update the marketing portion of the website and add Ida(@idabzo), Patrick(@pxc) (assigned to @garbas)
- @fricklerhandwerk's questions:
- What is the team's capacity?
- Is there a team handbook?
- Is there a set of goals, a roadmap?
- What are current priorities?
- @garbas: will try to answer that today as we go

## Topic: Nix release videos

- @garbas: by far the most popular thing we are doing so far and we are focusing on it as a priotity
- Script for the video: https://hackmd.io/j2_6RaXMRxikUopcvuHYJg
- @tomberek and @djacu are pairing on the announcement role
- @tomberek: no updates yet, probably more time for it over the weekend
- Delay in video may be prudent due to concerns about existing releases.
- @fricklerhandwerk: not excited about exciting people about things that are broken
- we had three regressions in two releases
- Please instead market things that produce great experiences, doesn’t have to limit itself to Nix specifically
- Bryan: getting more eyeballs will provide more feedback
- @fricklerhandwerk: disagree, the process is too broken and this is making false promises
- @pxc: is it possible to address the two different audiences of conservative and risk-inclined users clearly?
- @garbas: This is for existing users to follow new features
- Still developing the process for even deciding what should go in and out
- Whoever will contribute will drive the direction
- @pxc: small suggestion which may help: include some playful language characterizing the intended audience as ‘brave’, or trying the exciting new features as part of an ‘adventure’
- Something that conveys that trying out the latest version of Nix right away is both exciting and a little risky. or even including an explicit call for testing and feedback in the announcement, which will send the same signals
- @Ericson2314: hope as we work through the backlog of untested functionality, Nix releases will become more stable, even with no changes to the release process
- @garbas: will also cut the videos in chunks and post them separately to Twitter
- @fricklerhandwerk:
- How can the Nix team help the marketing team? (ideally at zero cost, e.g. by shifting focus slightly)
- How can the documentation team help?
- @tomberek: produce static artifacts that we can use, such as release notes, use case examples
- @fricklerhandwerk: multiple months ago we discussed with Bryan about simply reading ready-made tutorials (which are known to work well) out loud; it’s a content mill which can churn out many episodes
- @garbas: we need to be concise, the purpose is to create an end-to-end story; tutorials are too long
- @btjh: still think it’s a good idea, but probably youtube shorts is a better place for this
- Can you imagine a feedback loop back to the Nix maintainers and docs team?
- @tomberek: is there anything we can produce that would complement doc team efforts?
- @fricklerhandwerk: Yes, showcase major use cases that work flawlessly (stress: not oriented around novelty, but quality!)
- @pxc: should we reach out to existing Youtubers for collaboration opportunities
- @garbas: have to figure out attribution, e.g. if someone working at a company does a video
- @Ericson2314: supposedly youtubers will want to publish from their own channels
- @tomberek: "yes"

## Survey (survey.nixos.org)

- @garbas: make the survey website working
- @fricklerhandwerk: get us more questions on the documentation topic
- [2022 usability study questionnaire](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Ezcl5AheVyKHLkTUX9I6sBWjYReznU_GEzKFyaegPQQ)
- We’ll take the questions from next year, but we need to review them
- We need to find a person to do it.
- @pxc and @jeremiahs interestd in helping out shaping the survey

## Team Q/A recordings (live.nixos.org)

- Next recording is going to be documentation team (@fricklerhandwerk will) around April
- Add Twitch to the streamyard platform
- @btjh will do that
- Reach out to the NixOS release team to have a Q/A around the channel freeze date
- @garbase will contact them
- @fricklerhandwerk will invite @Arsleust to the next marketing meeting calendar event

## Create a communication pipeline for community/teams to use

- Set up a monthly newsletter
- Weekly schedule Twitter/LinkedIn posts
- @garbas: waiting for access to mailchimp from weekly.nixos.org (@domenkozar)
- @idabzo is going to help
- [ ] Add everybody to the lists, set up forwards/aliases
- `[e-mail]`, `[e-mail]`
- [ ] figure out a way to share credentials (for sites like hootsuite, Twitch, YouTube, …)
- @fricklerhandwerk: opened an [issue for the foundation board](https://github.com /NixOS/foundation/issues/49)
- Tool needs 2FA support

## Agenda for next time

- @tomberek: nixpkgs stories https://nixos.org/blog/stories.html
- @fricklerhandwerk: what about the website rewrite
- it's a pain for essentially every team, and we have to do double book-keeping to maintain team information
- keep it low tech" no pre-processors, no SASS/LESS... the more common, the better, regardless how primitive or clumsy it is
- @garbas: must not do a big bang change, this was attempted multiple times and never materialised
- @fricklerhandwerk: have to set up a proper project and plan, break down into manageable tasks
- then volunteers will be able to pick up units of work
- [ ] Write down the plan and publish it (@garbas)
- @Ericson2314: could need help reaching out to contributors for doxygen improvements and hackathon
- @fricklerhandwerk: in general, the marketing team should leverage their "reach" into the various audiences
- amplify the team needs/announcements/feedback
- be a unique sink for information that should go outward
- help teams with phrasing communication, factor it for the different channels
- @jeremiahs: looking at the information structure of the website
- @fricklerhandwerk: will get you in touch with people from the documentation team
- @Ericson2314: how can we keep the pressure on setting up sites on the other domains?
- @garbas: all for it, but it adds a lot of work and we're barely handling one website
- @garbas: question is where documentation ends and marketing starts
- currently we meet at the Learn page
- marketing's goal is to reach out to the audience and capture users and retain them enough to become invested enough in learning the ecosystem
- example: the Nix language tutorial is great but really long
- our job is to get people excited about it, and e.g. provide a 3 min summary, highlighting the 10% of the language people will use most often
- convince users to jump into documentation
- (some discussion on setting up the team's mission statement)
- @garbas: the team discussed this on and off, it's scattered in the notes
- @tomberek: also have some past effort in the drawer
- @fricklerhandwerk: what's the currently most important thing for the team to work on?
- @garbas: the survey