Re: Question about Akademy 2019 coverage

On sábado, 21 de septiembre de 2019 18:31:30 (CEST) Christoph Cullmann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> last years Akademy had a good coverage in German speaking
> news sites like golem.de
> 
> I am just wondering why this year there no article did come up.
> 
> Did we something differently last year?
> 
> Greetings
> Christoph

Hello Cristoph,

Yes, we also had an advertisement in Linux Magazine last year. 

Three reasons things were different this year:

1. Promo made what some saw as a few faux pas last year for often jumping the 
gun. So this year we decided to follow the organisers' lead and advise instead 
of pushing forward too fast and we always waited for explicit approval before 
taking action. In other words: we did what we were asked to do and advised, 
including about getting in touch with the media. And some media was present: 
Luca from Linux Magazine Italia was there, for example. 

2. As you are probably aware, there was difficulty in establishing a host city 
for the event this year, and when the team from Milan stepped up to save a bad 
situation, everything needed rushing. I know for a fact that the organisers on 
the ground tried to get the media involved, but, due to the time constraints, 
not every base of past events was covered. This must not in any way be 
construed as a criticism: there was literally not enough time and resources to 
get everything done.

3. Finally, this issue is not as important as it may seem for KDE's 
promotional efforts. Promo's main mission is to reach outside the community and 
attract users, businesses and institutions to our community and technology. 
This is collected in our goals:

https://community.kde.org/Promo%27s_Long_Term_Goals

Interestingly, studying carefully the numbers, we have discovered that 
reporting about Akademy (and other events) in retrospect has nearly zero 
impact towards reaching these goals. Unfortunately, Akademy is just not 
interesting enough to the outside world.

That said, reports about Akademy are important, both for the Community, 
especially for those members who were unable to attend, and for our sponsors. 
So we did publish a comprehensive breakdown of the event on the Dot:

https://dot.kde.org/2019/09/10/akademy-2019-talks-heres-what-you-missed

Which is where we usually direct those audiences.

But the promotional consequences of having a golem.de talk about Akademy would 
have been marginal. This means it was the correct decision to not prioritise 
this action over others that would have had a more negative impact on the 
event if left undone.

I hope this helps clarify this issue. With a bit of luck, next year we will 
have a host earlier (Promo is preparing a campaign to push the CfH in the next 
weeks) and we will have more time to get the press more involved.

And, who knows, we may also figure out how to get more people from outside KDE 
interested in Akademy. Then, having golem.de and other outlets talk about our 
event will be well worth the effort.

Cheers

Paul
-- 
Promotion & Communication

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