The document discusses open source public relations and community outreach. It outlines opportunities for PR, such as promoting ideas directly to customers, and threats, such as losing control of messaging. It also provides tips for being an effective spokesperson, including preparing for interviews, cultivating journalist relationships, and focusing PR efforts as print media declines. The author proposes doing pro bono PR work for open source organizations and developing a community building toolkit.

1. Open Sourcing PR OSIA, April 2009 Sarah Stokely [email_address]

3. The aha! moment The Pro-Am Revolution by Charles Leadbetter and Paul Miller http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy A disruptive innovation made powerful telescopes cheap enough for the average astronomer.John Dobson, a one-time monk and lifelong stargazer designed a crude but powerful telescope using discarded and second hand materials. He said...

4. The aha! moment "To me, it's not so much how big your telescope is, or how accurate your optics are, or how beautiful the pictures are you can take with it; it's how many people in this vast world less privileged than you have had a chance to see through your telescope and understand this universe."

15. Opportunities and threats Opportunity: Get your message out direct to customers/potential customers, without the “filter” of a journalist or editor. PR success. Risk: Lose control of your corporate profile online, open yourself up to criticism from customers & the rest of the Web world. PR failure.

18. Ideas Pro bono agency My idea is to look at taking on a couple of pro bono clients (LA, LCA, OSDC spring to mind) - work with them on coming up with plans for PR/press relations/community development, and then help put those ideas into action. I can do media skills training, and I enjoy organising events. In true open source community fashion, I'd be looking to develop resources (kits, training modules etc) that could be shared with any open source community project that wanted to use them. I'm already working with OpenAustralia.org doing pro bono PR.

19. Future ideas An Open Source toolkit a research/survey project of open source community projects to develop a a "community building toolkit" which would take tips for how to greet/involve new people in your project, and how *not* to alienate minorities (ie women).... This would be quite a time commitment as I'd be looking at surveying 50-100 open source projects