Hello all,
So at this last wineconf we had a great discussion around promotion of the wine project and how we get more interaction with the broader open source developer and user community. As part of that we really wanted people to step up and volunteer to attend conferences, Linux user groups, shows and wherever they can to talk about wine. Jeremy reminded everyone that there is money in the wine project budget to compensate people for expenses around this.
The job I volunteered to take on was that of swag master. It was agreed that we should have some things to give away at these events. Many projects have stickers and other goodies that they distribute, sell or otherwise get out into the community to increase visible footprint. The expense of these will come out of the wine project funds and we need to discuss the best way to manage it.
Right now, I still have a number of leftover badge flags from FOSDEM, probably about 100 of them. If you are attending a conference with badges and you want some to distribute contact me and I can get that sent out.
My first thought was that we should have a sticker stockpile. Stickers seem like a good first step. Here I have brought in Jana from CodeWeavers Marketing to help. She has agreed to design some stickers for us when she has free time (probably prototypes in early Jan) and talk to her production contacts on quotes for production of the stickers. We are thinking 2" x 4" oval or die-cut stickers.
The price per sticker drops so dramatically with volume that doing smaller on demand printings seems counter productive. This would mean that there would be a mailing expense to ship the stickers from St. Paul, MN to each event. But with enough time, less expensive shipping can be selected and it just seems like the shipping expense would be out-weighted by production savings.
The question I am posing out to you, the broader community, is if this sounds like a good first step plan? Also, what else do you think we should have a swag? Should I reorder badge flags when we run out? I know t-shirts are always popular but they tend to be enough more expensive that they are not really give-away items.
Thoughts? I will send more info when Jana produces the sticker prototypes.
Finally, I do have the flags, so right now, if you are off to an event and want to start with that as swag feel free to contact me!
Thanks! -aric