[Bf-marketing] Corporate Identity

[Ewout Fernhout]

Well if you look at it that way, yes I agree. That was not what I
meant anyway. If you're willing to put that much time and energy in
this project, then I'm all for it. The problem up until now has been
that there's nobody that has the time/experience to maintain a certain
quality/output.

Next week I have an evaluation of a corporate identity I did one and a
half year ago for a students' association. I can tell you; the biggest
problem was not the ideas & the philosophy we had (at all!), but
having all of it executed. The students' association is very much like
a community in a way: both rely on volunteers. Even with 7 full time
board members and a committee (of 5) especially devoted to the
graphical communications and a website committee (5) it was hard to
reach the goals we had set initially. It's just not as easy as when
you can pay people to do stuff.

I will try not to sound too negative (because I really think you have
some very valuable ideas!), but here's my opinion

> Blender should really have a tagline

good point, it even used to have one IIRC: "Presume Nothing". There's
a whole thread with candidates at elysiun:
http://elysiun.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=45900

> I also think that Blender should take a new approach. First, Blender
> should feel more people driven right at the time you . The homepage
> should encourage enterprises and individuals to get into "Blend In" to
> Blender ;-) . Right now there is the "Get Involved" link, we should have
> a section for Enterprises too.  I think studios (either movie, game,
> etc.) could really help, and that why I think they should have good
> support to get them started coding. On that point I believe we should
> maybe do a partnership with one or two enterprises but I don't wanna get
> into it right now.

I'm not sure what you want here, some kind of community? Do you have
examples of things like this?

> The homepage could also have some kind of teasing stuff to get people
> interested. If people see cool stuff, they'll be more ported into
> working their asses off to learn instead of bitching the interface. The
> E-Shop could also use a bit of accentuation, simply having some kind of
> "Support Blender" link with an explanation of what needs to be paid to
> keep running would not hurt.

Hmmm this sounds a bit like begging... I think those who feel that
they need to contribute something to Blender will do that some way or
the other. Personally I felt that Orange was a *very* nice way to
"sponsor" Blender that was/is very rewarding. This aspect of buying
the Orange DVD's could have been emphasised a tiny bit more I think,
although it's a fine line.

> I feel we should have a historic section to show people where Blender's
> coming from.

like this, http://mediawiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/PartI/Introduction
but on the blender site I guess? Might be a nice addition to the
"About  Blender" section indeed.

> Also, as I said when talking about giving a more humane face, Contact
> should be split. Giving only one email link in the
> "foundation(at)blender(dot)org" isn't very serious.

Very true! Just like the absent Press Kit page, which is highly
prioritised in Samo & my plans.

> Blender, I feel, is at a stage where it has either to show it can be as
> professional as any software out there or stay a "low-level" software in
> people's mind. If the software isn't up par for now for a few tasks, we
> should at least let them know it's being worked on and incite people to
> join that way too.

> A few dev journals maitained by the marketing crew showing what's up
> behind the walls to keep people on the edge in the dead times between
> version. It also helps showing there's people behind Blender and that
> something is actually in the works (in here we all know there is, but
> average joe visiting Blender can't figure out.

This is where I have my doubts. We can try though. Basically you need
more people maintaining these things. Also, with the planned 2 month
release-cycle, this won't contribute much relative to the cost of
maintenance.
What we do miss is a release promotion team (thank god we have
Tom!!!), and I think we can get this off the ground too. I'll be the
first to apply :o)

> I firmly think we should work on the sense of belonging to Blender,
> best may to spread Blender is word to mouth. If we could get some viral
> marketing going on, maybe series of fun little videos realized with
> Blender with the help of different "feature animators". Things of a few
> seconds, good humour.

Viral/buzz marketing has been a hit since a few years now, but it's
very hard to realise; you need very clever, well thought out ideas.
Again, this is a time-consuming thing and you need devoted people, and
more importantly, you need someone devoted to mentoring them.

Bottom-line: we need to look for ways to improve Blender's Identity
*without* creating more work! That's a challenge in itself, but it
will give a good foundation: that way you're not relying on all these
other wild ideas (no offence!), while they're a nice addition when
they actually happen. But please let's focus on the foundation first,
then add bells & whistles (I see a nice analogy with Blender here!)

Ewout