1.

• • Case Study: OpenOffice.org Guerrilla Advertising in the New YorkMetroNewspaper

2. Goal of this Talk

• Describe my project and encourage others to undertake similar local efforts

3. Why FOSS Needs OOo

• OpenOffice.org is one of the most strategic FOSS apps right now, especially due to ODF and cross-platform support, that can bring to document creation what Firefox brought to the web in the past few years.

4. OOo's Broader Impact

• When OOo reaches critical mass, which is clearly starting already, we'll cancel Microsoft's ability to collect 80% profit margins on MS Office. This will cut off their air supply (or half of it, anyway), preventing the company from funding activities like their recent putsch to corrupt the ISO.

5. 2004 New York Times Firefox Ad http://www.mozilla.org/press/mozilla-2004-12-15.html 6. How Much Could I Do?

• Small team (me)

• Working fulltime

• Short timeframe (about 10 weeks)

• Minimal budget

7. WhyMetro ?

• Metroresponded.

• Each weekday, 330,000 free copies of Metro are distributed to commuters in the five boroughs.

• Roughly 450,000 people read it, and they represent a young, affluent and savvy demographic.

8. Nonprofit Ad Rates

• Contacted Metro May 31, 2006 and received a reply on June 2.

• Nonprofit ad rates = heavy discount.

• Less than 20% of regular cost, or about $4,750 for a full back-page ad

9. Fundraising Campaign

• Online, distributed campaign

• Used Fundable.org

• Problems with Fundable

• Other options: Chipin, that other one

10. Fundable Fundraising 11. Fundraising Option: Chipin 12. Promotional Campaign

• Extremely important and time-consuming

• Mad Penguin

• Digg

• Slashdot

• Boing Boing

• Many more

• Start small, then leverage for larger

13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Leverage Existing Tools

• Google Groups

• .mac website: http://homepage.mac.com/bhorst/

• (high traffic, more than SolidOffice blog could have supported)

18. Google Groups 19. 20. SolidOffice.com 21. Ad Design - First Draft

• You may have seen it on Slashdot.

• Not intended as a serious design, just a talking point, but...

• it was ugly!

22. Final Ad Design 23. Hasan from Open Malaysia blog spots the ad at the Staten Island Ferry terminal http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2006/08/still_in_new_yo.html 24. Lessons Learned

• 1. Flexible planning is key.

• 2. One person can do a lot.

• 3. Funds can be collected effectively online.

• 4. Ignore the critics.

• 5. Can't do it too oftenneed to sleep!

25. Measuring Impact

• Of all the pieces of this project, this one stymied me.

• Marketers look for quantitative results, butI cannot provide them for this project.

26. Next Steps

• Ideas:

• Facebook Group

• University newspapers: important audience, low cost

• Share your ideas: small marketing pieces, loosely joined

27. Thanks!

• Benjamin Horst

• www.solidoffice.com