Foswiki Zoo - Twitter-based marketing

Foswiki needs to be more "human" in its marketing, as evidenced by recent activity on the foswiki-discuss mailing list, and some very sensible ideas have been put forward. This is a proposal for a very human form of marketing: spreading the word about Foswiki by telling a story using Twitter. This proposal is intended to operate alongside and in conjunction with other forms of marketing.

Foswiki: cute and furry

People seek out and enjoy stories. We relate to characters and identify with them. Stories have the human touch that makes for effective marketing. Stories travel far because people like to share them; we can provide a Foswiki story to share and let the human propensity to share stories work for us.

Animals make great characters; it is so easy for many different people to relate to them. Small and furry creatures work well in this role. (Yes - it is a cliche - but why not leverage the cliche? They also look great on T-Shirts, website banners etc.) This approach has worked for many other projects and organisations. Think Linux, various FIFA World Cups, the many and varied animated movies from Pixar and Dreamworks. And so on.

Foswiki Zoo is the story of a small cast of creatures that work with Foswiki. Foswiki Zoo uses the medium of a story to tell people about Foswiki. There is lots to tell: features, markup hints, wiki-based applications, useful plugins, funny plugins, FAQ answers, good experiences - all of which can be conveyed though a story.

Characters

Micky the Marmoset is the main character. "Wiki Micky" is an enthusiastic Foswiki user. Micky has an unspecified job. Micky uses the wiki to get things done ("Micky wikis"). Micky represents what we would like our users to be. Micky is a capable and competent user but is not a software developer. Micky is not an admin, and does not want to be one. Micky reads the documentation. Micky experiments. Micky is willing to learn. Micky has a sense of humour. Micky likes trying new things.

The boss is nameless. Micky works for the boss. The boss gives Micky things to do. The boss has little patience.

Alexander the Rat is the Foswiki administrator. Alexander is one of nature's sysadmins. Alexander understands Foswiki way better than he understands users. Alexander is somewhat odd (like a lot of other sysadmins). Alexander does arcane things. In the story, Alexander maintains the Foswiki, installs plugins and performs upgrades. Alexander is the face behind Micky's changing wiki environment, which provides challenges, new tools and plenty of learning experiences.

Millicent the Sheep is a nervous user. Everyone likes Millicent. Millicent can be frustratingly dim. Millicent makes silly mistakes ("Silly Milli"). Millicent needs help, using the wiki. Millicent does simple things with Foswiki. Millicent occasionally comes up with brilliant applications of Foswiki, using Foswiki effectively in a simple way. Millicent is in the story to provide some variety, and to provide a character that nervous users can relate to.

The story begins with Micky. Other characters are introduced later, as needed. It is important to have a small number of characters because of the medium used to tell the story.

Other ideas for characters:

• Dos Santos is a Llama. (This name is a TBD - the original idea was a South American-sounding surname). He probably has a first name, but no-one knows what it is. He is an advanced Foswiki user. He does remarkable things with TML. He has been known to write some Perl. He insists he isn't the llama on the cover of the O'Reilly book; that llama on the books is his cousin (he says).

Principles of operation

This proposal is about a story. The story is valuable to readers because it entertains. If it does not entertain, then readers lose interest and we lose readers. If it does not entertain, then the story has no marketing value. The characters provide the entertainment, so it is important that the story retains strong characterisation.

The story should be written in chapters. Each chapter should have a specific theme and be a small story in its own right. Chapters should be written as a series of tweets. The tweets should be posted at some predefined frequency e.g. daily, twice-daily or three times a week.

A chapter should last no more than two weeks (perhaps no more than 10 days) or else readers with short attention span may lose interest. This limits the number of tweets per chapter.

The story should be written a chapter at a time, so that the story is coherent and consistent. This will allow us to invest time to write the story and edit it, without having to produce polished content on-the-fly every day. The use of chapters will allow parts of the story to be written in isolation and it will allow different people to write different chapters.

It may be helpful to use recipes to write chapters. Recipes would help give structure to each chapter, which could help less-skilled writers to contribute. Here is an example to illustrate the idea:

1. Micky has a problem.
2. Micky looks for an answer.
3. Micky's first try works, but is not quite right.
4. Micky has a better idea.
5. It works. Micky is happy.

Example plot outline

Here is an example plot outline. Each bullet in the list represents one chapter.

• Micky learns the basics of Foswiki, including the WYSIWYG editor
• Micky discovers SpreadSheetPlugin?
• Micky forgets his password
• Alexander installs authentication technology for Single Sign On. Micky learns what it is, and likes it.
• Micky uses a template to create new topics
• Micky searches for data
• Micky uses forms
• Micky writes a blog
• Micky writes a better blog
• Micky gives a presentation using SlideShowPlugin?
• Micky works from home

Example tweets

These examples have not been checked against the maximum length of a tweet.

• Micky the Marmoset writes meeting minutes. At the first meeting, he took them down by hand. And then he had to type them all in. Ouch!
• Micky the Marmoset writes meeting minutes during the meeting. He tried mailing them, but hates resending old mail for new attendees.
• Micky the Marmoset puts his meeting minutes in Foswiki. Everyone can see them, all the time. Less work for Micky when new people join!
• Micky the Marmoset writes minutes with the Foswiki WYSIWYG editor. He even shows when people shout in meetings!
• Micky the Marmoset is in trouble. The boss didn't really shout, did he? Micky fixes the minutes. Quickly! Whew - Foswiki is fast.
• Micky the Marmoset made a mistake. He deleted something by accident. No matter, Foswiki keeps a revision history. Micky undoes the change.
• The boss gave a presentation today. Micky writes the minutes in Foswiki. The minutes make no sense without context. What can Micky do?
• Foswiki is great. Micky attaches the presentation to the minutes. Now the minutes make sense again. Micky the Marmoset smiles

Web content

Foswiki.org could provide a web dedicated to the zoo. It could be used to provide information of interest to readers (i.e. fans), and it could be used as infrastructure for writing the story.

For readers, a Zoo web could provide short character synopses and past chapters in the story (e.g. one topic per chapter).

For writers, the web could provide a wiki-based application to help writing the Twitter-based story. It could hold the chapter plan, recipes for writing chapters, and provide a collaboration platform for writing, reviewing and editing the chapters prior to publication. Initially, the story may be published to twitter manually. There is definite scope for automation here.

Acknowledgements

This idea was inspired by the Othar twitter. Othar is a character in the Girl Genius cartoon.

-- MichaelTempest - 08 May 2009