Press Release Process

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Revision as of 06:46, 19 October 2006 by Wiki-Mpg (talk | contribs)
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The goal is to have a simple and understandable process for creating, reviewing and issuing press releases.

Once initiated, the process will be driven by a member of the Visibility Committee. There are five basic steps:

Conception

Something newsworthy happens - a new software release of an OSGeo project, for example. The "owner" of said event wishes to publish this development to a wider audience.

Creation

The owner of their OSGeo-related newsworthy event or their proxy writes the release to the wiki using the Press Release Template and notifies the foundation of the url by emailing dev@visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org and board@board.osgeo.org.

Review and Approval

  • Review and approval - members of the Board and the Visibility Committee will have two days to review and comment on the content of the release.
  • Legal review - because the foundation is a legal entity a quick review by our legal representative (on the board alias), will also be performed. This need will be reduced depending on the content of the release and as we ascend the learning curve.
  • If other organizations are mentioned in the release, then they will also need to be included in the review process.

The review and approval process is driven by a member of the Visibility Committee, in concert with the initiator.

Formats

Press releases should be done in plain old ascii text. If you wish to submit an HTML version (simple, bare-bones tags only!), that's cool. If you want to submit in Word or Open Office, that's cool too. But you need to have a nice ASCII version first.

Distribution

Due to the possibility of a Slashdot affect, CollabNet operations needs to be notified 24 hours in advance of press releases whenever possible. Please email Auke and Michael Lavoie at the following addresses as soon as you have an approximate time and date: auke@collab.net, mlavoie@collab.net

A) The press release gets published to the osgeo-news-publisher mailing list. Journalists, bloggers and others potentially interested in OSGeo activities will be invited to join the list. Currently this is done as per Submitting News Items page.

B) The press release will also be submitted to:

for below sites that need logins, ask mpg for the password

For these sites, see mpg for contact info (these are personal email addresses, not be be published):


C) The Visibility Committee will also investigate the feasability and desirability of using an electronic news service such as http://www.prnewswire.com that reaches AP and UPI. Accounts are free, but distribution costs are $300-400 per release. Content gets submitted as a Word file.

Translation

The final press release will be posted on the OSGeo site for translation by volunteers for localization and distribution to local news agencies.

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