My hat goes off to Hamish Rodda, KDE’s Oceania representative and media relations person.
I approached Hamish with this idea kicking around in my head. Much to my surprise (cynical, but true), instead of my e-mail disappearing in the open-source-project-ether, Hamish promptly responded, offered contact phone numbers, participated in an e-mail interview, and the article published the next day – well done!
By all accounts (I don’t know the exact numbers) the article was a world-wide hit attracting a lot of interest. Will KDE 4 be the ultimate business desktop? That remains to be seen but the work the developers are doing certainly points towards that goal.
Hamish is an interesting character. He’s a doctor of medicine, a KDE hacker, and proficient at communicating in English – how’s that for an all-rounder! Keep up the good work Hamish.
As for others involved in open source projects please do take note. If you want to garner more interest in your project then do respond to journalists and be proud of the fact that you can get into the media alongside all the commercial software vendors with big PR budgets. Look no further than KDE’s efforts as a fine example.
If you haven’t done so yet, appoint someone with good communication skills to be the “media relations” (or equivalent) person for the project and publicise it clearly on the project’s Web site. That way when inquiries come in someone is ready and waiting to either respond, or put the journalist in touch with someone who is in a better position to respond to specific queries. Now off to find KDE’s press clippings… 😉
As this may well be my last post before Christmas, I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable holiday season. All the best for NYE too!
He isn’t studying medicine – he’s a qualified doctor.
You’re correct, updated post to reflect this.
Thanks