MARKETING-AS-A-SERVICE: CORPORATE JOURNALISM FOR AN IT-COMPANY Consider the example of the project OpenStack:Now found and sponsored by Mirantis Inc., California Ilya Stechkin, Ph.D., marketing content manager at Mirantis Inc. E-mail: istechkin@mirantis.com; Olga Stechkina, methodologist, English teacher E-mail: olga.stechkina@gmail.com Аннотация: в данной статье речь пойдет о том, какое место отведено журналисту в современной высокотехнологичной компании. Если мы используем термин «журналист», то подразумеваем работу по сбору, обработке и распространению информации среди аудитории которая уже заинтересована либо может заинтересоваться материалами, имеющими отношение к той технологии, с которой работает компания. Ключевые слова: маркетинг, сервис, корпоративная журналистика, ИТ, открытый код, проприетарное ПО, OpenStack, блоггинг, социальные медиа, функциональные роли, интеракция. Summary: the article is about the place of a journalist in modern high tech company. When we call this position “a journalist” we mean the work for collecting, processing and distributing information for the audience that is already interested in or could possibly be interested in the content, related to the technology we as a company are working with. Keywords: marketing, service, corporate journalism, IT, open source, proprietary software, OpenStack, blogging, social media, functional roles, interaction. Introduction In our previous research concerning education system for journalists in modern Russia we came to the conclusion that the system of professional education is experiencing troubles at the moment. It appears outdated both from the point of view of methodology and applicability. A lot of technical issues remain uncovered in particular. So we decided to make some serious changes in our life. First of all we left Yugra State University and started new activity in the field of content marketing of IT projects. At the moment one of the authors (Ilya) is working as a content marketing manager in the company named Mirantis, specialized in OpenStack, the open source ecosystem for building different types of clouds. The story we are going to tell you is about the place of a journalist in a modern high tech company. When we call this position “a journalist” we mean collecting,
processing and distributing information for the audience that is already interested in or could possibly be interested in the content, related to the technology we as a company are working with. In this study we are going to overview the reasons for media activity in open source projects, to compare open- and closed source projects from the communicational point of view. Also here will be described the concept of authorship-as-a-service (AaaS), based on the model of journalist’s roles, that are first found in Dr. Stechkin’s thesis (MSU, 2007). The practical value of this paper is the description of the formal proposal of the topic from the technical stuff to the editorial board and the roadmap of internal editorial processes. The specificity of OpenStack as an open source project presupposes the necessity of paying attention to internal and external communication. Internal communication is very important for the developing process. External communication has a great influence on the commercial opportunities. “OpenStack engineers are a really smart bunch. So smart, that they often need a mediator to get all that great information out of their head and into a form where "mere mortals" can consume it, but it's crucial if you're going to be able talk to clients about their needs and how you can help them to reach their targets using OpenStack”, said Nicholas Chase, the editor in chief of the OpenStack:Now project when we were collaborating on thesis for OpenStack Summit in Vancouver, in spring 2015. What you need is a kind of users’ advocate. Someone who's not afraid to ask the simple questions, but has just enough background to be able to know what else to ask. Sometimes the problem is that technical people think that what they know is common knowledge, and doesn't need to be written about. Sometimes they think it's just too complicated to write about. Sometimes they just don't have the time. No matter what the situation is, you need a way to get that OpenStack gold out of their heads and into the public eye, where everyone can appreciate it and realize benefits of using it. Solving this problem is especially important for OpenStack, where the projects and their relationships are complex, and it's essential to the community for people to understand what is going on, how things work, and what needs to happen next. In working first on our corporate blog, and then on OpenStack: Now, we created a process that solves this problem. The AaaS concept was first introduced at the Provincial megapolis in the modern information society conference (Chelyabinsk, April 2015) and served as a base for the training course for Mirantis’ technical stuff piloted in Mountain View (August, 2015). Part 1. Open- and closed source projects: media context Open source projects, and OpenStack in particular, are based on communications between different contributors, between corporate members of the OpenStack Foundation (all initiatives starts from the process of negotiations). So first off all the process of creation the open software is interactive. Then this interactivity is a really complex process mostly because there are a lot of tools you should use to take part in the community. And you definitely have a chance to keep an eye on all the updates. This means that all community members – old stager and new beings –
need guidance to keep themselves updated with all new initiatives and projects inside the ecosystem. Also sometimes they need the platform for public debates. If you want to gather supporters of your idea and to push it through the technical committee, for example, the easiest way is to publish an article at some popular mass media to explain all pros and cons and to bring the idea out of the the specific group of developers to all community members: engineers, marketers, clients, external experts. Things are different in companies engaged in the creation of proprietary software first of all because of the hierarchy inside the internal corporate community – there are very few people involved in process of decision making. The majority of non-engineering staff are managing the workflow. As for the technical staff, their area of responsibility is limited to specific areas of work assigned to them. Opportunities for initiative are extremely limited. Prospects of a proposal often directly dependent on what kind of a place in the corporate hierarchy took its author. Permanent interaction is not required to be successful in the creation of closed-source project. Your personal KPI is usually related to your productivity in both cases, but your productivity in the latter case is not dependent of the communications, specially for engineers. Their KPIs are much more related to their personal ability to write a certain number of lines of code to a specific deadline. Usually close source platforms use traditional media to promote their product and to fight competitors. Open source companies usually have no direct competitors and have no exact product. They all contribute to the ecosystem and the idea is to fight proprietary software. That's not so easy to bring such an agenda to the traditional mass media. That's why community of open source projects creates it's own media system. More often mass media report about some business deals in the world of open source. These publications serve as a proof of the consistency of this model of software development, and help the community to get new members and new clients. Despite the apparent complexity of the process of creating open source, more and more companies are using this approach. Even supporters of the close code, such as Apple, now declare plans to use elements of the open source software in the implementation of their cloud strategies (Mesos in this particular case). That makes our topic even more up-to-date, then it was ever before. Part 2. OpenStack media products: sponsored, but vendor agnostic As it was told earlier, open source projects often produce unique media system themselves. Let's see it in details using OpenStack as an example. There are a lot of IT-vendors involved in the process of development OpenStack: IBM, Intel, SUSE, Huawei, Rackspace, Red Hat – that's only the list of most active contributions according to Stackalytics research system. But there is only one pure play OpenStack company named Mirantis. For other companies OpenStack is a minor activity. But even in this case they spend impossible resources for this ecosystem. There is an organization – OpenStack Foundation – that coordinates the actions of companies. The Foundation does have its own media named Superuser. But Mirantis produces the project named OpenStack:Now, which is sponsored but vendor agnostic. By the
way, the same thing is with Mirantis' main project – MOS (Mirantis OpenStack), that is completely free of charge and community based. OpenStack:Now consists of landing page, that is also doubled in Mirantis domain; audio and video podcasts; Facebook page and the major product is the mailing list. Also OS:N team is involved in activities of Mirantis Social Media Team and produces content for Mirantis corporate blog. Due to its extensive product line, the project has the ability to cover the activities of all the active members of the community. Journalists and experts have little to do for the traditional corporate media restrictions. It is impossible to imagine the announcement of Google products in the Microsoft newsletter. But you can simply found announces of IBM, Rad Hat and others at OS:N pages and feeds. And even more: interviews of the representatives of this companies are often published there, or some articles, prepared by nonMirantis speakers. Of course, from time to time, the company tries to establish control over the project. But the top-management is aware that the loss of status of the independent media will deprive Mirantis of the reputation of the company controlling discourse of the community. In this case, there are many companies that want to occupy this place. Even if the OpenStack is a minor business for them. Part 3. Roles and characteristics of engineers We found five basic roles of technical specialists in the process of creation the content. The first one is the role of the author. It means that the engineer will produce content by itself. If an engineer decide to take the role of commentator it means that he or she is short of time but ready for a quick interview to talk briefly about the current issue. If one decide to be an expert (SME – subject matter expert) it means that he or she can be volunteered as a supervisor, technical expert to overview somebodies draft, to check-up technical details, described in the article. If an engineer is the only person who knows about something very interesting and really important for the audience he or she is a right person to be the newsmaker. Being a newsmaker technical person can just talk to the editorial board about the idea and journalists will produce the content. The last but not the least is the role of “navigator” or “dispatcher”. This means that an engineer is willing to help the content team to save a few working days, prompting useful links about a subject that is in his or her competence. Pic. 1. Roles and content production
Part 4. Formal proposal template: how to describe the idea To help engineers with the text type and the features connected with it, editorial board has developed a proposal template. We’ve already mentioned it while speaking about the roles. The first step is to decide what problem this content solves for the reader. Then the author should choose the target audience. There are several standard target groups: ●Developers who are building an application based on OpenStack, ●Developers who are building a cloud application, ●Developers who are building OpenStack, ●Operators, ●Decision-makers, ●Architects, ●General. Next, select the type of the draft. This will determine the expected length of the text. Usually the editorial board is working with following formats: ●White paper (not less than 300 words). ●Announcement (300-500 words), ●Commentary (500-800 words), ●Article (800-1500 words), ●Case study (1500+ words), ●Tutorial (1500+ words). If there is any newbreak it should be formulated. Have newsworthy can affect the timing of the preparation and publication of the material.
If the engineer acts functional role of the commentator or newsmaker the editorial board appoints the journalist to write the draft. In any case, the author of the idea of the text is expected to recommend an expert who will be able to play the role of supervisor. Supervisor (technical reviewer is responsible for the fact-checking). After all the roles are defined, the text comes into operation. The following will describe the process of text processing: from the creation of a formal proposal on the subject to the publication and promotion of publication via social media. Part 5. The editorial engine: the way from proposal to publication After drawing up a formal proposal on the text, it is entered in the appropriate section of the database (idea generation). All generated ideas are discussed during the weekly editorial meetings. If the idea was approved it moves to the next stage (idea ok’d). At this stage, the timing of work on the draft is setted. Then the draft moves to the writing stage. All changes of the status of the draft are made by the editor in chief. After the writing stage the draft moves to the editorial review. Next comes the technical review. Then it’s moves back for the author review. After the final editorial review text is ready to be published. The fact of publication is a matter to start the promo activity in social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and newsletter). The OS:N editorial board use Trello as a tool to manage the workflow. Conclusion The main idea of the concept named Autorship-as-a-Service is to dig out stories hidden in the minds of engineers. This is possible only when the technicians very clearly understand the process of interaction with the editorial board and are satisfied with their experience of cooperation with it. We have analyzed the basic scenarios of journalists’ interaction with the technical experts. Thus we formulated five basic role models: Author, Commentator (talking expert), Supervisor (SME), Newsmaker and Source Navigator. Then we described an algorithm of interaction for each functional role. Interaction with the engineers in view of their personal inclinations helps the company to minimize the budget of time spent on content creation. With this approach, the opportunity to publicly present their work is seen by the engineers as encouragement. However, it is important to note that in our case it is about the community of technical experts with a high level of socialization and good communication skills. To sum up, a journalist in a non-media company serves as a hub for trancemitting internal and external communication for the purpose of the company’s informational transparency and publicity.