PR_Guidelines

OW2 Press Release Guidelines

Introduction

A permanent flow of news aimed at the press helps demonstrate the momentum of the OW2 community and why it matters on the global middleware marketplace. As a new organization, the first press objective of OW2 Consortium is to make its name known to the press so that journalists and analysts are willing to relay news about OW2, its activities and its members. We will adjust or modify this objective as OW2 grows and matures.

One of the tasks of the OW2 Management Office is to build and maintain close relationship with the industry press and to support member and projects needs to communicate on their involvement with OW2. OW2 will support press releases which are newsworthy and provide community value. With that in mind, we have developed the following set of guidelines on the issuance of press releases from the OW2 Consortium. 

Content of these Guidelines

These guidelines include three parts:

  • definition of cases when the OW2 Consortium will issue a press release when it will participate in developing a joint press release with a member company. 
  • process to develop a press release with OW2
  • recommendations for developing press release ensuring consistency regarding public relations efforts around OW2.

OW2 Involvement in Press Releases.

Many different events may trigger an OW2-related press release. This section defines which press releases will be issued by OW2 and which will be issued jointly by OW2 and a member.

OW2 Press Releases
The OW2 Consortium may from time to time issue press releases to support certain events or strategies. Press releases issued single-handedly by OW2 include: Participation in trade shows and events where a number of member companies are involved in, for example, an OW2 Village, OW2 Conference Session, etc. OW2 internal news such as Road Map, Nomination, etc.


Joint Press Releases
 Cases in which OW2 is willing to develop a joint press release with a member company include, but are not limited to: 

  • Company joining OW2 as a Strategic Member
  • Company joining OW2 as a Corporate Member
  • New OW2 Project (after being accepted by the Technology Council)
  • Company releasing a commercial offer based on or integrating OW2 technology
  • Company implementing or deploying OW2 technology (ideally, press release should be supported by a use case published on the OW2 site)

OW2 Press Releases Process

  • The decision to do a joint release is with the member company. As a general rule, a joint press release can be considered for any worthly news related to OW2, its community and its activities.
  • OW2 will provide a supporting quote to all joint press releases. The main press spokespersons are the CEO (Cedric Thomas) and the Chairperson (Jean Parpaillon) of the Consortium. They will be attributed all quotes from the OW2 Consortium. For project specific press releases, the project leader may be the spokesperson and attributed quotes in press releases.
  • All press releases from the OW2 Consortium must be:
    • Approved by the CEO of the OW2 Consortium
    • Distributed to the OW2 Board of Directors for information prior to the time of release, or if that is impractical immediately upon release.
  • The boilerplate description of OW2. Check it out here. There is a long and a short version. The short one reads as follows:
    About OW2
    OW2 is an independent community dedicated to promoting open source software for information systems and to fostering their business ecosystems. OW2 federates 100+ organizations and 3000+ IT professionals world wide. OW2 hosts 50+ technology Projects, including: ADR App, ASM, AuthzForce, CLIF, DocDoku, FusionDirectory, GLPI, JORAM, Knowage, LemonLDAP:NG, Lutece, OCS Inventory, Petals ESB, Prelude, ProActive, Rocket.Chat, SAT4J, SeedStack, Sympa, Telosys, Waarp, WebLab and XWiki. Visit www.ow2.org, follow us on Twitter @ow2.
  • A joint press release will display both the OW2 Consortium logo and the member company logo
  • Press Release Template: A joint press release should be developed according to the template wich is available here in .pdf version or .odt version.
  • The dispatch of a joint press releases is the reponsibility of the member company; OW2 will support this effort by distributing the joint press release on its media list.
  • OW2 is maintaining a media list (e-mail addresses of journalists and analysts identified and recommended by OW2 and its members). However, OW2 will not phone journalists to follow-up on the email. Communication people know that most will find this an intrusion or an annoyance.
  • OW2 will post joint press releases in the New & Event section of the www.ow2.org web site and provide a link from the web site to the new member press release.

Recommendation for Developing Press Releases with OW2

  • In all press releases, the OW2-specific news should be the key message of the release: we assume our readership will prefer a message with a strong community value over a conventional marketing-oriented corporate message.
  • Whenever possible, demonstration of market adoption of the OW2 technology should be highlighted in the press releases. 
  • Press releases should avoid marketing hype. OW2 is an open source community that has a strong developer focus and over-hyped statements are generally viewed negatively by the community. 
  • Press release should only promote what is available to the community today. Press releases announcing future capabilities or new project versions that will be available more than 30 days after the press release should be avoided. 
  • A member company leading an OW2 project should avoid claiming ownership of an open source project: this goes against our community approach. However, reinforcing a company?s leadership in a project via a supporting quote is acceptable.