Improve fundraising and onboarding messaging on OpenProducer platforms website(s), Github repo, and collective

[gusaus]

Refreshing this task as FundOSS will be the first time we've really needed to use this collective.
https://opencollective.com/openproducerplatform

To this date, OpenProducer has pretty much been a personal project - something I've used as a base for client/partner sites.

Obviously, things are suddenly very different.

@tonyzeoli @majick777 Here's a link to the Google doc - we should mix in some of the stuff we were riffing on in yesterday in DM
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MriSn_mpdX-5oHd78eT2ymxY7nZjfEmhTCYxmahNMvw/edit?usp=sharing

Note - the original goal here was to set up Goals and Tiers - it would be nice, but actually not a FundOSS priority

[gusaus]

@tonyzeoli @majick777 FYI from one of the (two) FundOSS organizers -

We’re pulling from Short Description and Long Description on the OSC API. Short description is from the cards. Long description is in the about page. I don’t think there’s any other content params on OSC Api that we’re utilizing but I can check.

[gusaus]

Here's a bit more of the Q & A I've been having with FundOSS organizer -

Q: Quick question on the collective - are there any participants you've seen that have really good fundraising and onboarding messaging?

A: Since we haven’t launched, I’m hesitant to recommend how a collective is presenting their information. I will say that generally speaking, speaking to

• who the team is
• what the project does and the impact it’s had in folk’s lives
• how the budgets are used
  help folks understand why it’s helpful to donate in the first place.

Q: do all the participants have live projects with a stable release - or are there some still working towards that.

A: not sure, that’s a Q for @BenJam on OSC’s side. There’s a vetting process baked into getting a collective in the first place, I’m assuming live and stable is part of that (my test collective was rejected and I think that was the reason why :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing: )

Q: is it correct that the FundOSS pages are not linking out to the associated collective? I think I get why that's the case

A: Linking out to the collective’s OSC page? I don’t think we provide that currently, though we can. I don’t have strong opinions one way or the other tbh, outside of crowding out the CTAs on the donation page itself (and what if people go to the collective and donate and don’t see it matched, etc etc)

[gusaus]

I updated the title to match the todo list https://github.com/orgs/netmix/teams/internal-team/discussions/1

Note how I mentioned multiple places we need to tighten up messaging.

Getting https://opencollective.com/openproducerplatform/ right has the first hard deadline, but we should also try to improve messaging on

• The platform repo (at least About and Readme?) - https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform
• The website FundOSS is linking out to - currently we're still using getopenproducer.com what was the url to the stand-alone SaaS site - I decided to redirect to the page on OpenCollective.org - that is actually a point of confusion - we really should be pointing to a page on Netmix or a stand-alone site.

@tonyzeoli @majick777 Do you have any suggestions for improving messaging on those two? Seems like you could more efficiently improve the Github repo since you do that more and the repo is in your house.

Assuming throwing together a page on Netmix will take a bit more thought and work - maybe I could put up an OpenProducer/Netmix powered stand alone site and copy over the messaging that we'll have on the FundOSS page.

Thoughts?

[gusaus]

Ok - here's another question -

We currently have two OpenProducer sites in the wild (powered by the code in our repo)

• https://angelcityjazz.com/
• https://justjazz.tv/

Both do not have a section for radio, but they could once Radio Station PRO is ready.

Short term question - should we reference these sites in our FundOSS messaging?

I will say that Angel City Jazz will be doing some very cool, high profile livestreams during FundOSS - all sorts of cross-promotion we could do with both.

[tonyzeoli]

I would say someting to the effect that OPP is currently powering these websites, which are under ongoing development and maintenance. As OPP evolves, these sites will take on the characteristics of OPP and take advantage of the framework to continue to build and improve on the current destinations.

…

On Wednesday, June 9, 2021, Gus Austin ***@***.***> wrote: Ok - here's another question - We currently have two OpenProducer sites in the wild (powered by the code in our repo) - https://angelcityjazz.com/ - https://justjazz.tv/ Both do not have a section for radio, but they could once Radio Station PRO is ready. Short term question - should we reference these sites in our FundOSS messaging? I will say that Angel City Jazz will be doing some very cool, high profile livestreams during FundOSS - all sorts of cross-promotion we could do with both. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-858070557>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WO4JSPVBOREHYMM5DNDTR7DTLANCNFSM46D5K6MA> .

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[tonyzeoli]

Great.

…

On Wednesday, June 9, 2021, Gus Austin ***@***.***> wrote: @tonyzeoli <https://github.com/tonyzeoli> @majick777 <https://github.com/majick777> FYI from one of the (two) FundOSS organizers - We’re pulling from Short Description and Long Description on the OSC API. Short description is from the cards. Long description is in the about page. I don’t think there’s any other content params on OSC Api that we’re utilizing but I can check. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-857971814>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WO2MNJSLKOJCL5GEN7DTR6ZCDANCNFSM46D5K6MA> .

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[gusaus]

@tonyzeoli Regarding https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-858117862, I think we could wait until we see how our collective and FundOSS messaging reads when live. There will be other ways we can promote these examples during FundOSS w/o referencing on our fundraising.

With regards to https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-858044501, if we wanted a quick stand-alone site, maybe we could do a variation of https://www.openproducer.org/ (which is a quick attempt at a brochure site built on Newspack) on http://www.getopenproducer.com/ <-- that again was going to be where the Drupal OpenProducer SaaS was going to reside. Still think it's a good domain for the WordPress OpenProducer.

Thoughts?

[gusaus]

@tonyzeoli @majick777 With regards to improving messaging on https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform (at least About and Readme?) - I was hoping you both could take that on since you already have a way of doing things in our house. Feel free to disable/enable/revise stuff like projects, wiki, etc. Add issue templates and whatever else that would make it consistent with your other repos.

The readme is incomplete - mainly again because it's not quite ready for public consumption since installing would currently spin up Newspack. That said, we probably don't want to provide installation instructions until we have our bundler?

Maybe on the readme, we should say we're working on releasing 1.0. That also sounds like a potential milestone.

Anyhow, I'll help on this end where I can - Properly setting up is not my jam... and I also no longer have the same permissions (which is fine).

[majick777]

I saw the long chat you guys had in Slack ending in a Google doc... not sure if you want me to contribute my thoughts on that here, or edit/comment on the doc?

One quick note on the intro description being: "OpenProducer Platform is an open source WordPress website builder for radio stations, webcasters, podcasters, and other media makers of scheduled audio content."

I think that the "website builder" can be too easily confused with a "page builder" here, which we are not including (and are probably unlikely to.) It may be better to just say CMS - or even saying "Content Management System" in full - rather than "builder"... or "builder" could be changed to "installer" if that is what is meant by it.

[tonyzeoli]

That’s a good point - I never thought of that. We could say some biting like, “OPP extends the power of the WordPress content management system with publishing, scheduling, and programming tools for radios stations, webcasters, and other media makers of scheduled audio content.”

On Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 2:58 AM majick777 ***@***.***> wrote: I saw the long chat you guys had in Slack ending in a Google doc... not sure if you want me to contribute my thoughts on that here, or edit/comment on the doc? One quick note on the intro description being: "OpenProducer Platform is an open source WordPress website builder for radio stations, webcasters, podcasters, and other media makers of scheduled audio content." I think that the "website builder" can be too easily confused with a "page builder" here, which we are not including (and are probably unlikely to.) It may be better to just say CMS - or even saying "Content Management System" in full - rather than "builder"... or "builder" could be changed to "installer" if that is what is meant by it. — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-858366099>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AA65WOYABPGIDHRFS4Y4TT3TSBPBNANCNFSM46D5K6MA> .

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[gusaus]

@tonyzeoli @majick777 For these reasons https://github.com/orgs/netmix/teams/internal-team/discussions/2/comments/4 (and the fact that you all weren't available) I went ahead and reworked the Google doc. I then asked Stacy to proof and make suggestions. We were both happy enough to copy over to the collective and ask the FundOSS crew to pull in the changes.

It may take a couple hours for the changes to take, but I'm hoping you all are good with the revisions.
https://opencollective.com/openproducerplatform

We tried to keep an emphasis on Newspack, Radio Station, and WordPress, while removing parts that made it sound like this was only a solution for Radio Stations and other priority Netmix targets. We needed to convey platform already included valuable features for radio stations, podcasters, and other types of producers in music and media. Also made sure to 'not' say this particular flavor of OpenProducer was for musicians.

We can further refine (please lets work with the Google doc and NOT just make changes to the collective), but I think we should be happy with this first pass.

Oh ya - I'm saying we, because I asked Stacy to join the team!

[gusaus]

Following up now on this Funding Goals section @tonyzeoli was drafting for our collective. I left that out of the About section as these types of goals would actually be better suited as projects.

Here again, is some info on the new projects feature https://docs.opencollective.com/help/collectives/projects

I'm thinking we could create projects on https://opencollective.com/openproducerplatform for the following - Note I'm just using Tony's list for a rough example - we'd obviously need to properly scope each out and estimate a funding goal for each -

OpenProducer 1.0 release
Funding goal: $10,000

• Build a WordPress plugin “bundler,” which includes the primary plugins, Radio Station by Netmix and Newspack, as well as additional Newspack dependencies and recommended plugins. This plugin will feature a Dashboard giving users the ability to navigate setup quickly to begin to develop their WordPress website with radio and streaming radio specific tools, as well as associated publishing tools to assist in creating content and programming. https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/22
• Create a brand style guide, including logo, typography, and brand colors
• Commission attorney to craft legal documentation for project Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
• Develop a simple website to announce and support the project where the plugin can be downloaded.

Azuracast integration
Funding goal: ?

• Develop a required OpenProducer Platform plugin to sync station programming information from Azuracast, an open source radio station playout system, so that a station’s schedule can be synced from the playout system to WordPress through the OpenProducer Platform plugin. https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/19

[gusaus]

Assuming it makes sense to use open collective projects for development chunks and integrations https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-859940169, we probably should consider that part out of scope for this task. The priority here (at least for the FundOSS / OpenCollective page) was to tighten up the About section which contains the following CTA

Your contributions will allow OpenProducer’s core team to bundle all preceding features into a turnkey solution for media makers and into a freely available open source platform. Your support allows the team to continuously update, maintain, and bolster the project for dependability.

Considering FundOSS is still having problems pulling in Open Collective changes, we should keep the collective as is, and then create projects for features/functionality we have scattered about https://github.com/netmix/openproducer-platform/issues/27#issuecomment-859940169 #18 (comment) when we're at a point to do so.

It'll be best to work on marketing messaging in the OpenProducer Github org #19 and #openproducer Slack channel where we can share knowledge, collaborate, and possibly onboard people if there's a need. #4

Maybe work on the readme there too https://github.com/OpenProducer/openproducer-platform

That again should create separation between Netmix and the open source project with Open Collective as the entity.