Getting more coverage on events
Posted in events on 07/19/2009 09:19 pm by Laura Czajkowski
I’ve spent the last week looking for different resources to look at to promote events here in Ireland. Looking at news articles on line and printed IT magazines that are meant to promote all products, events, applications and OSs here in Ireland, it was very frustrating to see how none of them even glance at Open Source.
I’ve been very lucky in the past with meeting different people at events here in Dublin or via twitter to get events promoted. Marie Boran of Siliconrepublic has written articles on the Ubuntu-ie LoCo and about the last ossbarcamp. Niall Larkin asked to do a podcast on Open Source, Joe Drumgoole promoted my last event on the George Hook show and Damien Mulley has done blog posts.
While all this help is great and is very much appreciated, it’s still a case of me going to to journalists and saying “you really should look at this, readers would like to hear about it” and then it’s a case of they may or may not do it, and in the past it’s most likely not been followed up on. I understand time is limited but I don’t see journalists or writers attending Open Source events, but they do seem to be at others.
It’s frustrating when you see the amount of other articles on other Operating Systems or launches that are written or events that are covered and if they were truly trying to inform the public, gain readership they should consider there are other people out there who have other interests and start covering those areas also. Yes, I can always look at a specific targeted magazine like linux magazine, but I want an Irish one also.
So with a geeknic, global jam, software freedom day and a release party all ahead of me I shall be looking for some coverage of these events, lets see how I get on.
07/19/2009 at 9:24 PM
Sounds like a market gap. It’d be great to get a monthly blog post on action in Irish foss projects. I’d be happy to split the work with you if you were on for it?
07/19/2009 at 9:35 PM
Aidan, sounds like a good plan! I know there is a new podcast out as well at present with Declan doing some work there! It’s just annoying when you see Irish IT magazines only cover what they think everyone is interested in and clearly they are missing a large chunk of us!
07/19/2009 at 9:55 PM
Well it would be pretty shoddy work on my part if I didn’t get involved in this. You’re right, open source is under-reported and if I’m being honest I don’t give it the attention it deserves. I think you’re doing a great job to get the word out Laura and I’d be happy to give coverage. I know it seems at times as though it takes journos a while to get round to writing things but when I have a huge backlog I tend to put things on the long finger. Anyhoo, long story short, let’s see what we all can do to get these events some well deserved coverage!
07/19/2009 at 10:08 PM
Marie, to be fair you are one of the few who do give us coverage! So thanks! If you need any info you know how to get a hold of me!
07/20/2009 at 4:34 AM
Part of it is that tech companies (and all companies for that matter) write press releases and send them out. They either use a PR firm or have someone with that expertise in house to make all the contacts they’d need. I’ve worked with such people in my career or in Dems Abroad and they’re really good at getting stuff out there.
It would be nice if more journalists sought out stories but one can understand why they might not when PR firms drop fully formed ones in their lap regularly.
07/20/2009 at 10:31 AM
Kevin, that’s true, but there are a lot of smaller companies who don’t use PR firms who still get coverage. My point is, there are events here happening all over Ireland on a monthly basis and I don’t see them being covered. Simple ones like Python, Rugby, Ubuntu-ie meet ups, MySQL came and gave a talk in Dublin. It’s a case of constantly trying to get technology journalists interested in these events to come along and see for themselves.