There are three great lessons we can borrow from our friends in the marketing world:

• Have a strategic plan.
• Measure, measure and measure again.
• It didn't happen unless you told someone.

It's true, community isn't marketing. But we should adopt and adapt good ideas when they have the power to make us more effective.

In this talk I'll look at how both non-commercial and commercial developer communities can use some of those ideas from the world of marketing to create, implement, measure and report on a strategic plan that provides a clear path from newcomer to community leader. Not only that, I'll also show how to measure and then report that effectiveness to commercial sponsors and the community itself.

If there's a FOSS community that you love and you want to see it become more effective, come and join me in the community dev room.