Introducing LYRASIS colleagues (see professional biographies below):

Meg McCroskey Blum, Director of Marketing and Communications

Jenn Bielewski, Manager of Community Programs

Information about new communications processes in development

Sharing the history and mission of this working group

• Meg recognizes the big need to fill and that is why she has two folks on the call to learn more about community marketing and communications needs. 
• Working on new processes over the next month for processes to help both internal (LYRASIS) and external (community) connect. More information in the next 4 weeks.
• Members let Meg and Jenn know about the history of the working group.

Upcoming communications

• Beta 3 will be released Thursday or early next week; Tim will write the release notice and it will be shared first on the DSpace lists, then as a blog post/social media post. Can add short preview videos as well if appropriate for this release
• Release process update GitHub project boards: https://github.com/orgs/DSpace/projects
• When 6.4 is released the release announcement will be amplified in the same way
• Other communications?
  • DSpace 7 endorsements
  • Getting the word out when the testathon begins 

• IRUS US communications that are DSpace specific

Strategic approach to communications going forward

Marketing goals: DSpace 7 Marketing Goals

• Adding a signature to LYRASIS signature line about DSpace membership, for when posting on the community list
• Moving to the next step of communications for the DSpace program, and potentially talking about strategy and scale of what we do. We have Meg here and we should think about how DSpace can leverage these opportunities
• How should we onboard Meg and Jennifer to onboard to what we already do, and to work on a bigger strategy.
• Meg: want to increase the awareness and marketing, highlighting more use cases (potentially for existing releases). Communication about technical updates seems to be going well, and that there is increased strategic messaging.
• Not a bad thing for the marketing to become less technical, and to become more of a marketing perspective, and polishing and making communications more polished and easier to understand. This can be a non-technical group and should add something to the technical information
• Mic: DSpace was previously run by the technical people in the community for some time. Want to increase non-technical communications.
• The concept of the repository is evolving, with more interest in features rather than technical information. 
• Use cases can lead with the benefit. 
• Audiences: new adopters, non technical staff at existing institutions who use DSpace. Can be more targeted to specific audiences: is a communication for developers, or for current users of the technology, or for potential adopters. 
• Is the goal to communicate the same news to a different audience with a different vocabulary, or are there other goals? 
• We want to promote upgrading to DSpace 7, adoption of the platform, and users who we want to see become members or otherwise contribute financially and technically. A more general kind of communication is to position DSpace as a player in the greater repository ecosystem and how DSpace complies with international standards and in at the forefront of the repository ecosystem.
• This group has previously been very reactive. Would like to see us become more proactive pushing things to the leadership group. What are we not addressing, what are the messages we want to put out? 
• We should think about starting to make a new marketing approach and re-evaluate.
• Repository managers spend a lot of time writing documentation. Need documentation on how to do things that align with what repository managers need for documentation.
• Need to keep in mind that we have volunteer translators. Spanish language versions of the technical documentation on the wiki. We can make sure that when we release something or have a marketing initiative we can immediately have translated versions available.
• What do we need in order to have this conversation next month? We could try to identify groups we want to market to, or we could make a list of the types of messages we want to put out. Can also try to schedule initiatives, messages, and create a schedule for the rest of the year. What objectives we want to have this year. Have a more practical view of what we need to do and when and with whom.
• People love stories. Might be useful to focus some marketing on the people involved in DSpace, some brief press releases on the people who are involved in the community. People want to connect. 
• DSpace 7 marketing goals list, these 5 goals are still accurate. Could have more general goals. Conversation about setting goals for the year.
• Focus on the existing international user groups, we have identified the key people we want to communicate with. 
• Could also focus on helping people prepare for DSpace 7, "ten things to do to prepare to upgrade to DSpace 7" would be very practical and useful.
•  Meg could draft an initial plan that the group could use to react to and add to and change. Would be especially useful to know what resources would be available from LYRASIS and what would be needed from the group/community. 

Planning for DSpace 7 final release:

• UI design considerations
• Communicating anything that in in 6.x that will not be in 7.0 (yet)
• One pre-recorded video at launch, with captions to allow for easier translation, 15 min or less. Focus on features, with the audience being repository managers. Could be promoted out in multiple languages simultaneously when 7.0 is released 

Wiki translation project update

Mic

Professional biographies for Meg and Jenn:

Meg McCroskey Blum, Director of Marketing & Communications, leads our Marketing and Communications teams. Before coming to LYRASIS in 2010, Meg worked at BCR, helping to integrate BCR members into LYRASIS and building our western presence. Meg manages all marketing and communications efforts, including content marketing, community engagement, conference presence, website, elections communications and other special member programs. She has a long tenure with non-profit organizations and as a for-profit business owner, and was previously a researcher and instructor at the University of Colorado, Boulder. She holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from the University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor’s Degree from member institution Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

Jennifer Bielewski is the Community Engagement Strategist at LYRASIS. In this position, she is responsible for member engagement initiatives, fostering community within the membership of LYRASIS, manages LYRASIS social media and LYRASIS online presence, and plans many of LYRASIS virtual and in-person events such as the Leaders Forums and Member Summit. She works closely with the communication plans for the LYRASIS Leaders Circle and Catalyst Fund. Jennifer joined LYRASIS in 1999 as a preservation microfilm specialist but since then has held several positions within LYRASIS’ including Professional Development where she taught Cataloging and Technology classes, LYRASIS Digital Technology team where she worked with on-boarding clients using open source systems such as Evergreen ILS, Islandora and ArchivesSpace. Previous to LYRASIS, she held positions at Georgia State University and the Bartow County Public Library System. She received her M.L.I.S. from member institution Florida State University and holds a BA in English from member institution Berry College. She lives in Atlanta, GA.