Let's make sure a very little part of our communication is "bashing" or criticizing Windows using strong adjectives, but on showing an alternative without coming off too much as just a comparison

imo, a new (soon to be)user would really benefit from a 5-10 min usage video with narration on the application launcher, panels and applets, Discover and the super-easy customization with ghns

some benefits of Plasma I would point out in posts and videos:
-KDE developers listen to user feedback and consider UX the primary aspect when making any changes
-easy visual +Functional customizability
-no data collection
-easy software installs with Discover (seems like the MS Store getting closer and closer to it)
-you can update without rebooting
-a grid popular apps that work on Linux like vscode(pinegrow) , Spotify, discord and telegram, vlc, steam ect.
-made by the same community as Krita

I found this about something similar for KDE4/Win7: https://youtu.be/T3ID2CbtnKk?t=43 I don't think we could and should do the same thing, but it's interesting how this was done by the previous generation :)

In T14636#259087, @aronkvh wrote:

imo, a new (soon to be)user would really benefit from a 5-10 min usage video with narration on the application launcher, panels and applets, Discover and the super-easy customization with ghns

5-10 minutes is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long. Besides, if you have to explain that much, you are saying "our stuff is too complicated".

There is even a word for it now:

"KDE-esque"

Here's an idea for a tweet. A bit snarky, but hey:

• ✅ Beautiful glassy aesthetic
• ✅ Works on your current hardware
• ✅ Windows and Android app support
• ✅ Customisable and downloadable widgets
• ✅ Fast and intuitive window snapping
• ✅ No invasive telemetry
• ✅ 0$ starting price
• ✅ No pre-installed Candy Crush
• ✅ No ads

Discover Plasma: the desktop of the future, today.

❌ Pre-installed Candy Crush

❌ Pre-installed bloatware ?

Maybe we could compare to "Desktop brand X". The "brand X" thing is what they used to use in the old detergent and toothpaste commercials when they wanted to avoid mentioning the competitor, and has since become a bit of a trope.

Discover Plasma: the desktop of the future, today.

Regarding slogans, I would like to see which ones MS is going for, as well as their hashtags, not necessarily to spoof them or imitate them, but to get the tone they are going for. We can make a list here and come up with our own. I hope they are not as dumb, nonsensical and cringey as "The Wow factor" they used for WIndows Vista.

Here's my take on this:

• Slogan: 5 > 11
• Avoid bashing Win too much directly, or showing that we can look exactly like them. This will only make us look like a cheap ripoff. We should show that we are very customizable, and that you can get a look very similar to Win11/10, but not focus too much on that particular aspect.
• The Keynote/Event idea was really good. Let's organize a "live" (for the viewers) event on 5/11/2021, which should be around when Win11 gets released.
  • Nicely hype people up for this event
    • We should start some giving some hints a couple of weeks before such event in our social networks with enigmatic images, like just "5 > 11. Join us 5 / 11" or something.
    • We should prepare press kits for major linux techblogs / youtubers inviting them to follow said event to get as much coverage as possible
    • Main takeaway from this event should be: "Plasma is a valid alternative and competitor to Windows 11"
  • And then do a good video (1h/40m) to transmit from our channel as a premiere
    • Find 4/5 people withing KDE that are decent communicators, have good camera and microphone
    • Make them talk to camera with a good blurred background, similarly to apple/ms announcement keynotes, with product videos in-between them
    • Mostly explaining why kde is special, highlighting the latest features and showing what's coming up in next releases
    • Have one segment for Plasma (5 Ann. Rel. features and 5.24 upcoming features), one segment for KDE Gear + apps (what's cool + what's coming), one segment where we showcase the KDE Slimbook (as having hardware makes you look like a worthier competitor), and one for Krita (as it's the most known KDE product, will bring some people in)
• Make a good promotional video for this
  • Idea behind it:
    • Hitting the weaknesses of Win11 without explicitly mentioning them
    • Feature full example workflows instead of a mere list of features
    • Make it look 3D and stuff, because Microsoft promo videos are like that. I'd highly suggest asking in our promo channels if there's any blender artist who knows how to do animation who wants to help. I think we can get one or two people down for this task like that.
    • Explain that KDE is a non-profit organization driven by volunteers (always sounds cool to the end user)
  • Win11 points to counter-attack:
    • There's recently lots of discussion on Win11 raising the tech requirements *a lot*, meaning that potentially many customers won't be able to upgrade -> Promote that Plasma 5 runs everywhere.
    • Win11 locks the panel to the bottom and offers basic theming functionalities -> KDE is hyper customizable
    • Win11 supports android apps by default.. but you have to install the amazon appstore and create both a microsoft and amazon account -> KDE Neon supports open source apps out the box, no account required (bully someone in actually implementing this before the deadline \s). Also great occasion to showcase kirigami convergence (android apps on desktop, desktop apps on android!)
    • Win11 has new tiling functionalities, "nobody else has them" -> showcase our keyboard shortcuts to tile windows plus a script to tile them automatically and do a quick joke on plasma being KDE Nobody Else™
    • Do a price comparison of Win11 and Plasma, highlighting the fact that the price of the OS is hidden in the price of a new computer, but it is there
    • Plasma does not require an online account to use, does not contain Candy Crush (you know, it's good to be specific) by default nor any other advertisement or bloatware, thus being super lightweight on ram
    • Updates? Well, you can download them and apply them without the need to reboot, avoiding to disrupt your workflow (assuming we turned off the offline updates feature that did exactly that for Neon)
  • I'll also show how productive Plasma can be, since it's often something Win takes pride in: show how cool the new adaptive hamburger menu is, the new commandbar, kde connect (and we even support Windows ;-), kickoff search, etc
  • This would be a great, great occasion to start testing out paid advertisement. We can define some objective statistics to see how much those helped us and if it was worth the money.

In T14636#259163, @niccolove wrote:

Here's my take on this:

• Slogan: 5 > 11
• Avoid bashing Win too much directly, or showing that we can look exactly like them. This will only make us look like a cheap ripoff. We should show that we are very customizable, and that you can get a look very similar to Win11/10, but not focus too much on that particular aspect.
• The Keynote/Event idea was really good. Let's organize a "live" (for the viewers) event on 5/11/2021, which should be around when Win11 gets released.
  • Nicely hype people up for this event
    • We should start some giving some hints a couple of weeks before such event in our social networks with enigmatic images, like just "5 > 11. Join us 5 / 11" or something.
    • We should prepare press kits for major linux techblogs / youtubers inviting them to follow said event to get as much coverage as possible
    • Main takeaway from this event should be: "Plasma is a valid alternative and competitor to Windows 11"
  • And then do a good video (1h/40m) to transmit from our channel as a premiere
    • Find 4/5 people withing KDE that are decent communicators, have good camera and microphone
    • Make them talk to camera with a good blurred background, similarly to apple/ms announcement keynotes, with product videos in-between them
    • Mostly explaining why kde is special, highlighting the latest features and showing what's coming up in next releases
    • Have one segment for Plasma (5 Ann. Rel. features and 5.24 upcoming features), one segment for KDE Gear + apps (what's cool + what's coming), one segment where we showcase the KDE Slimbook (as having hardware makes you look like a worthier competitor), and one for Krita (as it's the most known KDE product, will bring some people in)
• Make a good promotional video for this
  • Idea behind it:
    • Hitting the weaknesses of Win11 without explicitly mentioning them
    • Feature full example workflows instead of a mere list of features
    • Make it look 3D and stuff, because Microsoft promo videos are like that. I'd highly suggest asking in our promo channels if there's any blender artist who knows how to do animation who wants to help. I think we can get one or two people down for this task like that.
    • Explain that KDE is a non-profit organization driven by volunteers (always sounds cool to the end user)
  • Win11 points to counter-attack:
    • There's recently lots of discussion on Win11 raising the tech requirements *a lot*, meaning that potentially many customers won't be able to upgrade -> Promote that Plasma 5 runs everywhere.
    • Win11 locks the panel to the bottom and offers basic theming functionalities -> KDE is hyper customizable
    • Win11 supports android apps by default.. but you have to install the amazon appstore and create both a microsoft and amazon account -> KDE Neon supports open source apps out the box, no account required (bully someone in actually implementing this before the deadline \s). Also great occasion to showcase kirigami convergence (android apps on desktop, desktop apps on android!)
    • Win11 has new tiling functionalities, "nobody else has them" -> showcase our keyboard shortcuts to tile windows plus a script to tile them automatically and do a quick joke on plasma being KDE Nobody Else™
    • Do a price comparison of Win11 and Plasma, highlighting the fact that the price of the OS is hidden in the price of a new computer, but it is there
    • Plasma does not require an online account to use, does not contain Candy Crush (you know, it's good to be specific) by default nor any other advertisement or bloatware, thus being super lightweight on ram
    • Updates? Well, you can download them and apply them without the need to reboot, avoiding to disrupt your workflow (assuming we turned off the offline updates feature that did exactly that for Neon)
  • I'll also show how productive Plasma can be, since it's often something Win takes pride in: show how cool the new adaptive hamburger menu is, the new commandbar, kde connect (and we even support Windows ;-), kickoff search, etc
  • This would be a great, great occasion to start testing out paid advertisement. We can define some objective statistics to see how much those helped us and if it was worth the money.

Wow, that was really extensive 👍 I aggre with these ideas, except the 'KDE Nobody Else' joke which I guess not many people will get.
I asked a couple times in promo if there were experienced Blender users, but I reckon there's only Skye. Maybe the 5.23 wallpaper competition will get some news in Blender circles and invite someone new to promo

On a second read, I have some points to make:

Slogan: 5 > 11

Before you get to attached to it, the problem with your slogan 5>11 is that, outside our very small bubble, it does not mean anything. And one of the main objectives of this campaign is to break out from our bubble, which means we require a more explicit one. Clever slogans and names are... well... clever, but are also often obtuse (the recursive "GNU" comes to mind, a dreadful name if your intention is to reach a wide audience) and, therefore, not adequate for our purposes. Here is a good rule of thumb: "Explicit beats short, informative beats clever". 5>11 is short and clever, well done; but is neither explicit nor informative, so I would strongly suggest we look for something else.

The problem with attaching the slogan to a date is that for a large chunk of the world (the USA), 5/11 is already in the past: it was the eleventh of May. Also, there is non-zero probability that the launch of W11 will also be in the past by then, making our story irrelevant in the news cycle. We don't know the exact date of the launch, so that is a thing we have to play by ear and just make sure we are ready beforehand with materials so we can put out our stuff at short notice.

The biggest problem with the plan is that it is written from a "bottom up" approach, focusing on details like slogans and blurs, instead of

• what do we want to achieve?
• what is the profile of the people we want to reach (i.e. who is our audience?)?
• what is the fundamental message we want to send them (i.e. what information do we want them to put in their brains?)?
• how we are going to reach the audience?

and

• what do we want our audience to do once we have sent them the information?

The answer to those questions will help clarify what fits and what doesn't and establish priorities.

I would note that I and most others in this task have become guilty of this bottom-up approach too over the last few days. This task is exciting and promises to be fun, so it is easy to get carried away and fixate on details, instead of the overall goal.

My suggestion is we pause a sec before getting deeper into details, answer those questions, set up a list of tasks based on the answers and move on from there.

I am putting the questions at the top of the task and we can discuss them in the comments. Let's give it a deadline, let say until Tuesday evening, so it doesn't eat up too much of the other planning time and we can get into the active details (i.e. the fun part) asap.

Here is my attempt to answer the questions above. Please contribute your own attempts so we can have multiple perspectives on how to approach this.

1. What do we want to achieve?

We want to attract more end-users to Plasma and, by extension, to KDE's extended ecosystem of apps.

2. Who is our audience?

(Tempted to say "everyone", but.must.be.specific)

Our audience are end users who currently do not know enough about Free Software graphical environments to confidently give them a go. But, at the same time, they may be discontent with the restrictions and abuse closed proprietary inflicts upon them.

3. What information do we want to put in our audience's brains?

That another more humane way of interacting and working with their computers exists and it is easy for them to get going with it. That they can have more control over their digital lives, without sacrificing ease of use. That Free Software graphical environments are exciting and cool, versus the restrictive and stifling closed source alternatives.

4. How we are going to reach that audience?

We will obviously exploit the means we already have, i.e. social media, news aggregators (i.e. Reddit, Hacker News) and sympathetic bloggers and tech news outlets. But, much more importantly, we will want to try and open new ways so we can communicate with our target audience.

5. What do we want people to do once we have sent them the information?

We want them to download and install Plasma on their machines and, hopefully, become regular users.

Notice how you can then figure out a lot of things you have to do from the answers above:

1. and 2. tell us, not only who we want to reach, but who is NOT a priority to reach, in this case, developers for example. This is not a campaign to grow the number of technical contributors (if they do come, they are welcome, of course, but this campaign in particular is not about that). So focusing on technical details is not a priority, posting to technical forums (like Hacker News) is also not a priority. We can immediately prune off stuff we don't need to worry about.

3. gives us the focus of our messages: Plasma is cool, futuristic and fun, but also easy and friendly, Relating it to Windows (not in a negative way), an environment most users will be familiar with, helps in this aspect. It may even give us a usable proto-slogan: "KDE Plasma 5: Easy, Fun, Free" (it obviously needs to be used in context of images, videos and text-- people are not going to be too familiar with KDE or Plasma right off the bat).

4. That's right: it is get-in-touch-with-a-journalist/influencer time again! THIS IS A HIGH PRIORITY TASK! If done right, it will have tremendous usefulness beyond this campaign. So no improvisations, please!

5. This tells us we need to have something ready and easy to access to get this done, i.e. maybe a custom website, with a custom download and clear instructions on how to get started. Maybe even set up some basic post-installation support system.

Here are my first thoughts for 2:
(mainly) Windows users who are interested in good-looking(and of c. functional) user interfaces but cannot upgrade to W11 because of the new restrictions/ underwhelmed by the changes/ don't want to wait for too long to upgrade. we should focus on users displeased with Windows' very inconsistent interfaces.
we could specifically target users of mainstream apps like Krita, Blender, VLC ect. who probably positive experiences with floss
-and of course, everyone else, except experienced Creative Cloud, Autodesk ect. professionals who are locked in by Adobe and very unlikely to want to switch to a whole different suite of apps

1. What do we want to achieve?

Of course long term we want to achieve more Plasma users, but I think in this case we should focus on: making people think Plasma is a competitor of Windows even outside of our bubble. It's not that important if they don't start using Plasma right away, if they have in their mind that Plasma is a competitor, which IMO promo-wise it's much more useful. Outside of our bubble, we're either unknown or a cheap ripoff of Windows.

2. Who is our audience?

I'll say it: everyone outside of our bubble, even those who would not like to try out new OSs or FLOSS stuff. Because again, it will be much easier to make people switch to Plasma if there's the idea that it's a viable alternative to Windows and not a cheap ripoff. Sure, that Adobe guy will never switch to Plasma himself, but maybe when his granma says Win is too complex, he'll consider Plasma.

3. What information do we want to put in our audience's brains?

"Plasma is a good competitor of Windows". That would be enough for me. I wouldn't focus too much on making people fully understand the concept of free software and open source and their importance. They are important, and there are some topics where we should really promote that aspect, but not here and not now: people are not looking for a OS without telemetry, people are looking at a OS which just redesigned, is very pretty, runs Android apps, and is cool. We need to make people understand we're also cool (and that we exist), but "we're open source" won't help us there.

4. How we are going to reach that audience?

We need to start acting like big tech companies. Do cool promotional videos, hold live events, do hardware and send it around to review, etc. Of course we Promo can't do some of those things (we can't start building hardware) but we can work on what we have (KDE Slimbook) and what we can do (3D Promo videos and live events) to make us appear so. If we play well with generating hype, sending hardware around, holding live events and inviting journalists, etc. I think we'll find much easier to reach our target audience.

5. What do we want people to do once we have sent them the information?

The next time they ask them "Hey, I want to buy a new computer, any tip?", they should answer "Those Surface laptops are really cool, give them a look... oh, but you might also be interested in a chromebook or a slimbook". That would already be *a lot*. I don't think we can have a goal of getting more users right now, we're not in the right situation. We need to do some groundwork first.

Recently there was a media outrage regarding win11 hardware requirement and how they leave many people in the dust, including 7th gen of intel processor which isn't that different from 8th gen and even leaves out some of Microsoft's hardware such as Surface Studio 2 (which they're still selling!)

Now people can stay with win10 till 2025 when the support ends, but that effectively leaves them hanging, with no alternative

Now you may presume that this stems from TPM 2.0 requirement, however this is not the case as it's actually a multitude of factors that ensure that people on win11 get an "excellent experience"

https://twitter.com/dwizzzleMSFT/status/1408539533465985024 https://twitter.com/dwizzzleMSFT/status/1408541331941519365

Now this is a single tweet from a MSFT Director of OS security, so it hasn't made huge rounds, *however* there will be a blogpost next week, detailing their reasoning https://twitter.com/dwizzzleMSFT/status/1408540760576708612 which will likely garner HUGE attention and will most likely cause outrage among those not qualified because "their experience wouldn't be great"

Now this is a huge deal cause most of the hardware older than 4 years *will NOT* be qualified, this is a giant audience that will start looking for alternatives (most of them will probably stay on win10 till EOL, but even a fraction that won't will be huge), this is a great opportunity for us to showcase that we can achieve a Great experience without the need for new hardware

Now the blogpost will probably come out this week on a weekday, this means we have relatively little time, but if done right the press might pick up our story or even mention us in articles about microsoft's blog post

This means we have to have an appealing story about our software *excellently* on any given hardware, this would effectively target those who cannot run win11, but still wish to have a great and secure experience

there's a lot to be decided until we get there, but: as for the graphic material we need to decide how trendy/fancy do we want to make it and think about differentiating from Microsoft's ad styles which (based on the w11 video) is getting fancier with even more blur and gradients and lights.
imo vidoes with 3d , physical effects would be worth it (and talking more generally about promo material)
for 2d images and websites it could make sense to embrace a more minimalistic style with very modern fonts, black and white colors dominating and full-width layouts (for possible custom websites)?-sort of like a startup

R̶e̶g̶a̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶r̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶s̶ ̶c̶y̶c̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶/̶m̶e̶d̶i̶u̶m̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶m̶o̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶K̶D̶E̶.̶o̶r̶g̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶e̶a̶s̶e̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶m̶p̶a̶n̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶w̶e̶e̶t̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶m̶i̶c̶r̶o̶s̶o̶f̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶g̶p̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶h̶i̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶a̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶e̶r̶a̶r̶g̶u̶m̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶m̶i̶c̶r̶o̶s̶o̶f̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶s̶o̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶ ̶I̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶l̶d̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶d̶e̶o̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶P̶l̶a̶s̶m̶a̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶g̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶l̶a̶p̶t̶o̶p̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶r̶u̶n̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶e̶r̶f̶e̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶P̶C̶(̶?̶)̶

Either that or simple statement (Maybe a quote from one our users?)

Update: We're gonna do a small tweet, but that's about it

In T14636#259240, @niccolove wrote:

1. What do we want to achieve?
   
   Of course long term we want to achieve more Plasma users, but I think in this case we should focus on: making people think Plasma is a competitor of Windows even outside of our bubble. It's not that important if they don't start using Plasma right away, if they have in their mind that Plasma is a competitor, which IMO promo-wise it's much more useful. Outside of our bubble, we're either unknown or a cheap ripoff of Windows.
2. Who is our audience?
   
   I'll say it: everyone outside of our bubble, even those who would not like to try out new OSs or FLOSS stuff. Because again, it will be much easier to make people switch to Plasma if there's the idea that it's a viable alternative to Windows and not a cheap ripoff. Sure, that Adobe guy will never switch to Plasma himself, but maybe when his granma says Win is too complex, he'll consider Plasma.
3. What information do we want to put in our audience's brains?
   
   "Plasma is a good competitor of Windows". That would be enough for me. I wouldn't focus too much on making people fully understand the concept of free software and open source and their importance. They are important, and there are some topics where we should really promote that aspect, but not here and not now: people are not looking for a OS without telemetry, people are looking at a OS which just redesigned, is very pretty, runs Android apps, and is cool. We need to make people understand we're also cool (and that we exist), but "we're open source" won't help us there.
4. How we are going to reach that audience?
   
   We need to start acting like big tech companies. Do cool promotional videos, hold live events, do hardware and send it around to review, etc. Of course we Promo can't do some of those things (we can't start building hardware) but we can work on what we have (KDE Slimbook) and what we can do (3D Promo videos and live events) to make us appear so. If we play well with generating hype, sending hardware around, holding live events and inviting journalists, etc. I think we'll find much easier to reach our target audience.
5. What do we want people to do once we have sent them the information?
   
   The next time they ask them "Hey, I want to buy a new computer, any tip?", they should answer "Those Surface laptops are really cool, give them a look... oh, but you might also be interested in a chromebook or a slimbook". That would already be *a lot*. I don't think we can have a goal of getting more users right now, we're not in the right situation. We need to do some groundwork first.

I broadly agree with you, but why do we need live events? Even Microsoft's live event for Windows 11 has been derided for being a borefest.

We also need to think about how we're going to push 'Plasma' to new users, especially as they will be expecting something they can put on a USB stick and go through the paces to install / look out for when buying. We'll need to explain what a DE is and where they can get it, or we should push a distro (Neon?) that they can just put on a USB stick / look out for when buying a machine that carries Plasma.

Even Microsoft's live event for Windows 11 has been derided for being a borefest

Heh, that means they have done a bad job :P
In general, Live Events generate a lot of news. Sure, it might've been boring, but it was in the headlines of all tech newspapers. When they released hardware without a live event (e.g. Surface Go), it just didn't work as well, there were some articles, videos, but not as much as a live event generates.
We should make it much, much more clear in our webpages how to install Neon, clear up what Neon is (stop saying it's not a distro, advertise it more, I know, political problems blah blah). But mainly we need to promote hardware with our OS in it, because that's what's going to appeal people. It often happens that there's some good hardware with good software (e.g. the pixel phones), and people fall in love with _those_, but since they don't have the money to buy a new hardware, they will go into weird ways to get the software anyway (e.g. pixel experience rom). But if we start saying "hey, look at this good software!" it's not going to work as well.

In T14636#259149, @paulb wrote:

❌ Pre-installed Candy Crush

❌ Pre-installed bloatware ?

nitpicking but ❌ Pre-installed Candy Crush sound much better and more clear

In T14636#259246, @niccolove wrote:

Even Microsoft's live event for Windows 11 has been derided for being a borefest

Heh, that means they have done a bad job :P
In general, Live Events generate a lot of news. Sure, it might've been boring, but it was in the headlines of all tech newspapers. When they released hardware without a live event (e.g. Surface Go), it just didn't work as well, there were some articles, videos, but not as much as a live event generates.
We should make it much, much more clear in our webpages how to install Neon, clear up what Neon is (stop saying it's not a distro, advertise it more, I know, political problems blah blah). But mainly we need to promote hardware with our OS in it, because that's what's going to appeal people. It often happens that there's some good hardware with good software (e.g. the pixel phones), and people fall in love with _those_, but since they don't have the money to buy a new hardware, they will go into weird ways to get the software anyway (e.g. pixel experience rom). But if we start saying "hey, look at this good software!" it's not going to work as well.

Hmm, I think you're right about the hype. I'm likely just not the target audience for it. We'd also need to be conscious of our release schedules, because I'm not sure that the changes in each point release for Plasma lend themselves that well to an event.

Super super agree we need to start pushing Neon more, though. That is how we push Plasma 'the product' into people's hands, along with computers running Neon.

In general, Live Events generate a lot of news. Sure, it might've been boring, but it was in the headlines of all tech newspapers. When they released hardware without a live event (e.g. Surface Go), it just didn't work as well, there were some articles, videos, but not as much as a live event generates.

It could make sense to do a live-event, but with something new to annonunce;so I guess 5.23 and as a part of the 25th Birthday Event?
https://phabricator.kde.org/T14623

A demo would be great for a live event ( by someone with a fast but not W11 supported PC, internet great mic and 'easy to understand' accent)
an example:
-booting up plasma- a word about floss
-customizing panel layout, adaptive transparency, adding applets and demonstrating ghns
-opening dolphin and a multimedia file
-receiving a call - a word about KDE connect
-installing ex. Spotify or steam using Discover + android apps (if that will happen)
-searches for 'global theme with KRunner' and changes the whole look in a click
That could be recorded and shared as a video on social media

also: What do you think about designing and printing letters with Anniversary Edition Neon Live USBs to send to some of the bigger tech news outlets?
An email may get lost in the thousands they receive daily, but a well-designed and signed letter with software to test could get a bit more attention

In T14636#259335, @aronkvh wrote:

also: What do you think about designing and printing letters with Anniversary Edition Neon Live USBs to send to some of the bigger tech news outlets?

I like how you are thinking. This implies a budget and there is a high risk the thumbdrives will be chucked in the bin or confiscated by admins who see this as a security risk. I know I wouldn't plug into my computer a thumbdrive that someone I didn't know. But, again, I like how you are thinking. Let's explore this further...

An email may get lost in the thousands they receive daily, but a well-designed and signed letter with software to test could get a bit more attention

Yeah. Emails are pointless... Unless you have made contact beforehand. That is our best bet: finding a way to get to a real person beforehand, establish a bit of trust and then forward them stuff. So social engineering, exploiting the 6 degrees, etc.

Who is our audience?
I'll say it: everyone outside of our bubble, even those who would not like to try out new OSs or FLOSS stuff. Because again, it will be much easier to make people switch to Plasma if there's the idea that it's a viable alternative to Windows and not a cheap ripoff. Sure, that Adobe guy will never switch to Plasma himself, but maybe when his granma says Win is too complex, he'll consider Plasma.

The biggest problem I see with trying to promote Plasma for people outside of the Linux bubble is that you need at least some knowledge of computers to install a new system. Messing with your computer software when you don't know what you're doing is scary and most people wouldn't risk changing their operating system and having to call a technician if they mess something up. Either we target this to people with at least some knowledge of computers or find an easy way for people to try Plasma without installing it. For that there's only one option that could be done in time:

Offer a pre-configured virtual machine image of Neon that people could run from Windows. Ideally, it would bundle the VM program (QEMU?) with it, assure users that no changes would be done to their system, and be accessed by simply double-clicking the icon.

Even if they don't end up taking the steps to install it natively, it would already help them cement the idea Plasma is a real alternative.

The campaign should avoid drawing direct comparisons to Windows 11 (like making themes that look like Windows) if we don't want to be seen as copycats. My suggestion is to attack Windows indirectly while focusing on some key advantages of choosing Plasma over the competition. Releasing our campaign on Windows' release date would be a clear indication of what we are trying to do, while at the same time avoiding all the drama that comes with direct comparisons. Here are topics we could focus on (most of these could be included directly in a video and also on separate social media posts):

• Start by showing some of the software KDE is known for and quickly highlighting some historical achievements, like how KDE is now 25 years old and where our software is used (like NASA). If this is to be added to a video, it should be really quick to avoid losing our audience's attention. The point of highlighting this is for showing people they can trust KDE software and to quickly introduce KDE to people unfamiliar with it.

• Show features Plasma offers that Windows doesn't, including customization.

• Focus on the privacy and security aspect. Even though we are promoting Plasma, our target audience doesn't know the difference between a DE and Linux. We can use that to our advantage to associate Plasma with the advantages Linux offers. We could talk about how a system with Plasma is safer for daily activities, like accessing banking accounts, or how it protects people from malware that comes from clicking on random links. We could also promote Plasma-specific features for privacy like Vaults.

• Show phone integration with KDE Connect.

• We should also talk about how Plasma does not require a new computer for having the latest features and security updates.

• Show some devices people can buy that ship with Plasma, like the SlimBook or Steam Deck.

• Say Plasma is completely free and point people to the download page with the test VM image and the .iso.

For our visual communication, we know we can't compete with the fancy multi-million dollar marketing campaigns Microsoft promotes. With that in mind, I suggest taking a simpler route and making something simple but effective at communicating what we want. That will also help us to make the videos and images faster.

About a live event: I doubt anyone outside of our current followers would want to watch it. It works with big companies because they have many tech enthusiasts and the media interested in them, but in our case a lot of people have no idea KDE exists and also don't care about us.

Anyway, Windows 11 will be released on October 5th, so we don't have much time left. We might have to rethink or reduce the scope of this campaign if we plan to release something by then, however, there's a big problem I didn't touch upon yet:

Most influencers, websites, and our social media followers are part of the Linux bubble, and people outside of it are unlikely to help just because we ask nicely. Either we spend some money on advertisement/influencer marketing, or we try our best to attract organic traffic. I don't want to be pessimistic, but realistically it will be pretty hard to reach people outside the bubble this time.

In the long term, I'd like for us to think of strategies to expand our public.

I'd compose a crisp short of KDE users' favorite custom workflows they invented to solve concrete problems with the customizability of KDE UI. Preferably workflows that save time or help staying organized (thats what I always miss if I HAVE TO do wage labor on Windows).

For example I'd demonstrate the Meta+[Key] Window-Focus in combination with Window Rules+Krohnkite+Multiscreen+Activities+Virtual Desktops.
I'd use Screenrecording and also film a closeup of my fingers performing the Shortcuts.

Sequence of about 6 seconds:

It shows that the Environment is so Kool it even changes entirely with a single Shortcut.

Actually KDE deserves to be called Windows 12 — Dominik Kummer

IMHO

I even glued a KDE-Sticker on my Windows keyboard key. — Tony Clifton

And there are way more possibilities with Custom Shortcuts and DBus.
I admit some functionality is not accessible without advanced KDE knowledge, so maybe concrete demonstrations should be backed by conrete tutorials linked in the video description.

I also want to make KDE Bookmarks available in Falkon and make KDE Bookmarks also "VDesktop/Activity-aware". But my C++ is still so bad :....(

EDIT:
I will add some thoughts according to What KDE means to me to this video testimonial.