We’re changing up our marketing approach. And it involves comic books.

We’re adopting a new marketing mantra for Red Hat Enterprise Linux: Listen. Learn. Build. Which probably doesn’t seem all that revolutionary. That’s pretty much the mantra of open source. But compare that to how tech marketing usually happens.

There’s a lot of building--assets and advertisements and the whole nine yards. But the listening and learning parts usually happen afterwards, if at all.

So we’re making a conscious effort to explicitly apply the principles of open source to the way that we market our flagship open source technology. We’re starting with the listening part.

And who exactly are we listening to? You.

And what exactly are we listening to you talk about? Your OS adventures.

And what exactly do we mean by “OS adventures”?--

--Actually, here’s a better idea. Instead of telling you what we’re doing and why, let’s show you...

FIVE MONTHS AGO WE HAD AN IDEA...

It started around wanting to know how and why the operating system the mattered (to you). Because it was clear that, as technology is changing and as organizations move to the cloud, people's relationships with the OS were evolving.

WE FIRST WENT TO DOCKERCON

On day 2, we were at a coffee shop talking about our discussions with developers on how the OS matters to them. A developer from an OS company sitting nearby overheard our conversation.

Clearly, people’s relationships with the OS were changing in ways beyond what we initially expected. We knew then that we definitely needed to talk with more people.

AT RED HAT SUMMIT, WE TALKED WITH MORE PEOPLE

We set up a booth called Comics & Coffee where people could get their own personalized comic cover and caffeinate before heading to the next breakout session or lab.

WE HEARD THEIR STORIES

Like this developer.

Her OS adventure started relatively recently in college when her professors introduced her to Linux. Her favorite hobby as a developer is, as she says, “deleting legacy code.”

Containerizing her company’s legacy applications is the her sole focus these days.

“I can barely see the summit [of containers]. It’s a very steep climb that we’re going up.”

And this architect.

Her OS adventure started back in the day with PDP-11s. Currently, she works as an architect. Although, if you ask her, she considers her primary role to be “a problem solver.”

She came to Red Hat Summit because she’s interested in Ansible, and loves its easy-to-use UI and its ability to automate her current workloads.

“I think the thing I like best about it is that it works with the operating system the way it was designed to work.”

And this system administrator.

He started with Linux floppy disks. He then went on to assist researchers in Antarctica for 12 years. Now, he works for a university in Colorado.

The biggest challenge he now faces in his OS journey isn’t technical. It’s cultural.

“The biggest challenge for me is not the technology, but the culture [in public sector]… There’s some very old school mentalities.”

AND NOW WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR O.S. ADVENTURE…

We’re now heading to a bunch of other events with the sole intention to: Listen. Learn. Build.

To check out the events we’re going to, head here. If you’re going to be at one of these and want to take part, you can secure a spot to get your comic book cover drawn.

What exactly are we planning on building? We've got some other fun stuff in store. But more about that soon.