Let me ask a question that you all should be able to answer.
So please, each and every one of you, answer it.
Who are we?
Or let me put it this way: what community are we?

We are the Perl community!
What did I not hear?
We are the Python community. Good - so I'm probably at the right conference.
We are the Javascript community: I can't tell you how glad I am!

What did I also not hear?
That we are the Perl 5 community. Didn't hear anybody say that.
It comes to little surprise that we are also not the Perl 6 community - though we have lot's of talks about that language on the schedule.

No, we are the Perl community and I'm so grateful that I ended up being part of it.
You people have enriched my life more than I can ever give back and I love you for it.

I just wish more people would have the chance of getting to know you.
But how can they?
They don't know you. They don't know how great Perl is. They don't know that they want to join.

So what can we do about this?
Of course, we can tell them!
We can make them want to join.

Now if there only was a word for this.
I know! I think it's called marketing!

Now we all know that we have marketing resources to spare.
We have lots of personell.
We have Mark.
And we have Wendy.
And and...we have Mark!
And they have a huge budget...with which they can buy some stickers about once a year.

With so many resources it's best to split them between two languages. isn't it?
Hell we can even have them compete with each other!
Can we?
Should we?

A couple of years ago the Perl community was at the brink of tearing itself apart over the question whether Perl 5 or Perl 6 is _the_ Perl.
Then a bunch of people sat together and figured out that we have two sister languages in the same family.
This narrative really saved us and extinguished most of the fires.

Now that the wounds have healed, and we realized that we are all on the same side, I can't help but wonder.
How do we want to present ourselves to the outside world?

Do we want to spend our plentiful resources on marketing two languages in friendly competition?
Or...do we want to tell them about this awesome community...rich in technology from stable and proven to exciting and powerful?

Is the most important bit they need to hear really that there are two completely different languages that have nothing at all to do with each other?
Or would it be better to tell them that Perl has DBIx::Class and Mojolicious.
And that Perl has meta classes and proper threading and umpteen other features that they want to try.

I know as technical people we like being correct and precise.
But marketing is not about teaching people.
It's about making them want something.

What do you think?
How do you want to promote Perl?