[Evangelism] Re: Plone Messaging

[Matt Hamilton]

On 6 May 2009, at 01:44, Ross Patterson wrote:

> I meant messaging in a sense larger than just marketing.  I think we
> need to better communicate with and educate our communities of
> consultants, developers, and users regarding subjects other than just
> marketing and press.
>
> For example, what expectations should consultants communicate to
> technically minded clients about features in the next release?  When a
> sysadmin and sometimes hacker at a non-profit gets excited about Plone
> and starts advocating for its usage internally, what will she have  
> read
> that helped her set expectations that will guide her towards success?
> What will a consultant have read by the time they decide to start  
> taking
> on Plone jobs to help guide ethical and successful consulting?  If any
> of these people started or joined discussions on IRC, on the mailing
> lists, or at a conference, will the community members participating in
> those discussions have encountered enough queues about appropriate
> messaging?
>
> These kind of messages are not largely or exclusively technically,
> marketing, or user oriented.  They require a cohesion of all concerns.
>
> Maybe I'm trying to be structural about something that shouldn't be
> addressed that way.  It does seem, however, that this is a significant
> challenge for our communities.  No?


I see what you are getting at here.  I think one event that does do a  
lot for this is the Plone Conference keynote by Alan and Alex. Or the  
'what coming up in release X'  talks that Alex usually does.  These  
generally focus on what is coming up feature-wise and I think do a lot  
to set expectations of what is coming up. Now I know that Alex is  
often (and I hope you don't mind me saying this Alex) quite ambitious  
in his visions for Plone in some of these talks, but I think that is a  
good thing.  How that will now relate to the release manager type role  
I'm not sure.  Ie. I think Hanno would be in a much better position to  
say what is or isn't upcoming. But I think Alex does a very good  
spokesperson (dare I say BDFL?) type role.

Alex is doing something at the Plone Symposium East for this:
http://weblion.psu.edu/news/alexander-limi-to-open-plone-symposium-east-2009

I think this is a great avenue for communicating the message to the  
community on where Plone is going.

As for how we can do more of this and a more cohesive message across  
other mediums and forums... good question ;)

-Matt

-- 
Matt Hamilton                                       matth at netsight.co.uk
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