I've been breezing through these messages, just kind of skimming everyone's points. I wanted to share my experience on community actions and where it got me and where I'd like to go.
Back in 1999, a fellow CF coder (Kyle Jenkins) in my area decided to start a CFUG. I had been contemplating doing the same thing for a few months, so when I heard about it, I started attending meetings. I quickly became very active in the group; hosted the website, gave presentations, sent email marketing to local companies and eventually shared in the management of the group. As time went by, we started requesting support from Allaire/Macromedia in terms of getting speakers, marketing materials and merchandise and demos. The support at the time was very underwhelming. We received a total of 1 box of t-shirts and pencils, a copy of CF5 and Jrun to raffle off to user group members. That was the only time we received support. Our repeated requests for more marketing material and guest speakers were met with the sound of crickets in an empty field. Finally in late 2002 we had to completely shut down the user group due to lack of participation and lack of support. I have had my ear to the ground listen intently for Macromedia support in this area for over 5 years now and have heard nothing. In fact, the general purpose Macromedia User Group recently went bottom-up for lack of support. Now, I know that it's not for lack of usage in this area. We have some major international companies that use CF extensively and for mission critical applications. However, its usage has seemed to stagnate since 1999-2000 (I have no actual usage statistics for this, just opinion from my own grapevine) because there is no push in this market from MM. I never see marketing material in the local trade magazines or newspapers, training seminars, or development preview events (viz a viz .NET). We made the attempt. We had *very* dedicated people. We had means, opportunity and motive. It died anyway. To this day I still don't know why. Now, all that said, I'd love to be able to resurrect the user group if I had any kind of assurance from MM that I wouldn't be Sysiphus again. If there are any other UG managers reading this list, please let me know on or off-list what your experience has been. - Steve -----Original Message----- From: Simon Horwith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 4:02 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: CF developer numbers Well, if I lived in an area with a poor market I'd start by becoming VERY active in the User Group. So active that I ended-up speaking nearly every month. So active that I'd help with organizing and promoting it. I'd be sure to always illustrate and emphasise the strengths of the CF Server and J2EE in general when I present. I'd also try to get more and newer companies to come. I recently spoke with the other UK CFUG Board Members about how to draw more people to the meetings and one of my number one suggestions was to invite a .NET speaker every now and then. I think the CF people would find it interesting, it'd bring-in new people, and maybe some of those new people would end-up being exposed to the world of ColdFusion. I'd also talk with my employer or client(s) if I'm a contractor, about what they could do to excite their employees, the community around them, and their clients, about the technologies they're using. A direct result of that is that has been the sale of ColdFusion to MANY councils in England and Scotland, more emphasis on keeping the server version VERY up to date, and my client bought a nice shiny new Breeze Live Server (not account) because I harrassed them for 7 months about how cool it is and how impressed clients and staff will be when we use it. I saw an opening to help get more Macromedia Server products out there and did something about it. Macromedia periodically (pretty regularly) offers free half-day seminars that illustrate the power and benefits of ColdFusion. I'd see if they're happening near you and help let people know about it. If there isn't one near you, find a training partnerr in the area and talk with them about it. If that doesn't work, ask Macromedia if they can send Ben Forta, another empoyee, or even a Team Macromedia Member to your area to present. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=34 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:182237 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
