Praj,
Thanks for putting these thoughts together. You have obviously been
thinking about this a great deal. A few comments...
+ We fully agree that user stories are useful. We have been in the
process of collecting these and Mimi has been working on a new landing
page that integrates some user stories or testimonials. We should be
deploying this new page soon for feedback.
+ The Gallery is an interesting idea but might be a bit too ambitious
for the short term. Users have been and are currently telling stories
about how they are using the product on the users list. Before we
setup a sophisticated environment for them to add this stuff to a
Gallery, we could be going through this and pulling together valuable
information that helps us immediately with messaging and marketing the
product. Regardless of whether it ends up as text, visuals, a video,
it requires real work to dig through this info and that's where we
need help right now.
+ There are many products that are complex, involve creativity and
involve some "warming up" for people to discover the core value. I
don't think this is a problem unique to Chandler. The user stories are
one of many areas we are going to tackle to address this issue.
Debating Chandler vs Art further is not really going to help us at
this stage. We need to actually move forward and execute on the
strategies we have identified so far.
Cheers,
Sheila
On Mar 19, 2008, at 5:56 AM, Prajwal Kaflê wrote:
Replying to Katie.
I noticed that you are not on the chandler-users@ list --
subscribing to
that list and reading up on the archives would be a good way to
catch up
on conversations about how people are using Chandler.
I think you're right. I've subscribed to Chandler's users list.
As we discussed earlier, these two activities could be combined a
bit --
use the user stories as ideas for the demo scripts, etc.
Mimi and Sheila will likely be working on similar activities. It would
be interesting to get a fresh take and see what someone else would do
with a demo and/or screencast.
I have combined some of the ideas that you have mentioned and
present it below. I would like to get feedback on the relevancy, or
there lack of--for Chandler.
Chandler Gallery
The idea is to have a gallery (along the lines of: Get testimonials
from users: text and/or video), ideally Video, for users to show-off
unique ways that they have been able to use Chandler.
I'm not attached to any one specific way to do this. I could see
many benefits from both a marketing perspective and in terms of
resources for us to allow users to put their videos in YouTube or
google video and just allow them to put links in Chandler's website.
Katie's requirements:
> - Create a demo script and/or a screencast of a demo
> - Get testimonials from users: text and/or video
> - Write up feedback from users on the new website designs that
Mimi is
> working on (once she sends them out)
> - User documentation
> - Evangelism/Marketing
How I feel this idea addresses the requirements that you mention
above:
This would allow users to give their testimonials. I think we should
have flexiblity to allow users to submit screenshots, audio, video,
text.
Marketing/Evangelism would be from multiple angles from the Chandler
website and from Youtube, google video, etc. Other blogs, etc.
As users put their video's up and show how they organize information
in chandler this would naturally demo Chandler's functionality
This would also serve as an (advanced) User doc.
Going through a cut and dry 'how to use Chandler' is ok to begin
with for the basics of setting up and understanding functionalty.
But beyond that, it's so much more interesting to see someone
else's personal 'art work' and understand how to make Chandler work
for them. Let the beauty of the 'art work' (how other people user
Chandler) inspire new 'artists' (new chandler users) to learn about
complex 'painting' techniques (using Chandler to benefit them self)
Have functionality for voting on the videos (how google video and
Youttube have). Also allow users to post comments on each video.
This would be a natural way for Chandler core team to receive feedback
Advantages of this idea:
The nice thing about this idea is that it would be user driven for
the most part. All we would do is set up the framework and the
gallery. By using existing frameworks like Youtube, we could get the
gallery flying in no time. It would be very exciting and rewarding
to see people coming up with creative uses for Chandler. I know I
would definitely regularly go to get pointers of how I could improve
on getting more out of Chandler.
For Chandler Team
We would facilitate users to put their ideas in a "Chandler Use-case
gallery" where other users can vote on "usability", "innovation of
idea", "originality", "ease of use of idea" etc. As other users
start to vote for which videos are more desireable/less that would
give the support team in Chandler invaluable data on which
functionalities are hitting home and which aren't. If users can post
comments, we'll understand the 'why' too.
For end users:
It would be an ego boost to users as they compete to be the top
voted idea for 'Using Chandler'.
I know I would definitely be competing hoping to find the latest
creative way to use Chandler so that my video would be top rated in
the Chandler Gallery.
The above idea is based on this theory:
Marketing that works for traditional software doesn't work for
Chandler because we are different
I have been reading through many different blogs in about Chandler
and one difficulty I am seeing that we have is a recurring theme
about the difficulty in marketing and appealing to target users
about Chandler. The question everyone seems to be asking is: "How do
we get more people interested in Chandler?"
Why Chandler is not like traditional project/time management software
Traditionally, when we talk about a target user for a software that
helps with organization, we are talking about someone with
analytical skills that is good at "figuring out the software and
then is able to adapt him/her self to how it works." That's how
Excel, MS Project, etc work. You figure out the rules of the system
and then adapt what you want to do to how the software system does
the entire time you use the software.
But that is not the target user for Chandler (from what I've
understood).
Chandler asks the user to initially make a little investment into
understanding the product, but after that, the tool is supposed to
be flexible enough to be whatever it is the user wants it to be.
Traditional Software Compared to Math & Computer programming:
In other words, to draw an analogy, if traditional software used for
organizing was more like math. In math & computer programming there
are rigid rules that you have to master before you can do anything.
And anything you do is limited by those rules, and you never break
it. You have to be very innovative, analytical (and a lot of
education) and have that kind of aptitude to translate your day to
day requirements as a user into a mathematical model. That's how
computer programming works.
Chandler Compared to Art
Chandler is more like art class (or cooking class) than math class.
In art, sure you have to take the time to learn a few of the tools
(ingredients) and colors and crafts but just mastering these things
is not enough. To really make use of Chandler, you need creativity a
lot more than analytical skills. Chandler has an amazing ability to
be able to represent your way of thinking in a very customized
(personal) way.
I think a lot of people are so used to the traditional way of
thinking about software that this concept of innovation & being able
to choose how you think of organizing is almost intimidating. I
wonder if a lot of people think "Just tell me what it does and I'll
just think that way." Flexibility gives the user the option to "make
mistakes." There are people who don't want that responsibility (even
in relation with themselves).
But when you see other people's examples, it so much easier to model
yourself from a live example that you can watch on video.
How do you market and encourage people to us Art Products?
So what I'm saying is that if you want people to buy your art
products so that they will want to be artists (chandler users), you
first have to inspire them with art (amazing ways people are
benefitting from Chandler today). I think we need to see lots and
lots of examples of art work on Chandlers Gallery. It's when you see
these type of personal use case examples that people's own thinking
will start to make connections.
"Oh, I can do that. Hey I could use that." "Oh that's a cool way to
use it." "You mean to say I can do that?"
Chandler becomes whatever in the hands of the person using it. It
becomes whatever it needs to be in the hands of a innovative and
creative person.
So what I feel we need is stories. Lots of stories of how people
like you and me are making Chandler work for us in working and
collaborating.
There needs to be a culture around 'creative uses of Chandler.' And
from there you almost start a competition to come up with the most
original and useful ways to use Chandler. You get other people
voting on what's the most innovative use of Chandler. And the Core
chandler team changes our focus based on this type of valuable
feedback.
Your thoughts on this? And please don't hesitate to be direct on
this. I don't mind criticism when I have confidence the other person
knows where I'm coming from :-). The sooner I understand the
constraints, the faster I will be able to be more effective as a
team member.
Praj
Katie said:
Hi Praj,
Thinking about this a bit more, I'm guessing that the first two items
would make the best initial projects.
I noticed that you are not on the chandler-users@ list --
subscribing to
that list and reading up on the archives would be a good way to
catch up
on conversations about how people are using Chandler.
We have a set of screencasts here:
http://chandlerproject.org/Projects/PreviewDemos
A bit more about the tasks:
- Demo script: At minimum, a series of actions someone might take when
giving a live demo of Chandler. You could also create sample data to
start out with (saving it to a *.chex file that could be reloaded by
the
demo-er).
- Screencast: like the above screencasts, a walkthrough of a demo
with a
voice over and/or explanatory text
- Testimonials from users: interview users, get quotes. Take videos of
people using Chandler. This might require a little legwork in that
you'd
have to find some users who were willing to talk with you -- the users
list is a good place to start.
As we discussed earlier, these two activities could be combined a
bit --
use the user stories as ideas for the demo scripts, etc.
Mimi and Sheila will likely be working on similar activities. It would
be interesting to get a fresh take and see what someone else would do
with a demo and/or screencast.
Cheers,
Katie
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