At 02:24 PM 12/20/2007 -0800, Mimi Yin wrote:
On Dec 19, 2007, at 10:31 AM, Phillip J. Eby wrote:
One category that Chandler could define and *own* right now would
be "lightweight team+personal calendar". We could in fact strip
some features *out* of Chandler, and *still* lead this category.
In fact, it could be a *plus* to strip any features that detract
from leading that category or confuse the mission/position in our
minds or the customers'. Simplifying the terminology and stripping
out any too-"innovative" concepts that require users to think or
read a manual, would be a big plus. Meanwhile, most of the other
features you mentioned in your email (cross-platform, connectivity,
email, etc.) can all be positioned in terms of how they support the
"lightweight team+personal calendar" mission -- and nothing else.
I'm not sure we're on the same page with this characterization. But I
think we need to go one level more concrete to have a fruitful
discussion.
So following this line of thinking, what features might you strip out?
To be clear, I was speaking mainly about stripping features out of
the *marketing* discussion. For example, the summary table view,
triage, stamping, and almost everything to do with email are not all
that critical to a marketing message like, "Your team, your friends,
your life: Bring them together, with Chandler." Or "Your time is
your life. Use Chandler to share it." Insert other appropriate
marketing sound bites here. :)
Those features don't have to actually be removed from the program or
even change much, necessarily. (Although I might, e.g. rename the
addressing button, move the mail related buttons, or make other such
tweaks to make it flow smoothly in demonstration.)
In fact, at the "demo the product" level, it seems to me that there
are now two features I would *add*: the ability to see at all times
whether there are unsynced items (e.g. some visual indication on the
collection), and the ability to group collections and share those
groups of collections via Chandler server. (The latter would make it
easy for a company to share some official collections like conference
room schedules, work/vacation schedules, etc., while allowing users
to keep those collections distinct from other "life areas", so to speak.)
So, not much change from where we are now. I just think that the
major features we have, get the most opportunity to *shine* if
Chandler is positioned as a lightweight collaborative calendar. We
can do that really well -- and more importantly, I think we can
*communicate* that idea really well, much more so than the much more
abstract "new way to organize" ideas.
Certainly we can *also* say that for many people, Chandler may be a
complete organizational tool, but I think that should be kept within
the context of the "collaborative calendar" mission, e.g. "it even
helps you organize tasks and mail, too!" rather than trying to lead
with that message. It's a supporting feature, down there with "can
have plugins to add new features", rather than a leading feature like
"reads and sends calendars to X number of servers, formats, and email".
I know, it's not as broad as what the project originally set out to
do, but it's what we *have* now, and if we get the users we can
always give them more later. :)
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