On Apr 28, 2014, at 3:24 PM, Tudor Girba <[email protected]> wrote:
> So, what is better as a communication strategy: > - to say that Pharo is "a Smalltalk with traits, modular compiler, slots and > moldable debugger, ... (more to come in this list)", or > - to say that Pharo "is a modern Smalltalk-inspired system?" > ? The first pitch totally sucks of course but for the sake of getting to your point, it depends on who the audience is, right? If you’re trying too hard to differentiate yourself from other Smalltalk dialects, then “modern Smalltalk-inspired system” might have a chance. But what that chance might lead you to? What’s the best thing that can happen with that strategy? That you steal some market space for your preferred dialect in a zero-sum game of an already very small community? Okay, let’s talk about the opposite direction. A non-zero-sum game. What about trying to connect with a wider audience? You’ll need something that serves as foundation to build on top of. Something inspiring. Now let’s do the numbers.. A) What’s the size of the whole smalltalk community? what you can have from it? 2%? 10%? 20% conversion? let’s say you get 80% because you’re amazing beyond disbelief. B) What’s the size of the whole dynamic technology community? if you get 0.001% from it you multiplied the smalltalkers on the surface of this planet by x100 times So what strategy really deserves your effort? For me it’s pretty clear where the winner and looser communication strategy resides, I actually saw it in action and it wasn’t even hard. I also assume we’re for a winner strategy but I actually have no idea on how Pharo is managing its branding and Smalltalk has still to prove to itself it can actually market itself properly
