[Evangelism] Re: Lessons learned from the first World Plone Day
I was a simple attendee at the Houston WPD, so take my impressions for what they're worth. (1) attendance in Houston was ok. I didn't do a head count, but a rough guess would put the number at around 20. Honestly, I expected (hoped) for at least 2-3 times that number. (2) the facility we had at the U. of Houston was fantastic. This is probably because one of the Plone founders (Alan Runyan) is local (literally just a few miles away). The free lunch provided, while a simple box sandwich/wrap type, was quite good. Whoever arranged it deserves major kudos! (3) Audience - I feel for the presenters because it is always difficult to gauge just who your audience is likely to be. It seemed that more than 50% of the attendees in Houston already had some experience w/ Plone. Unfortunately, this isn't true for myself and my wife (one of only 2 females in attendance). I came as a system administrator, but not web designer, who is looking at it from a is this something that will make my life - and the life of the users in my dept - easier?. Iow, I wanted some of the technical details about installation (on Linux) and *configuration*. There was virtually none. :-(Now that's not to say I didn't get anything out of it - it was still worthwhile for me to attend. And the fact that I won a door prize of a Plone User's Guide book is likely going to be VERY helpful! :-) My wife came as VERY non-tech oriented, but trying to maintain a website for a non-profit organization person. Much of the discussion was WAY over her head, but she was able to glean enough (she's not totally tech incompetent) to see how using Plone is probably the right tool for the job she is trying to accomplish (by comparison, she is currently using Google Apps). (4) Presenters - Alan presented 2 of the topics and was fantastic. They were BY FAR were the best ones there (at least as far as getting information I could use out of it). In fact, there was really only 1 presentation that I felt was not all that great - it was a remote call-in that really wasn't about Plone, but was instead almost totally about their website. To be more clear, I really wasn't interested in what their website was about or how people use it - I wanted to see how they used Plone to build it. (5) Content - Overall, I think the content was directed mostly at the ubber geek, *programmer* audience. Honestly, I think this is a mistake. Please don't misunderstand me; I liked WPD - it was useful for both me and my wife to attend. We both got something out of it. BUT (you knew I had to include a but), if the goal is to build evangelism in Plone, I think the target audience needs to be redirected more toward folks like myself (maybe 15%-20% of the content) and my wife (at least 70% of the content). Now maybe this is because I believe in an end-user driven environment. After all, it's the end-user, not the programmer, that will dictate what systems, programs, environments get used and win in the end. -- Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes [EMAIL PROTECTED]Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes Computer Systems Manager MSN IM: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Department of Physics ph: 979-845-7801 Texas AM University fax: 979-845-2590 ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: World Plone Day 2009
Roberto Allende wrote: Hello Although we are doing the wpd2008 postmorten, we can start to talk about date for wpd2009. I believe it is a good idea to keep it one month after PC, but before december. So, i'd like to propose Friday November 27th as the date for WPD 2009. I'm going to guess that you're not in the U.S., right? Thur, Nov 26 is Thanksgiving day; arguably the 2nd biggest holiday in the U.S. Virtually everyone in the U.S. has the next day (Fri, Nov 27) as a holiday as well. Which means your proposed date would guarantee virtually a zero turnout in the U.S. -- Chris Barnes ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: World Plone Day 2009
Donna Snow wrote: I would say April/May would be good. Not summer and not beginning of the school year. I'm leaning toward May actually. Mid to late May would be excellent! For those of us in academia (universities), this puts it after the end of the spring semester, but before summer semesters begin. -- Chris ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: Top 15 Questions... Final Draft
Gabrielle Hendryx-Parker wrote: Please provide feedback by Monday, April 13th so we can move forward with the formatting of the document as a nice Quick Ref Card for integration in conference kits. Just remember, you did ask... #2 - What is Plone? - FINAL Plone is a powerful and flexible, enterprise-level content management solution that is easy to install, get started with, and use. I take exception with this. It gives the impression that running a complete Plone system is easy to use and get started with for *everyone*. This is especially in light of the fact that #1 above it says without requiring a high level of technical skill or tools other than a web browser. #6 - geez, I'm not sure what to say about this. Sure, it's easy to download and the installation goes fairly straight forward. THEN WHAT? In fact, this is my main complaint with Plone in general. It might very well be easy to use for the end users - but to run the entire system requires a person who is well versed in Zope/python. I'm a computer administrator by profession - and *I* haven't been able to get a Plone site up and running yet. What does that say for the average user? Iow, the kb needed to run maintain a Plone system is WAY under stated. I have to be honest - I am close to giving up on Plone. -- Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes chris-bar...@tamu.eduYahoo IM: chrisnbarnes Computer Systems Manager MSN IM: ch...@txbarnes.com Department of Physics ph: 979-845-7801 Texas AM University fax: 979-845-2590 ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: Top 15 Questions... Final Draft
Calvin Hendryx-Parker wrote: What constitutes up and running for you? The default install will leave you with a site you can place up live behind a proxy. Fair question. A decent looking website for the public to see, w/ a separate interface for the non-html-versed content managers to update information. This is NOT what one gets after the 'default install'. Instead, one is left with a page that is available for the maintainers, but with nothing pointing to a site for the general public. Proxy? I'm not sure I am exactly sure what a proxy is, or why I would want to use one. Why does deploying a Plone site mean you need to learn Python? There are many people out there creating great looking sites and they don't know a lick of Python to to it. They are using a combination of third party add-ons (which are easy to install with buildout) and a theme product that you can generate from ZopeSkel. Maybe it doesn't and I just don't understand then. Maybe what I need to learn is zope? (which, btw, is still beyond my pro-bono time constraints). Having themes which can be imported in sounds good. I have not heard of ZopeSkel before - is it a part of the default install that runs automatically? If it's a 3rd party add-on, that may be nice - but it would seem to be misleading (at the least) to say that the product is ready out of the box. What part of our install story is lacking in your mind so we an address it. I think it would be helpful feedback to get from you. Having worked in a computer support for 12 years prior to being a system admin, I often found it useful - make that *essential* - to stand back and WATCH as someone else attempts to install/use a system. The fact is, I don't know what I don't know. All I do know is that I sat in front of the screen after installing Plone and wondered what now?. I'm just a frustrated user. I have neither a vested interest in making plone #1 nor pushing something else. I simply want to find a product that fits my needs. If it's Plone - and I was lead to believe it was - then great. If it's not, then my search to find out what will fit my needs continues. -- Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes ch...@txbarnes.com (also MSN IM)Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: Top 15 Questions... Final Draft
I'm answering Dylan first (before JoAnna) purposefully because he actually led me to some of my responses to her. Dylan Jay wrote: All in all, I'm not sure this discussion belongs on the Evangelism list. This list is for the evangelism team which has the strategic purpose of promoting Plone. While Chris may disagree with some of the things that are in this document, they are things we find to be true about Plone. If you are actually seeking solutions to real problems, Chris wasn't seeking help he was pointing out why Plone is less easy to install than we all assume it to be or at least claim it to be. That is mostly correct - although if help came about from it I wouldn't be the least little bit upset. ;-) I think it's a fair point. There are answers to everything out there on how to do everything with Plone and we as a community are trying to pull it all togeather and reduce the number of things you need to know to get to where you want to go but we're not there yet. An example is PloneOut... who would know from the standard Plone download page PloneOut is a good option if you want OOTB themes. I didn't know that and I've installed corporate intranets for thousands of employees. The real question here is, do we want to promote Plone as easy to install even though some don't think so and because we want it to become so... or should we pick something more complelling that's going make someone like chris hang in there and push through. Right - which is EXACTLY why I think this discussion belongs in the evangelism group. If you can't convince someone like me - a person desperately seeking a CMS solution who likes the promise of plone - then evangelism efforts for other people are pretty much going to be for naught. Case in point is the web designers group here at Texas AM. Plone is just another one of the cms options some folks are using - and not the one that gets recommended the most here. How much more of an audience ripe for evangelism do you want? What was it that made you settle on Plone in the first place Chris? Another fair question. To be honest, I don't exactly remember. I know I started with looking at the afore mentioned Texas AM web designers group and saw that Plone was among those listed. Of those, there weren't many that were free (and free is always a good thing for a non-profit group). I did basic google search and ended up here on this mailing lists (which I happen to read via gmane's newsserver). -- Chris Barnes AOL IM: CNBarnes ch...@txbarnes.com (also MSN IM)Yahoo IM: chrisnbarnes ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
[Evangelism] Re: Top 15 Questions... Final Draft
JoAnna Springsteen wrote: Instead, one is left with a page that is available for the maintainers, but with nothing pointing to a site for the general public. You sure you're using Plone? Are you serious, or are you trying to be funny? I think you'll find most Plone people will disagree with you on this one. Plus this boils down to personal aesthetics and taste. Some people love Plone's default look or love the NuPlone skin that comes with Plone. Some don't care for it at all. But technically speaking, both are ready out of the box for you to use without any customization. Hmmm. I have no problem with the plone interface for the people in the group doing the content management. But the masses of people who would visit the public site wouldn't give 2 hoots to a holler what was used to create it. They want to see content ABOUT THE GROUP - and nothing else. Evidence - the site is currently being hosted by Google Apps. It's horrid from a what tools are available stand point. But if you visit any site using Google Apps, you'd never know it by looking at the site. Peruse the web. How many of them have the software used for the sites development splashed on the front page? Or the server software being used. Only the techno-geeks on the back end would care about that - and even among them, probably not so much. Plone - or any CMS - is a TOOL TO BE USED. The evangelism is to the people who use the tools. The general public couldn't care less. Nor should they. Having themes which can be imported in sounds good. I have not heard of ZopeSkel before - is it a part of the default install that runs automatically? If it's a 3rd party add-on, that may be nice - but it would seem to be misleading (at the least) to say that the product is ready out of the box. I am re-quoting this because you didn't really answer the questions I asked above. There is a project called the Plone Out of the Box project. They have a ton of themes that are ready to go. Just pick one an install (yes they have directions on how to do this). Once it's installed you can tweak it as you wish. Again, this is all very well documented stuff. Documented WHERE? Plone Out of the Box sounds nice. This is the first I've heard of it (at least - as a solution this problem). Is it part of ZopeSkel? Once again, read the end user manual and some of the other documentation that's out there. Some of it you can probably skip over but there are docs in there that give you a high level overview that may fill in the gaps. Hrumph. RTFM. :-/ That's your idea of evangelism? It's good Dylan has been around to give good answers. Your reply would have been taken as anti-evangelism (ie. it would have run me off of the product, probably for good). Fyi - I have done WAY more than just RTFM. I even attended WPD (in Houston) last year. As I said in my reply to Dylan's post, if you can't evangelize me (someone who WANTS to use the product), I doubt you're going to convince anyone. ___ Evangelism mailing list Evangelism@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
