[consulting] Drupal Marketing and Consulting - Was: Fedora Core and the CMS Discussion

[Laura Scott]

Gunnar, I think you expressed that quite well. I, too, feel that the 
meta-project is going in the right direction. The ongoing improvements 
on the site, in the handbooks, etc.

There could be a lot more, sure. But speaking for myself, pre-Joomla at 
least, I found Mambo's site resources to be confusing. I know many 
people have pointed there as a model of what could be, but I consider it 
a warning, too. While we might take a page from their book, so to speak, 
there's a lot to Drupal.org that already is better -- and not just that 
it's running Drupal.

I especially like how there have been incremental efforts to build more 
community -- to find resources, to engage in conversations, to 
brainstorm ideas. I look forward to more, and the sub-communities idea 
for major packages gets a big +1 from me.

FWIW, I don't consider your remarks a rant. No apologies necessary, for 
me anyway.

Laura

pingVision <http://www.pingv.com> | interactive media design
*Laura Scott*, President
laura at pingv.com • 303.459.4859


Gunnar Langemark wrote:
> What are the pros and cons of being a very widely used CMF (Content 
> Management Framework)?
>
> For a consultant it is always a barrier if the system you're pitching 
> is totally unknown and has no track record, so being used by lots of 
> sites must be good, and being the CMS of choice by lots of high 
> profile companies is even better.
>
> But popularity for the sake of popularity may not be all good.
>
> To me it is clear that the Drupal community right now is experiencing 
> some problems with becoming more widely known. Tons of people coming 
> to Drupal expecting yet another Mambo/PostNuke - or at least something 
> so simple they can start hacking away at their installation right 
> away. No one wants to read documentation, no one wants to meet words 
> and concepts they don't know - and yet everybody expects Drupal to be 
> much more powerful than whatever they had before was.
>
> Drupal is a very ambitious project. We have different "distributions", 
> packages of modules - like E-commerce, tons of smaller functionality 
> add ons like the new cool service_links module. It all adds to the 
> confusion amongst newbies and everybody else (who can seriously say 
> they have a perfect grasp of all the modules in contrib?).
>
> Drupal is clearly getting very big,  very powerful - even for a 
> nonprogramming consultant like me, very much more mature (the 
> interface usability has improved immensely since 4.0 - my first 
> installation). This makes it more feasible to go for market share and 
> popularity.
>
> Drupal process and projects - like security, documentation etc. shows 
> that this is a maturing project. As I see it, Drupal is not giving in 
> to chaos. The guys at the helm, are taking care of the growth 
> challenges, which is good.
>
> So where am I getting at?
>
> For a consultant, I think that the ideal way for Drupal to develop 
> would be:
>
>    * Make process and project teams even more visible. A professional
>      organisation, with teams working on all relevant issues is a plus.
>      Make it evident on the website and in the documentation what is
>      going on.
>    * Let certain "packages" - like E-commerce have their own
>      "sub-communities" - and let them stand out. These are specialized
>      implementations of Drupal, and should be treated as such. A
>      potential client would like to see that the ecommerce people are
>      actively pursuing some clear goals.
>    * Have clear roadmaps for the development of Drupal and some of the
>      modules - next version plans - and a three year visionary thing too.
>    * Make the Drupal themes more "sexy" (there's a good discussion
>      about this on the themes list right now.), as the visuals always
>      attract way too much attention. Actually I'm convinced that some
>      project choose Mambo/Joomly over Drupal exactly for that reason
>      and nothing else. Same with Wordpress. And that is a shame. (And I
>      don't believe that Drupal is not a blogging system - it is too -
>      and it is a better blogging system by far, than Wordpress, if you
>      want cool web20 functionality - y'all know... and there's business
>      to be made in that area too!)
>
> If a client is in the process of making a choice of system he will 
> look at such things, because he can make sense of it. He does not 
> understand the technical matters, he hires you to figure that out. But 
> he probably knows a little about what a healthy business looks like.
>
> I believe Drupal is going in the right direction. It can go there even 
> faster.
>
> I don't believe though, that going after popularity in itself - and 
> using marketing ressources to do so - is a very good thing. Drupal 
> will just attract a lot of low end users, who expect a simple system - 
> easy to install, easy to understand, and no challenge to their brain 
> cells. If Drupal degenerates into a system where terms like "taxonomy" 
> are considered a "no no", it will have lost its soul and its unique 
> appeal.
>
> Sorry about the rant.
>
> Best
> Gunnar
>
>
> Khalid B wrote:
>> If we want to think in marketing terms, then this is an extra channel
>> to get Drupal
>> in the hands of many people, already packaged and configured. This no 
>> doubt
>> increases "market share". Linux distros are used on hosting servers, 
>> corporate
>>   
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