[development] Drupal administration survey draft based on 10 interviews

[Boris Mann]

On 9-Aug-06, at 11:48 AM, Kieran Lal wrote:

>
> On Aug 9, 2006, at 10:00 AM, Dries Buytaert wrote:
>
>> Thanks for doing this work, Kieran!  It's important.  I do have  
>> some questions though:
>>
>> On 09 Aug 2006, at 04:54, Kieran Lal wrote:
>>> 	Non-technical user developing community or social change web  
>>> site forced to become "accidental technologist"
>>
>> Does it matter what the user is developing?  Maybe the following  
>> is sufficient:
>>
>>   Non-technical user forced to become "accidental technologist"
>
> Yes it matters a lot.  If you want to build an online community or  
> social change website you are going to end up being recommended to  
> use Drupal.  Drupal's community knowledge extends beyond just CMS  
> development but is now a expert community in online community  
> building and social change websites.   This is important to know  
> because this growing user base has certain expectations and  
> goals.   This was clear from the interviews, maybe 4+/10 people  
> fell into this category.  We need to get a sense of how many Drupal  
> sites are falling into this domain.

So...then add that as another category. You may be an accidental  
technologist building things for a death metal band. I suspect a lot  
of the folks you interact with fall into the social change  
category...and I agree it is important to capture.

However, another huge category is "HTML Website developer adopting a  
CMS platform" or "Process consultant learning to us collaborative  
tools" (the former is more technical in terms of web stuff, the  
latter is less technical).

>>
>> I don't understand how this answers above question.  Whether the  
>> Drupal community innovates shouldn't be of concern to users of,  
>> say, twit.tv.
>
> Many communities are limited by the commercial constraints of their  
> community tools.  For example, yahoo groups feature set hasn't  
> changed much in 5 years.  Users know that with Drupal they get more  
> features faster to better meet their needs.  For commercial  
> communities like Twit this doesn't make much of a difference.  But  
> for more grassroots communities we are seeing a tipping point. "Go  
> with Drupal they have the best and newest community stuff! "

And not just community stuff. Consultants (especially non-developer  
consultants) can pick Drupal and become experts at the modules  
available...the availability of configurable, themeable, well-written  
modules that perform a wide variety of things means they can deliver  
more functional websites at lower cost. Picking Drupal means always  
having well-written cutting edge options available. Client: "Hey, I  
heard new standard X came out...can we do that?" Consultant: "Why  
yes, the pants module implemented standard X just last week!"

-- Boris