[OOTB-hive] CE looking bad?

Tue May 26 16:48:49 BST 2015

I want to report back on the original topic of the comparison page.

I scheduled a meeting last Friday with the Product Marketing team to share 
your feedback. I learned a few things:

* The Product Marketing team reads this list, and was aware of your feedback 
on the page. They appreciated the input and were very responsive to the 
concerns you raised.

* The product pages on the web site are currently undergoing a round of 
revision, and the product comparison table is getting attention.

* The entire team understands the importance of not turning anyone off of any 
of our products.

* Before the OOTBee conversation, they had decided that the page's visual 
design with the red marks looked too negative, and the current mock-ups 
improve that design element.

* The team tried to shorten and simplify the chart, but the content is pretty 
much the same.

* It looks like the team had already come to the many of the same conclusions 
as this group, and I didn't see any further changes that were necessary. (That 
might not mean much, since I helped create the old chart. I hope you ascribe 
that to a lack of visual talent, rather than malice.)

* They are hoping to get the new pages online within the next few weeks.

* We will continue to listen to your feedback, and make changes where 
appropriate. The specific suggestions are the most useful because they are 
actionable.

Many of you know Paul Hampton, who is our senior product marketer. He has been 
on the team for a very long time, and is a big advocate for Community Edition. 
We have hired a number of new members to that team, and I enjoyed meeting 
them. I was impressed with their understanding of the open source business 
model, and they have made it a goal to increase the adoption of the Community 
Edition product. It was a good conversation, and I look forward to working 
with them more.

I was supposed to send this email on Friday, but (as you saw) I got distracted 
with the broader conversations on this list. <grin>

Thanks,

Richard

-- 
Richard Esplin
Product Manager, Alfresco Community Edition
Tel: +1 801 855 0866
Mobile: +1 801 735 4220
Skype: esplinr

On Friday, May 22, 2015 22:28:17 Andreas Steffan wrote:
> to me it seems the actual "them" is the marketing department. And "we" are
> not really taking "their" page seriously, arguing that people like "us"
> easily see beyond. I doubt the average visitor matches "our" demographic
> profile. It's ok and I can live with that easily -  and without any anger.
> Really.
> 
> have a nice weekend
> Andreas
> 
> Andreas Steffan
> 
> Achter Billing 14
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> Germany
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> skype: contentreich
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> Contentreich : Alfresco ECM, Clojure, Groovy und WordPress - aus Spaß und
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> Am 22.05.2015 9:24 nachm. schrieb "Martin Cosgrave" <martin at ocretail.com>:
> >  I've read the whole thread, except I started a few messages in, and the
> > 
> > last thing I've done is to come back to the first post and actually look
> > at
> > the chart in question. I actually don't have a problem with it, as has
> > been
> > said you expect marketing types to do that, but at least there at the
> > bottom is a clear download link to CE. I couldn't be more pleased that the
> > two are presented together. I'm sure that everyone must have had
> > experiences similar to mine of knowing that a product has an open source
> > version, and struggling to find any mention of it until you find the tiny
> > 'Community' link in dark brown on black at the bottom of the page.
> > 
> > There is certainly no harm in creating a counterpoint page, it could be
> > quite tongue in cheek, maybe we can put a lot of red X's next to EE :-P
> > 
> > A quick side note about Honeycomb, there really is a lot of good stuff you
> > guys could contribute, especially if you know puppet or a similar devops
> > tool, but if not even just building it and commenting on or modifying the
> > configurations we have chosen would be really useful. There are only two
> > of
> > us involved in it right now and I've been a bit busy starting a job and
> > moving city in the last month or so. I just noticed it was mentioned a
> > couple of times in the thread so I guess there is some value there and
> > mindshare even if nobody's stepping forward.
> > 
> > It's a shame the thread spiralled out of control at the end there. At the
> > beginning it was really constructive and it's definitely worth going back
> > and looking over those bits :-) . However it's obvious there are strong
> > feelings on both sides. Personally I feel very strongly that the vandalism
> > to the wiki pages which marks all the useful community-oriented
> > documentation as obsolete be reverted.
> > 
> > I thought Ainga's point that we could be more marketing oriented as bees
> > was spot on. Perhaps he could step up to the mark on that one, as a bee
> > who
> > is also a CEO?
> > 
> > I like very much Heiko's idea for a common model registry, especially if
> > he has some models to donate to it. What a great thing for OOTB to have,
> > especially as the model system confuses newcomers to the product, both for
> > CE and EE I am sure.
> > 
> > I really wish we could have a documentation project. To my mind there has
> > never been any decent documentation for alfresco, and Jeff's noble
> > efforts,
> > which were amazing, were nonetheless stories about how to do certain
> > tasks,
> > and stories do not make decent documentation. I suppose this is a common
> > conflict for open source companies trying to sell consultancy, or to build
> > a partner ecosystem, if the documentation is too good then there will be
> > no
> > need for consultants.
> > 
> > Anyway, great thread really, I actually think that the getting out of
> > control bit was probably a misunderstanding, at least as far as I can tell
> > re-reading the messages. It's great to know that so many people care about
> > the Order. Hopefully we can see a bit more active participation as a
> > result.
> > 
> > Have a great weekend
> > 
> > Martin
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On 21/05/15 09:59, Andreas Steffan wrote:
> > 
> > Hallo everybody,
> > 
> > I can't help myself, but the CE looks pretty bad at
> > https://www.alfresco.com/products/community-vs-alfresco-one to me (red
> > all over the place).
> > 
> > Seriously: Imagine you are a somewhat clueless prospect on that page which
> > reads " Ready to get started? Download the edition that is right for
> > you.".
> > 
> > Would you want to give the CE a try?
> > 
> > regards
> > Andreas
> > 
> > --
> > Andreas Steffan
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