Wow, this is going the right way! I missed half a day and look... where we are already.

I think this discussion proves that this community is alive and kicking. From what I've been reading Kenmc is the right man for the job!

An idea I have been tinkering with in the lat months has been creating a set of teams that costomize module packs for a targeted group of potensial users.

Befor you look away. Think of the potensial. By dooing this potensial users of XOOPS can contact a team dedicated to a set of need.

A corperate tema
A School team
A band team
A Personal homepage team
A sports team

and so on.

If we also had a "design team" taking requests form the other teams then we would would be able to hit the nail on its head so to speak.

At some stage we might need to be able to set a module "mode" to scool or band. we might be able to use costome fuctionality for the diferent modules. This is just a thoght for the future.

Iv been promoting XOOPS for quite a while now. And I always keep getting the same responce. Its complicated. People keep saying its complicated. I personaly find this strange. But I now think I understand what they all are talking about. I suspect its all about number of clicks and the way the admin area is orgenized. To all you hardcore xoopers. Gather a group, create a standard for accesibility. for each unessesary click in a module, it is compounded by x click for x XOOPS instalations. A big waist of time. Dont take this the wrong way. I dont use mambo, I don't use ez. I xoops. Its the CMS that rocks. The name makes people shrug there sholders. And usability migt need a think threw. But it rocks.

Except for the breaking down of packages into individual teams, this is already planned for 2.1.0 when the "core modules" are removed from the core package.

Ok my mistake then. I wasent thinking of braking them down. i was more thinking in the lines of preparing a set of modules for a spesific group of potensial users.

Quote:

sorry perhaps go off-topic again:
As a programmer, I totally agree with you. And I believe webmasters of most median or large size sites would choose a cms according to its capablity not its look.
But for small size sites or personal sites, it is not true. Face/skin is much more important. As a webmaster of XOOPS local support, I know how much the face of a cms influnces a user to choose the cms before he looks insight into its backend capability.

Today I noticed some referrers from a popular site for webmasters in our local language and opened that URL: in the top thread, it is said "look this CMS, excellent" with a link to our local support site. One reply responsed "looks ugly and slowly", then the discussion stopped there. I was upset but nothing can do. We planned to purchase a theme for our XOOPS support site but have not got the money.

XOOPS is famous and respected in our local community, not only because of its powerful capability, one XOOPS creator was from our community, but also because of some actions we have taken (are these called "promotion"? glad to see I am back to this topic again):
1 provide free hosting for (only for) non-commercial XOOPS sites.
2 write blogs in the most popular programmer online community
3 exchange links with the "official Opensource Forge" of our community
4 call for XOOPS documentation translators from outside of XOOPS community (It could be considered as a trick but it works)
5 organize theme/newbb template contest (unfortunately it is frozen there)

I can't help with free hosting, but i'm working with another company in providing specialised hosting services soon - so am more than willing to give a good low price for none-commercial XOOPS webmasters

Mithrandir - from a place I used to work.
The newest person became the FNG = Friendly New Guy (or girl)
This torch was passed as new people came aboard.
It was funny then.

Quote:
In the past this was done with a very small group, 2-3 people.
Lots of direct face-to-face, some phone, and some email.
Lots of collaboration on one plan document.
So I am pondering how to do this with a larger global volunteer group.
- a mailing list for sure
I have mixed feelings on "private" anything, it makes the project less visible.
- a private forum may be useful (certainly to limit the signal-to-noise ratio)
Could we have permissions which would allow editing, deleting, moving, etc.
Document creation, management, would be needed.
Our marketing and PR plans are usually a big table in Word.
Perhaps it is time I get better with OpenOffice.

A mailing list and a forum would be a good start.
The rest will come as needed.

Herko - I share your feelings regarding setting up a big project management app.
At this point this would be overkill and an impediment to progress.

Quote:

Regarding projecting a less "geeky" image - this will require embracing
and addressing the needs of non-technical users. I see a lot of the
non-tech-end-users-are-stupid undercurrent in the forums.
Non-technical users are not stupid. They have different knowledge, different
strengths, and different needs. Not knowing this is ignorance.

I agree 100% regarding ping-pong and setting goals.
The marketing person's job in this area usually is to assist and help guide the
client in establishing marketing and PR goals which are appropriate and achievable.

Project Scope
It is becoming more clear to me.
This was not driven by "We should be doing better marketing."
It was more like - "Mambo got some PR, we should too."

To get a better idea of the XOOPS market focus, I went and read the
All about XOOPS info and the announcement thread about the XOOPS Foundation.
I browsed through the documentation site for any kind of marketing collateral.
Found nothing. If it exists, please point me to it.

From reading these and what you are saying above, XOOPS has had no targeted focus.
I found absolutely nothing.
We are starting from zero.

Because of this, I think it prudent to limit the scope to a couple small
pieces of a full marketing plan which we (the team) can plan and execute in
a relatively short time frame. Try to get some successes under our belt.
Trying to create and execute a complete marketing plan would be futile.
There is no marketing infrastructure, no marketing culture, no marketing
awareness, no marketing expertise in place now that I can see.

I suggest three things:
- Media Plan and Campaign (PR) (2-4 months for first results)
- XOOPS Case Studies (1-2 months)
- XOOPS Marketing Flyer and/or brochure (1-2 months)

Media Plan and Campaign - the goal is to increase awareness of XOOPS.
This is done by getting XOOPS covered in articles and news online and in print.
First we figure out who is covering this type of product and
then provide them with the info for them to include in the article.
A database of the authors is created - the Media List.

Things people can help with:

- Gathering articles already written about CMS systems, open source, etc.
This will tell us who is doing the writing and what is being covered.
Reporters who cover CMS and open source are more likely to write about XOOPS.
How to find the articles - article links on other CMS web sites, articles.com,
Google search for subjects and for competitors names, . . . be creative.
The result should be a list of article titles, author name and email, URL links.
We can then customize an article idea for the author based on their history.

- Media list. A list of name, publication, email, beat, articles written.
This database will be the target list for XOOPS article ideas, press releases, etc.
Example - go to InfoWorld site, find list of editors and reporters, see who
covers open source, CMS systems, corp IT, etc.
Name, title, email, publication, relevant articles written.
Sometimes this is a reporter, sometimes an editor.
When in doubt select managing editor, then main editor.
Some sites have a designated email for article or press release submission.
Goal - 1,000 to 2,000 names globally who may cover XOOPS.

- Editorial Calendars. Most publications online and offline publish and editorial
calendar which shows what subjects they will be covering in each issue. If eWeek
is covering CMSs in Sept.2005 we want to submit info about XOOPS to the writer.
Usually these are online HTML or PDF. We need to gather hard copy of these calendars.
The PDF or saved web page. This info will be used to create our own calendar
of opportunities for getting coverage.
Lead times. Print publications must have the info 2-3 months in advance of the
publication date. Online publications - lead time is much shorter.
Online news sites even shorter.
Goal - top 10-20 publications we want, and then the rest (could be 100s)

XOOPS Case Studies
Case studies are useful in many ways. For a media campaign they can be
easily re-purposed into an article, or a portion of an article.
Reporters write about what their readers care about. A case study
about their type of reader gives them a big head start on an article.
Case studies are also very useful for influencing the non-tech decision makers.

Need Xoopers input here for sure to identify good case study candidates.
Let's aim for three. Three different types of users. (who ???)
Obviously you want to present the best implementations you can.
Who is selected will affect what we can get covered. For example, InfoWorld is
not going to write about a game site, that is not their reader.
A case study about a corporate user is more likely to get their attention.

How you can help:
Please post your ideas for XOOPS users to cover in a case study.
An incentive - the user covered will get lots of free publicity.
Please collect other CMS case studies for ideas.
Write a case study!
Goal - 3-5 quality case studies.

XOOPS Marketing Flyer
This summarizes the benefits of using XOOPS.
And some of the features which create those benefits.
High quality design print piece. PDF and print.
Useful to attract attention, influence decision makers.
Helps create a quality image.

Features do not sell, benefits do.
Benefit - What it does for me.
Feature - How it does it.
Tech people tend to list all the features on a flyer.
Users do not select (or buy) a CMS based on features.
They buy benefits.

How you can help:
- List the benefits of selecting and using XOOPS.
- List the advantages of using XOOPS
- List the features that support or enable those benefits.


Thanks to all for the positive input.

Ken McDonald

Quote:
I realized did not address this.

wtravel/Martijn has kindly offered to do a SWOT analysis.
SWOT - Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
This is a big job requiring substantial marketing expertise.
A big thank you Martijn!

This analysis looks at our product (XOOPS) in comparison to other products
in the same target markets.

We need to identify some target markets to analyze.
You all know more than I do about who is using XOOPS and how.
Some discussion ideas:
- corporate intranet
- web hub site
- web corporate site
- web portal site
- web community site
- big sites, small sites ??
- ?????
ecommerce is out.
I suggest selecting one market where XOOPS is strong now, and one you want to penetrate.

We need to select some competitors to analyze in those markets.
Some discussion ideas:
- Mambo
- Drupal
- Plone
- commercial CMSs ??
- phpNuke
- ????
Who is the main competitor in each of the two markets selected above?

The size of the analysis job multiplies by the number of markets
and competitors analyzed. 2 to 3 of each should be more than enough
to start and educate everyone as to what SWOT analysis is and
how to use it. Long-term it is an ongoing process.

Martijn - your thoughts on the project scope?

Input is needed on who and where we want to compete.
Based on the goals of the XOOPS Foundation,
which market/end-user do you want to target?

My choice as a proponent of open source would be to target at least one well known commercial product in a market which is most likely to help the long-term goals of the XOOPS project.
I would like nothing better than help an open source product kick some commercial products figurative ass.
That would get some headlines.

That would also require a commitment to developing solutions to the XOOPS weaknesses
identified as features needed to compete in that market.
Tough challenge, but rewarding.

Thanks.

Ken

Ken, I think that it would be good if we communicated more directly about this. Not to hide anything from anyone, but for both of us to get a feeling about the other, to test the water, so to speak. I prefer internet communications (MSN/ICQ/etc. or Skype), but the phone is also good. I'm at GMT+1, western europe, so that might be an issue here too. Can you PM me about this?

Herko

Hi Ken,

I agree, a smaller focus to start with will be a good solution in order to get results faster.

A double approach would be best to ensure we keep the big picture. I will keep you posted on this via PM.

Best wishes,

Martijn