Marketing Status Check [For all MODx Team folks]

Hey all,

I know that everyone is very busy working lots of projects both personal and otherwise but I just wanted to take stock of MODx’s Marketing.

Lets all share in what’s happening relating to marketing related actions, 097 progress, website progress, other such progress.

I think it is important that we can get the marketing going again as 096x will be with us for at least the next year and we are still looking to attract more bright devs to the community.

Anything anyone can share: thoughts, progress, updates, requests, comments or flames (at me) would be appreciated.

Cheers and have fun!

Jay

New logo, coming soon.

Just for information, an amusing thing is happening here in Israel. I hate the telephone and never use it if I don’t have to; only one person in the world (other than telemarketers, of course ) has the number. Suddenly I’m getting phone calls from somebody wanting help with MODx who looked me up in the book (too cheap to go unlisted!). Then he gives my number to somebody else, and it spreads...

Now I’m getting work from a web development shop here, as "the only MODx insider in Israel"

Which means I have to get on somebody’s (no names will be mentioned here) case to get them to get at least the Manager language files translated into Hebrew. Mexico has nothing on this place for "manana syndrome"!

Or start (again) seriously studying Hebrew and hope it takes this time...

097 development is going along slowly. We need more devs - right now only 1-3 of us are active.

I’ve put up a few articles, on my confluence blog on developing in PHP in MODx 0.9.7, and will probably continue to write more as the summer goes on. Hopefully this will draw more devs.

We need a good Ext/CSS designer(s) too, to do the styling for 097.

And our documentation for 0.9.7 is sorely lacking. Unfortunately, our core active devs (all three of them) are too busy trying to code the core to write a ton of documentation. We need people who will step up - I can speak for us devs that we would love to answer questions so that documentors can get a firmer understanding of 0.9.7 so that they can help write docs, but we just don’t have the time to do the docs ourselves.

"More people in the project" is basically the summary of this post. Thanks for doing a status check Jay.

So news so far is:

Logo Coming
Website Coming?
MODx is gaining commercial demand (I’ve now done several contracts from a design firm seeking MODx expertise as a result of their client interest.)
MODx is looking for devs, designers and documentation contribs.

I’m going to hope that Jason and some of the others will drop in on this thread so I can propose some strategy to start the wheels turning again. I’ve got some ideas up my sleeve and want to start implementing ASAP.

On a side note: I think we should stick a fork in the logo and call it done. We could "perfect" it till the cows come home but I think that it’s good enough. Maybe in another branding revision cycle we can hold a contest or hire "in" again.

My personal thoughts on Short Term actions: Revive the project blog, highlight the development blog (the stuff Shaun is writing and some of the past articles from the old "near dead" MODx Blog), get involved in some of the social networking sites (as MODx not as individuals), create a campaign to get devs onto MODx and then start contributing, start building the brand so that the reward for devs and designers to contribute will be a bigger gain. A Get MODx badge/minisite to bring more attention to the project from builders and end users, build some real world business cases for dev/design houses/folks to train to meet the demand, documentation to go with it. ’

Finally, on the documentation thing, we are seriously overcomplicating the desired outcome for the project user/development documentation. People want well organized, current information on how to use, develop and extend MODx, we are not writing the manual for a Airbus jet but a CMF that all of us know how to use at varying levels of depth--we don’t have to hit every techincal point the first time out. Personally, I’d love us to draft some folks to audit the "Documentation" and just clean it up, correct errors and get it up. If it isn’t perfect we’ll continue to work on it. We have on of the best, friendliest and active user/dev communities OS or commercial I’ve ever seen (ever post something on the WordPress forum? May as well write it in snow on a hot day). Lets get these people involved. Have them post corrections, changes ommissions to a forum thread and we (I and others can change it).

These are not criticisms but a rallying cry. Tally ho, MODx!

As always, all the best,

Jay

Website is also coming.

Thanks Jay for picking the ball and keeping marketing alive, I have been pretty much out of it the past few weeks part of it due to financial struggles that I needed to straigten out... freelancing IS a balancing act ! Anyway things are straightening out at last and I hope to be more active from mid-july, summer is a good time to move forward as clients are slowing down quite a bit (at least here in France).

I am in line with you last post about short term priorities, great summary of what needs done here !

I’ll "report for duty" in a week or so, I am taking a few days from next thursday to the following wednesday, to recharge my batteries and hopefully be of more help that I have been lately

New logo, coming soon.

Website is also coming.

If you guys need help... I’m interested in these topics and would like to contribute.

On topic: MODx has a growing community here in germany, the system also is mentioned in a few print magazine articles (although nothing big).

With the new decision to make a revolution, I think we better hit the market. Looking at the growing documentation, the more consistent look of WTF, I think it is very important to encapsulate all parts of official MODx websites in a consistent look and feel:

- Website
- Forum
- Official documentation
- Wiki (with better usability)
- Bugtracker
-...

So my suggestion qould be to develop a Corporate Design guide, from which all the the parts can profit. I think it would be the wrong way to start with one project, e.g. the website and then adopt all other fields because one never know if a developed design fits all issues. Better create a CD manual first where all design elements are described (logo, position, colors, patterns and so on) and then build the different sites according to that guide.

There is a tremendous effort coming on the logo/website/color palette and other design guides in general. I think you’ll be pleased, the logo and layout tweaks coming from the guys at http://www.signalfeuer.info/

Logo and design tweaks to be revealed soon!

Eager to see this indeed, but I am pretty confident about this seeing their work so far