What Can MODX/Agencies do to better promote MODX

Okay this is really pulling from a twitter conversation that I had started. I had made a comment on how I see other CMS tends to have meetups, events (boot camps, training) as ways to promote their CMS and help others gain more knowledge about their product. These events/meetups that I usually see/follow are usually from people who are part of agencies. Now granted the MODX team is full and their lives pretty much revolves around building one of the best CMS in the world. So that leaves us with the opportunities to have agencies involved.

Granted I know every company is busy, but from my perspective this is a WIN/WIN for both MODX and Agencies if they offer training opportunities, meetups, and bootcamps. Reason that is being, people are going to always say "What is MODX? I have never heard of them before?" Now granted most people might not want to deal with the web to learn more about a CMS or a product, but a person to person interaction is usually the best way to sell a product. So by offering opportunities in meetups, training, boot camp - this open doors for agencies to potential clients, potential future employees for the agency, potential contributors to the MODX community. MODX is still in its infancy the way I see it, it hasnt fully matured when we are talking consumer wise.

The reason why I got to thinking about this is because I do follow other CMS, some agencies of other CMS and etc. And like last week - they had an event in Dallas for 3 days and had over 200 attendees. And then this Friday is that CMS World Training Day (Dallas is offering one and Austin is as well I believe), and then on Saturday Austin is offering a Beginner Training to that CMS. And the seats were filling up. Now this CMS is a nice CMS but comparing it to MODX it definitely is not as flexible and personally I don't think it is as user friendly. So point being, I got to thinking "Okay now we have books coming out on MODX which is awesome! Now next step - offer maybe a bootcamp (one day maybe to start), every 3-4 months or 6 months - Build from that. This would enhance the exposure of MODX, and enhance the agencies exposure as well.

I dont know if I am asking alot, but personally I'd like to see more get involved in the outreach part of MODX. MODX has an awesome/wonderful virtual community - the best I am involved in. But the key to growth/success in my opinion is more Person to Person interaction. When Houston hosted the first MODX Meetup - it was outstanding, we had 30+ folks at the meetup the room was filled with different people from different backgrounds. Some folks who have NEVER heard of MODX, some folks who were MODX gurus, we had three major MODX agencies there and it was outstanding. Going into the 2nd meetup - the meetup itself was outstanding, but the outcome of the people who attending was a bit disappointing. So question is how do we keep promoting the growth of meetups/etc. I have attended other meetups and they have a pretty decent number as well, but when it comes to training/boot camps it definitely boosts the number.

Thoughts?

Great initiative Billy!

We would love to see more regular meetups, boot-camps, barcamps and more grassroots evangelism in general. There are several challenges in accomplishing this. People who want to organize one often think it's a bigger challenge than it is. Simply set a date and spread the word. Don't wait for consensus on a date save for making sure that people who might present or speak can come. I've organized meetups without a venue or a time up until the week before and had 15-20 people show up. This is a more informal meetup but some more formal learning events can be done similarly.

I'd love for you to share some of the topics from the more educational events where there is a mix of hands on and presented information. What did you like what did you not. These can be 1/2 day, full day, evening, lunch-learns etc.

I don't think you're asking a lot at all. These types of events driven by individual companies, large and small showing off their expertise in the projects they do and skills they have are tremendously valuable in demonstrating thought leadership in the industry in general. (sorry for the marketing BS term).

I hope to see some suggestions from other folks who were on the chat to see if we can't come up with a variety of formats and perhaps we together can develop some tools/kits for making them easier to put together and make them an awesome experience.

Nice start Billy and Jay, I think there is room for a lot to be done in MODX as in promoting it as a tool to be used alongside the other large CMS's available. I think we can change the perspective for potential users by make tutorials more up to date, cleaning up the documentation (#documentationfriday) and giving the user a more clear view of what they can accomplish with MODX.

I have been developing sites in MODX of all sizes and one of the major hurdle for other developers/users is the documentation. Training on how to use the CMS is good, but firstly we need to get the wider audience attention about what they can accomplish with the system, after all there are many other competitors who have proven what can be done with their system.

I think meetups are good to have whether the turnout was good or bad, of course its better if it was good, meetups should probably try different formats to see what works among each group. Having photos taken of a meetup is good, having a website for a meetup is even better. People attending want to know what is happening and people not able to attend want to know what happened, these are the things that will get a user returning to a meetup.

I giving tips about the CMS online helps promote it, helping to make it a better system, a more manageable one, easier to use one, educating other developers on best practises and showing ways to achieve various tasks help to improve online presence of both the system and the individual/company.

This thread is 3 months old but the topic is everlasting.

I'm a newcomer to ModX and I can cite some very specific issues that I think need to be addressed.

1. It all starts at home. This CMS is burdened by a long history which just confuses newcomers. The environment needs to be scaled down, or perhaps given a new home, where only current information is available, allowing newcomers to focus and find what they need.
2. There are broken links all over this environment, links to modxcms which don't work and others which have broken due to recent site improvements. If the information repository frustrates newcomers they won't stick around.
3. Related: Information is in too many diverse places: The RTFM, the forum, the wiki, and a host of fan sites. The RTFM must contain confirmed information pulled in from the wiki and other resources. Then the wiki needs to have this info removed. The wiki should be a staging area for content which could be included in the RTFM, but it's supplemental until it is included. Information should not be redundant between resources or people will waste their time filtering through duplicated data. Again - don't frustrate the noobs.
4. Throughout the environment, allow registered (trusted) users to tag content to make it easier to find and filter.
5. Use a Custom Google Search Engine to facilitate searches across all known resources, including fan sites, blogs, etc.
6. Create a wiki page with all known resources for more information about ModX. Google for Modx and catalog the good resources.
7. Create mechanisms that make it easy to keep content current or to invalidate it. If I'm hunting for info on Foo and I read an entire thread only to realize it's old Evo stuff that no longer applies, I'm going to get frustrated. If someone who knows the environment stumbles on the same thread, they can hit a checkbox that identifies the content as obsolete and other similar categorizations.
8. Similarly (common theme here), when I look through the forum and find most areas haven't been updated in a few years, I question whether I'm going to base new development on that environment. Don't let this happen. Keep comment current or archive it.
9. And regarding the world map with push pins to identify user/developers. Resources like that get outdated. It's an ego stroke to see a lot of pushpins, but the reality is that a lot of those people haven't been using the software for years. So whenever planning things like that, include a mechanism to keep it current so that people see it in a current context, not just historical.
10. (<< point zero?) As a final bit of cleanup - get rid of the old plugins or have developers re-certify them. A long list of old plugins is like a graveyard. It's frustrating to find that in a list of plugins that we can only use some subset of them for one reason or another. Again - don't waste people's time or they'll get frustrated and leave.

The bottom line on all of this is that when someone comes to the site to see what the platform is about now, they should find current features and current discussions, and have some idea about the current state of the platform, the number of developers, plugins, etc. Everyone who has a vested interest in the ongoing success of this platform should be motivated to having a clean house for their own use and to attract noobs who may be coming from other CMS platforms.

Once the house is in order, it's time to start active marketing. Be careful about premature marketing. You don't want to do a mass marketing effort to bring wide, curious eyes to a site that's in chaos, or you're going to convey the opinion (sorry) that this is a platform that seems to have been on life-support for a period of years, held together by just a passionate few.

1. After googling and creating a list of mentions of the app, start looking for old and invalid information. If anything older than Revo v2 is mentioned or profiled in an article, it's a target for an update. Old information is anti-Marketing because it advertises old functionality which may not be appealing. Community ambassadors can notify sites that they have old info. Refreshed info is much more attractive to people looking for new software - and it starts showing up higher in search engines.
2. Get people talking about ModX. Drop references in places where people are talking about CMS options. This might be a little slimy to some people, but stealth marketing can be used gracefully: Find forum discussions where people are comparing Joomla to Drupal, etc. Comment on-topic, in-context, respectfully, and without being solicitous, but mention ModX. Provide a link if appropriate to the refreshed info repositories. Don't be annoying or people will associate that with the platform. Forum discussions aren't just about what's happening now - comments about ModX will survive in forums for years, so they need to point to resources that will never go away. Over time, people will see these references, will wonder what ModX is, maybe Google it and find the refreshed sites discussed above. Then they will come to this site to download it, and get exposed to the new, well organized info repositories that don't have old info and broken links.

NOW that you have more people coming in, you can start talking about small conferences.

I'd suggest trying to do as much as possible online. There are no travel costs and it allows people to get a taste of the community. That's a great way to get a lot more people who can't afford time or money for a conference, and gets a lot of people who don't feel they're ready for a conference yet. Once some critical mass is confirmed, THEN go for regional conferences. Based on the success and experience of those events, a plan can be made for a global conference.

I'd love to help implement that plan but I have a small software business to run. That's the problem with grassroots efforts - getting people to actually Do something when there are a million things to do. I think part of the solution here is (as above) to break down the ToDo's into manageable pieces which people can accept and work on without fear of timing constraints or breaking commitments. This is yet another aspect of such a plan:

1. Make it easy for the community to participate.
2. Avoid nebulous objectives that seem to require the efforts of the few who know the platform the best.
3. Itemize small targets that a number of people can break up and collaborate on.
4. Have a place where efforts are recognized. Not only does this make contributors feel better but it inspires similar small but significant contributions from others. It also draws in consulting business, thus stimulating the community with more tangible benefits.
5. Create a forum area where people can discuss their little piece of the ModX world and coordinate their efforts, discuss challenges, etc. Other people might see these little pockets and chime in.

Hmmm. Nahhhh. (hits Delete button)