It seems that a lot of the things we can improve on in our community can trace their origins back to messaging. Witness Chris Calloway's observations regarding damage to our reputation from consultants trying to solve any and every problem with Plone and poor expectations regarding how much adopters should expect to have to engage the services of consultants. Witness the confusion regarding whether Plone's sweet spot is an enterprise CMS or a small organization CMS (I think it may be both, but we're not good a communicating how that is). Witness the oft cited expectations problems with the 2.5 release and the pain I now feel about the surrendering already established expectations about the 4.0 release. Witness the framework vs product debate. We're now targeting the notion of Plone Base and Plone the Product and a Plone API but are we going to do enough to communicate what that means to the far reaches of Plone communities? I know that I and others appreciate the openness, democracy, and introspection in Plone communities that allows us to be honest about how the glass is half empty but regret that more isn't done to share and express how the glass is half full. It also seems that our marketing story could be significantly improved with a better shared understanding of the various different messages we'd like to get out there.
To be sure, I like the decentralized and democratic character of Plone communities and I don't in any way suggest we sacrifice that. I do think, however, that there's a lot we can do in the way of instilling sufficient messaging discipline without sacrificing those qualities. Bringing good release discipline by canonizing a release manager, for example, has been a huge win for Plone user experience without sacrificing the openness of Plone development. I think appointing a "Messaging manager" would be a bad idea, I only cite that as an example of how discipline can be improved without sacrificing openness. I know the PSPS did a lot to address messaging in the Plone world. I wonder, however, if recently we're not once more drifting too far from sufficient messaging discipline. It seems likely such drift is bound to recur without some sort of somewhat central institution concerned with discipline. I don't think control is necessary here. This is one of the great things about Plone communities. We respond well to a sense of shared mission. The value here would not be in policing, but rather in ensuring that we have a continuous dedication of resources to the matter of messaging. The mission might be merely to start the discussions that need to happen but aren't and to take the messages that come out of all relevant discussions and ensure their wide dissemination to the far reaches of Plone communities. It would also have to be a broad, rather than narrow, team with strong technical, marketing, and user voices to ensure integral messaging. Messaging like this can have a subtle effect that may become very powerful when compounded through shared understanding and repetition. So could a team be formed or delegated with the responsibility of reviewing Plone messaging? Would such an institution be a slippery slope to too much dogma or other stifling restriction? What might be some other ways to improve messaging in Plone communities? Is this an issue we're already addressing sufficiently and we just need to give it time? Is there a value to enshrining this process even if it's already happening? Is this not an issue? :) Ross _______________________________________________ Framework-Team mailing list Framework-Team@lists.plone.org http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/framework-team