Thanks, Jonah, for posting this. I do think that you hit the nail on the head, though, with your endnote: most RFPs don't list "fun, quick and collaborative" among their requirements.

Educating our clients (or potential clients) to make good decisions is without question a good thing. But most of us (and I'm referring to consultants), most of the time, aren't brought in early in the process. And the RFP stage is a little too late to be making a pitch that doesn't appeal to the client's stated needs.

Even most nonprofits that I work with, for whom the argument that software should reflect the user's mission should resonate most strongly, generally want off-the-shelf, closed (usually) source software because that's what they're familiar with. Open source, GPL, and other acronyms or jargon present an additional barrier to entry for these folks. And they certainly don't care about keeping developers happily working with a good product.

So if clients aren't making decisions on the basis of these criteria, why should we expend capital (monetary and otherwise) trying to market Plone in this way? Plone stacks up pretty well against other commercial (mostly) CMS's

shouldn't we hone arguments that actually address their claims? Or are you saying something different here?

I get it. It would help if I'd read the supporting materials first. :)

The personal ad campaign document is really well done, btw, and will be useful collateral for developers pitching Plone, among other things. The anthropomorphizing of software does make complex systems more accessible to folks by speaking to them using language and analogies they're comfortable with. So I think it's a good (and fun) approach. Kudos.

Hi Trey,

Glad this is making sense - you beat me to a reply, but I have a few more thoughts to add.

Edumacating clients (and ourselves) is a continuous process, and bearing the burden of selling Open Source is often an important aspect of a Plone pitch. Furthermore, I think that the Value Proposition really kicks into gear when people begin to digest the "fundamental shift from software as artifact to software as service"
(see Tim O'Reilly's excellent redux on Web 2.0 - http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html?page=4).

Beyond this technical argument, is the also the idea that many decisions are made at the emotional level, not at the rational one. Another good reason for targeting emotional triggers which correspond to specific, well thought out, technical considerations. While I understand that we need to be able to reply to existing RFPs on existing terms, there is also nothing stopping us for redefining and expanding the terms and dimensions of the debate. Wouldn't you want your potential client to pause upon considering these questions, and then turn around and interrogate their other vendors on these criteria as well? While Plone shines in feature matrix comparisons, once the notion of software as a service is fully internalized, evaluating the software ecology I describe becomes a *much* more important consideration.

Another exercise that we conducted at the marketing workshop which relates to this was trying to answer the following question: "It's September, 2006 - What sort of Plone headline would you like to read in slashdot, wired, or nytimes/circuits?" The answers we gathered were varied and far ranging (http://lists.plone.org/pipermail/marketing-committee/2005-September/000449.html), but I do think that continued reflection on all that things Plone can accomplish now, and what we want it to accomplish and in the future will result in a more purposeful and deliberate software, that has a greater and more focused impact.