Tag: clarion evangelism

Well.

"Interesting" is the word that first comes to my mind.

Most people have offered immediate congratulations, despite whatever they might be thinking. This is good. It means there are people who wish the community to grow, despite what realities they might see before us.

Some folk have chosen their words slowly, wanting to neither leap upon this with total abandonment or shoot it down in flames .. with a flamethrower. (Because why would anything else that shoots use flames, always wondered that .. heh heh)

It’s a tricky situation. On the one hand, you have my obvious enthusiasm and spark for craziness. This does count for something. But it’s not much, especially when weighed against the might of what lies before an attempt to bring more global success to Clarion.

I have the support of many very cool people. People with a lot of brains and capabilities and dedication to the Clarion Community. This is vital.

But it’s not enough to make things work. Enthusiasm. Craziness. Support. These are all elements of what will be success, but they do not equal that success.

What will determine success is, as always, time. You will have to wait and see if I am successful in the Tech Evangelist role. I have put a lot of thought into the role. I have put a lot of time talking to people, fleshing out ideas. But there’s so much more. Just over the weekend my head was floundering with the enormity of what is before me. It’s huge. But that’s not stopping me, in fact, it spurs me on.

If there was one thing I need to get across at the beginning, it’s this:

CONTACT ME

That’s what I really want. To have conversation with people. To respond to criticisms in conversation one on one. To address concerns. To bring excitement. To show vision and purpose. In Conversation. With you.

There’s a lot of exciting possibilities in front of us. Stay tuned.

[EDIT, 19/01/2008]

Read Bob’s post first. Then this one will probably make more sense. Again, read this .. http://www.softvelocity.net/community/blogs/clarion_news/archive/2008/01/18/2279.aspx

It has long been my desire (and for regular readers this is not a new piece of information) that Clarion would take it’s rightful place in the software development community alongside the major players.

With this in mind, Soft Velocity and I are embarking on a new (ad)venture. I will be taking on the role of Tech Evangelist for Clarion.

[EDIT, 19/01/2008]

I need to clarify.

The Tech Evangelist role can be summarised as:

1. Mediate between the Community and Soft Velocity, voicing concerns and
delivering purpose. This will bring strength to the community.

2. Promote Clarion to the wider development community, through a variety of
means. This will bring growth to the community.

There is a huge opportunity for the strengthening and growth of our community. I’m sure we all look forward to this happening.

So here’s to a future where Clarion rules supreme across the universe. All hail Clarion!

{ cue the Clarion Love Song }

The second of Bob’s recent postings (here) runs through a number of reasons _why_ .Net is teh awesome.

A lot of these ideas get me pretty excited. I’m sure a lot of this stuff could be argued away, that we can already do it, that blah blah blah. But you know, I’m happy for someone else to think about these things and tell me, and develop a tool that’ll do the job with relative ease for me.

That’s cool.

The bell is about to toll. It tolls for thee Grossbard!

Ahem.

What I mean is, that Bob and the rest of the team must be feeling the pressure. Obviously, with these posts, .Net is nearing some kind of release, and although it could still be a while away, we are being geared up.

This is good and bad.

Good, because movement is there. Things are happening.

Bad, because it’s still, again, half-assed. This isn’t a proper snowball. I want something big, something huge. Rolling down the mountain, taking out not just trees, but entire forests and cities, leaving destruction and chaos in it’s wake!

That’s pimping!

This new product does sound like something amazing. So where is Clarion in the world wide press? The software development blogs? The reviewing sites, news sites, other blog sites? Underground, overground, wombling free.

I know organising this kind of vehicle (the above mentioned snowball) takes time and resources. I just see it as more important than NOT.

This is, by the way, not a rant. I have the greatest respect for Bob and Bob and the rest of the team. They are doing a massive work. They are doing a work that for the most part, is battered and whined about and taken apart. The nature of making stuff with an existing audience I would think.

But this is born out of some frustration. It’s like the frustration I feel when remembering my talk at the Aussie Dev Con. You know, I got one email back (I guess that’s more than a one percent success rate, technically, heh heh). And this from a guy who doesn’t even have me on his list of clarion websites. Granted, I’m no ClarionMag, but still. Phew. Breathe. Seems to be some latent aggression building.

One of my great failings is this: If I get no results, I move on. It’s hard to continue, month in and out, when after imploring some involvement from others, there is nothing.

Of course, another great failing is my selfishness. There _are_ others doing good work in the community.

It’s just, I had so many cool plans. Even if most of them sucked in reality, it’s very frustrating that not a one of them has come to fruition.

So why am I whining? Probably because sometimes whining gets a response. But also, I’ve moved on.

As a friend once encouraged me, I’m pursuing my dreams.

An effective weapon in the war on .. in the bringing of Clarion to the Masses ™, will (and is) that of Propaganda.

Now, there are two types of Propaganda. Good and Bad. Both have effective parts to play, although they carry with them consequences.

Bad Propaganda is all about bringing down the competition, so that no matter what height Clarion has, it’s the only thing to see for miles.

Good Propaganda is all about raising Clarion (in this case) so high above the competition that it reaches across the horizon and grabs your attention like the real Galactus from Fantastic Four (not the stupid cloud from the movie).

Good uses of Bad Propaganda are:

• At least our Product doesn’t Melt Your Servers
• The Only Blue Screens In Our Product Are Pictures Of Sky
• We Don’t Say Silly Things Like "Do No Evil"
• If You Use Anyone Else’s Product, Your Computer Will Laugh At You

Bad Uses of Good Propaganda are:

• Our Product Might Work For You
• We Don’t Solve Problems, We Hire More Programmers
• The Marketing Department Makes The Rules

Ideally, you want Good Propaganda.

Why?

Because it means that your product actually has some merit. Bad Propaganda means you’re really good at making people think the opposition suck, and deflecting attention on the flaws of your own system/product/whatever. Good Propaganda means (hopefully) that your offering is a class act, and the opposition cannot hope to compete, and that it’s flaws are minimal, very minimal.

How does that translate with Clarion? In reality, I think you’d need a mixture of both.

Good Propaganda to really fire up about the wonderful things Clarion can do for you.

Bad Propaganda to point out just how sucky (in relation to the cool stuff) the competition is.

Of course, there is a third form of Propaganda which isn’t really. But it must be included.

Because, as astute readers will have concluded already, the above two Propaganda’s are not enough.

The Third Propaganda, is Honest Propaganda.

It’s agreeing with an assessment of the flaws of your offering. While doing this, you can be swinging into gear some Good and Bad, ready to fire it away. But honesty of the flaws will always combat dishonesty. In my world at least. Which is relatively small granted. Ha.

So maybe I’ll have a different attitude when running a multi-zillion dollar company.

I hope this has given even one person a little zing for evangelising Clarion.

That’s it. Easy. Convert one person to the glorious life of a Clarionite.

Let’s say I convert an unsuspecting almost nerd to the joys of Clarion. That’s one more person for the community who could become the next president of Soft Velocity.

But let’s say that one hundred people in the community each get one newb into the community. Think of it!

I’m currently working on one particular individual. Not a programmer, but has the mind for it I think.

It’s all about the sell. When I’m talking to someone about Clarion, I _believe_. Doesn’t really matter for this particular instance whether I actually think Clarion is the bees knees .. but for the purpose of the conversation the display of belief matters very much.

Sure, the best way is to show how good it is at making money. Yeah, I’ve heard it said, and I do think that’s right.

No. That’s the best way to get a particular type of person to use Clarion.

The best way period, is as with everything else in our world. Establish a trend, get talismanic leader, and iconic speaker/personality (or a few of them), make big noises, take the fight to the other communities.

But this post isn’t about my ranting.

It’s about the idea that to effectively evangelise Clarion, we need to convert one unbeliever.