[Zope] Linux Expo & PR & Wired

[Paul Everitt]

Bob Connor wrote:
> I'm thrilled to see you promoting ZOPE.  If you havn't seen
> the May issue of WIRED you should check it out.  There are three
> articles of interest:
> 
> 1) "Open Season - - why an industry of cutthroat competition is 
> suddenly deciding good karma is great business --"  
> Has graph that shows the ONLY OS gaining market share is 
> Linux. ('97 to '98).  Another shows Apache moving from 
> 45% to 54% Jan 98 to Jan 99. And more interesting
> a 25 person Lan: Microsoft vs Linux including
> support:  $21,453 vs $5,544

It certainly seems the wall of invincibility around these brands is
showing some cracks.
 
> 2) "Tour de Source -- A guide to the Start-ups" 
> 22 Open Source companies listed in table
> Alas, Digital Creations is not listed :-)  Four companies with
> only 10 employees are listed.  How big is 
> Digital Creations now?

11 now including a couple of part-time folks.  By the show, based on
some offers we have out, I _really_ hope we're up another 5.  Still tiny
*but* gradually getting out of crisis mode.  We're also establishing
relationships with other companies.

Growing a business while keeping focus is challenging.  Fortunately we
have good people here and good people on the way.  They don't need much
help -- in fact I fired myself two days ago.  I was turning into a
bottleneck and decided to get out of the way.  I trust the people here
much more than I trust myself!
 
> 3) "Free Enterprise -- An open source success story--"
> Good story of Cobalt a company that sells 
> Linux servers: Cube, RaQ, CacheQube etc...
> Hey, I could see ZOPE being bundled in a Cobalt box
> either directly or perhaps more quickly as a
> VAR product.

The number one way to make this happen is for people to convince them
there is a demand.

> Even though the PR firm is expensive, I hope they are good,
> i mean,  GREAT !   Hopefully they are into the web and 
> the computer industry and can get coverage with some
> of the previously mentioned contacts in infoworld,
> linuxworld, wired etc....

They are a technology-only firm that has done good work for some of the
other companies in Verticality's portfolio.  I'm very confident that
they will get us the ear of the opinion makers.  For some of the brand
definition, logo overhaul, taglines, etc., I'm too much of an engineer.
That creative stuff is just mystifying to me :^)

> I'd love to hear more information about the community portal idea.
> I know of a few organizations that would benefit from their 
> own portals.
> Anyone doing this yet?  -- even alpha or beta?

Do you mean anyone doing *our* stuff?  Not yet.  I really hope by the
show, maybe even by the end of the month, we have turned zope.org into a
significant showcase.

> >As part of the PR push we need some of you out there to ride the wave
> >with us and give us some case studies.  This is both crucial for Zope
> >and a great benefit to you!
> 
> 
> Yes,  I hope to have a Case study for you.  Currently I'm testing zope
> "on the internet" and not just my LAN with a 
> Zope host: (Thanks Scott Robertson) http://www.codeit.com 
> My site for now is at  http://rocnet.codeit.com 

Fantastic, look forward to it!

--Paul

Paul Everitt       Digital Creations
paul@digicool.com  540.371.6909