[Zope] Front door on the Zope web site (Was Re: [Zope] SmartWorker)

[Paul Everitt]

Patrick Phalen wrote:
> Every corporation in the world with any foresight is now formulating
> its strategy for getting its business on the Internet. Within a year,
> most of them will have chosen a course. The majority of them will allow
> themselves to get seduced into a lockin platform environment, of the
> Allaire, Vignette variety. Why? Because these platforms have market

I spend all my time now talking to people that have looked at Vignette
et al. and are eager to do business with us.  The reason is simple:
they'd rather be in control than be controlled.

But at the same time I realize that these folks represent the
highly-enlightened minority.  And I do fear mightily for what you
discuss in this email.  Thus you've successfully flushed me out of
seclusion. :^)

> share, deployable marketing strategies, trained business development
> teams, large established clients they can point to, slick
> documentation and aftermarket support. Like it or not, these are the
> ingredients that buyers look for when they make a purchasing decision
> that their job security hangs on. Where does Zope fall down in this
> mix? Primarily in providing clear positioning to prospective new users.

No kidding.  Unfortunately there isn't a clear answer.  I'm certainly
open to suggestions.

> Of course, Zope users know that these other users will probably come to

Ironically if you did a survey of Zope users, most would probably say
the same tale of woe.  "I found out about Zope, downloaded it, worked
like hell to understand it, then the light bulb turned on."

> regret their choice down the road when the platform runs out of steam,
> but by then they'll also likely put up with any sort of delay and
> kludge from their platform providers, just because of the pain of
> making a switch. Microsoft and Oracle have both profited from this kind
> of inertia.
> 
> I'd like to suggest we should all, as a community, take a fresh look at
> the front door on the Zope web site and suggest improvements to make
> sure that new prospective users can get an *immediate* grasp of Zope's
> unique "selling" propositions.

This is a very, very important thread to me.  I'm looking for two
things:

  o What questions should the Zope.org home page, and pages 
    one click away, answer?

  o What are some effective ways to answer those questions?

--Paul