Business Matters Game Plan

[Gabe]

Hi all I wanted to fill everyone in on the progress of the Business
Matters section. With a deadline looming this week I have had to make
some quick decisions.

First I have decided to keep the Business Matters name. I personally
liked the dual meaning and thought it fit well for the section.

I have defined the audience and the scope of the content based on who
I thought would be the biggest and most interested audiences. The
primary focus being freelancers, agencies and extensions developers.

Target Audience – Joomla based Business Owners, Executives, Marketers,
Sales Professionals and HR Professionals. – Specifically those who
sell Joomla based services or products.

Freelancers and Agencies who use Joomla
Joomla Extension and Template Developers
Joomla Hosting Companies
Joomla Education & Training Companies
Joomla Support Companies

Companies that sell services or products using Joomla may benefit from
the content as well but they will not be the primary focus.

Scope – Anything that the target audience would find useful to their
business or would generally interest them from a business perspective.
Topics to include:

Sales
Marketing
Finances
Human Resources
Operations
Business Development
Legal
Technology
General Business Interest
Project Management
Editorials focused on Business Aspects

I have began brainstorming content and you can see here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jx1xMdu4Y0ajwqmYR_bxACtmA4VzAmgYKtBM6zTdTSw/edit

Please feel free to suggest topics. I hope to have a years schedule
complete by net month.

For this month we will be publishing 3 articles:

1.) Properly setting your hourly rate
2.) Pro and Cons of releasing an extension from a business perspective
3.) A marketing article - TBD - Luke our internet marketing specialist
will be writing this.

Next month i want to start a recurring series that goes behind the
scenes of different Joomla based businesses and gives you a behind the
scenes look of there office space, business philosophies, tools,
staff, revenue (if they will disclose) etc. I have a pretty good list
started below of business I would like to target but have a few
TBA's.

Extension Developers – Anything Digital, Red Web, +1 TBD
Template Developers – Rocket Theme, Yootheme,
Agencies – Savvy Panda, +1 TBD, +1 TBD
Support & Education – OS Training + Alledia, Open Source
Support Desk
Hosting – Cloud Access, Rochen

I want to model this similar to a series they run on Lynda.com and
will be trying to get as much rich media as possible to go along with
these.

I will be beginning to build the writer base and if anyone is
interested in contributing let me know. I think a big part of
recruiting will be at events.

I would love to hear everyone's feedback.

[Paul Orwig]

Hi Gabe,

Thank you for sharing your plan for the Business Matters topic! I like the strong vision and clear focus you have defined for this topic, and I think the subjects you want to cover will be helpful to many JCM readers.

I think the JCM can and should still cover some of the broader technology and enterprise-related subjects that we have brainstormed about for the business topic. In some cases they may fit into the Business Matters topic, in other cases they may be a better fit in Feature Stories or another JCM topic.

What feedback do others have for Gabe?

Regards,

paul

[Alice Grevet]

Dear Gabe,

I think your Business Matters planning document is amazing and I'm so excited about all of these articles to look forward to! You are going to hit on so many issues of great interest to tons of people!

I have one detail to add (wherever you see fit) and it kind of fits in to the topic of what to charge for work. How do you prepare your client to budget down the line for site migrations due to the big version releases (like 1.5 to 2.5?). How do you get your client to buy into that reality and build it into a contract?

Thanks for working on this - I'm so excited!

Best,

Alice

[Jen Kramer]

Alice, I wrote that article back in August.

http://magazine.joomla.org/issues/Issue-Aug-2011/item/530-Nine-Questions-When-Preparing-Clients-for-Joomla-1-8

Thanks,
Jen

On Feb 21, 1:51 pm, Alice Grevet <agre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Gabe,
>
> I think your Business Matters planning document is amazing and I'm so
> excited about all of these articles to look forward to! You are going to
> hit on so many issues of great interest to tons of people!
>
> I have one detail to add (wherever you see fit) and it kind of fits in to
> the topic of what to charge for work. How do you prepare your client to
> budget down the line for site migrations due to the big version releases
> (like 1.5 to 2.5?). How do you get your client to buy into that reality and
> build it into a contract?
>
> Thanks for working on this - I'm so excited!
>
> Best,
> Alice
>

> On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 2:55 PM, Paul Orwig <paul.or...@community.joomla.org

>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > wrote:
> > Hi Gabe,
>
> > Thank you for sharing your plan for the Business Matters topic! I like the
> > strong vision and clear focus you have defined for this topic, and I think
> > the subjects you want to cover will be helpful to many JCM readers.
>
> > I think the JCM can and should still cover some of the broader technology
> > and enterprise-related subjects that we have brainstormed about for the
> > business topic. In some cases they may fit into the Business Matters topic,
> > in other cases they may be a better fit in Feature Stories or another JCM
> > topic.
>
> > What feedback do others have for Gabe?
>
> > Regards,
>
> > paul
>

> >>https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Jx1xMdu4Y0ajwqmYR_bxACtmA4VzAmgYK...

[Alice Grevet]

Thanks for that reminder Jen, and for contributing that "Did you know" article. I think that there themes that bear treating in new ways every several months or so. I'd be interested in seeing how this might be treated in the new Business Matters section. 

Best,

Alice