Growing the Community

[ike]

What's happening right now in the onTap framework community?

PROS: Version 3.2 beta has been released and I feel really represents
a milestone. An SOA approach to ColdFusion which allows for
"pluggable" sub and peer applications integrated together via the
framework and its Plugin Manager / IoC Manager. I really feel this
represents the most powerful SOA approach to ColdFusion that's
available in open source. Truth is, Ray Camden was recently talking
about being asked to do exactly this for Broadchoice's commercial
applications (and many people are describing Broadchoice as creating
some of the most amazing software on the planet for those sorts of
reasons)... well it's been a long-time dream of mine, and now it's
finally a reality.

CONS: Adoption to date has been very poor. Community involvement is at
the same standstill it's been at since I started working on this
project five years ago in ... 2003? We can't cite any examples of its
deployment "in the wild" for large companies. This needs to change.
Not in a few years, not next year, not next quarter, NOW!

So we know the situation and the problem, now we need ideas to solve
the problem.

1) Bring me ideas. I don't care what the idea is, I want to hear them.
Feature requests are okay, heck even bug reports, but most importantly
MARKETING IDEAS. Let me know who to contact when and where to get the
news about the framework into peoples hands, to get people talking
about it and looking at it.

2) BLOG! Now matter how small... let people know about the framework,
even if you're only THINKING ABOUT using it.

I've made no secret of the fact that I consider my marketing skills to
be poor... For that matter I consider my presentation skills to be
poor, though I'm working on that... Really, my people skills in
general are poor, and I've only learned in the past couple years that
there's a reason for it (Asperger Syndrome), however, I've not had
much access yet to counseling and the like from people familiar with
AS to help me improve those skills. And that's probably been one of
the biggest reasons why more people aren't already using it.

So to tackle that, I'm forcing myself to go out of my way to contact
any user group managers I can to give presentations and to find as
many avenues as I can for interviews and other outlets for me to get
the word out, but I can't do it alone. Right now I'm working on
getting on the schedule for the DFW CFUG, the Boston CFUG, the
Nebraska CFUG and I have a presentation on Wednesday already scheduled
for the CT CFUG. I just recently finished an interview with Kay
Smoljak for SitePoint.

And lastly, whatever impression you might have of me, I really am
willing to compromise, and I want this to be a team effort. :) I know
I've done all the development work to date, but I really do want the
onTap framework to have the kind of team / "steering committee" that
can be found in the Mach-II, Fusebox and FarCry communities. I want us
to have an evangelist! NOT ME. Why? Because I'm obviously bad at being
an evangelist. :) I want us to have a "community manager". NOT ME.
Why? Because I'm obviously bad at being a community manager. :) Let me
be the development lead for now and I'll be happy. :)