[Evangelism] proposal for plone awards

[Matt Fisher]

Hi list,

An idea came up very informally at the Jazkarta Developer Training in Montreal last month.  I've thought about it enough since then to post it here.  I did check and haven't seen it mentioned in the list archive, but I imagine some discussion on this topic has happened at least once. I've tried to flesh out some of the angles for sake of discussion, but what follows is meant only as a first poke. Here's the idea:

Proposal: 1st Annual Ploney Awards

File under: Marketing, viral and social

What is it: Lightweight, semi-serious recognition for outstanding products, contributions and innovations in the Plone community in several categories.

How it might work: Open submission process would involve self-certification on a relative scale of best-practice-ness.  Finalists (say 4-6) in each category chosen from the open submission pool would be required to write/post/present a short case study and perhaps a walkthrough of the code as a minisymposium/code fair for display at/for the annual conference. Final general voting takes place online sometime near the conference timeline. Prizes are small, and hopefully fun. 

(Pls note that my working assumption would be that this is to promote contributions and involvement from developers other than hardcore experts. Of course, that's a soft line to draw and probably just reflects my assumptions about who knows how much.)

When: Winners to be announced at annual (fall) Plone worldwide conference. Open submission period begins yearly on, say, World Plone Day in the spring. Finalists announced and final voting period some time relative to annual worldwide conference.

Suggested possible categories: 

Newbie add-on product (Best 1st time submission from new developer(s) of a new product), 

Newbie theme, 

Newbie flavor (where flavor = customization of Plone buildout or site policy to turn it into something that doesn't immediately resemble an out-of-box Plone), 

Best overall add-on product, 

Best theme, 

Best flavor, 

Best whole number product release, 

Next big thing (for innovations not ready for production, but super exciting anyway), 

Best developer utility

(would probably recommend against conferring something like a VIP award-- would rather focus on solutions & innovations, not persons/personalities)

Business case: 

The best-of-breed angle:

On various lists, there's an ongoing discussion about identifying and promoting good, forward-looking contributions.  From the viewpoint of community development, the idea about having awards isn't so much about getting the 'best' stamp as much as it is about making a public display of what is meant by 'Plone best-of-breed.' The idea of self certification and then open voting hopefully sidesteps the argument against Plone Foundation endorsing or formally certifying projects. And, if finalists and winners are encouraged to explain their code/design/use cases, hopefully info on best-of-breed thinking disseminates and inspires. 

The fellowship angle:

It's easy to think that unless you're a core/full-time/jedi developer who understands all the ins & outs, you're not really, really contributing to the wider community. Some small, community-originated kudos to a larger bunch of people is a good thing. Potentially, it extends a source of pride to developers who are expanding the reach of Plone in ways other than "core" development. Also, newbie categories would give an indication of reasonable first horizons for less experienced folks.

The (re)engagement angle:

It's probably a bit much to expect the first go around, but having a structure & timeline to bounce off of may eventually encourage revisiting code changes that need to checked in, or betas to finalize, etc., if this thing takes hold.

The viral marketing angle:

Make an incentive for developers to tinker with a few products, themes or buildouts they may have missed. Give people a simple reason to talk up plone on their facebook page, their blog, or on twitter. Make '2009 Ploney finalist' and '2009 Ploney winner' website badges that could generate viral attention. Make a facebook voting app or badge, etc. Let people solicit testimonials if they want. Give a reason for a press release, and a timeframe that generates a little buzz for the conference.  

The fun angle:

If it's framed as an edutaining display of creative problem solving and not so much a competition, then this could be a lot of fun. Fun == good.

The academic angle:

3rd party development influences the direction of the crowd.  I'd think there'd be some intrinsic value in having a yearly snapshot of commendable contributions as a way to diagram the evolution of Plone.

Of course, this is a sketch, and experience tells me that semi-competitive things make some people happy and others very angry. I do think there's a way to do this that's seen more as cooperative/celebratory than competitive, & I think that would be the angle to explore. I'd be willing to work on this if there are a couple more people who think it's worth pursuing.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Matt Fisher

[Karl Horak]

Matt,

I think this is a splendid way to raise visibility of Plone in general while
giving a much deserved tip o' the hat to hard working, creative developers,
designers, and even innovative users.

Your proposal is much more effictive than my "Plone Metrics
Person-of-the-Year Award" every Dec. 31. That one is entirely my call and
is basically worth a free beer if a winner can find me. (BTW, previous
winners were
http://plonemetrics.blogspot.com/2007/12/plone-metrics-person-of-year_31.html
Alexander Limi (2007) and
http://plonemetrics.blogspot.com/2008/12/plone-metrics-person-of-year.html
Joel Burton (2008).)

Your concept provides a reasonably fair framework while rewarding a wide
spectrum of Plone talent. I'll admit there'll be a certain amount of
overhead work, but the internal and external payoffs are large.

My only complaint is that "Ploney" rhymes with phony and that has pretty
negative connotations. I'd go with something straight-forward like "1st
Annual Plone Awards."

Thanks for the well thought-out and detailed proposal.

Karl

matt_fisher wrote:
>
> Proposal: 1st Annual Ploney Awards
> File under: Marketing, viral and social
> What is it: Lightweight, semi-serious recognition for outstanding
> products, contributions and innovations in the Plone community in
> several categories.
>

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[Jon Stahl]

Matt-

 

I’ve certainly brainstormed and discussed this informally with a few people over the years, but nobody has ever picked this up and made it fly.  I would *love* to see it happen, and am willing to help make it so (both in my role as PF Board President and as a random community volunteer

 

I think you are very much on the right track with the ideas below.  I will offer a few additional thoughts a bit later this week when I have a little more time to focus.

 

best,

jon

[Donna M Snow]

+1

I'd love to help in any way I can. Would this be presented at the conf
each year? (maybe I missed this in your post?)

Donna M Snow, Principal
C Squared Enterprises
illuminating your path to Open Source
http://www.csquaredtech.com

[Vincenzo Barone]

+1 

Il giorno 12/feb/09, alle ore 20:01, Jon Stahl ha scritto:

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[Matt Fisher]

Hi all,

Glad to see enthusiasm for the general idea! I'll put some more
thoughts together & try to schedule a chat or online meeting to
further discuss. I imagine now would be a good time to brainstorm
scope and requirements and to begin considering resources, so if
anybody has particular thoughts, please chime in.

@Karl, who wrote: 'My only complaint is that "Ploney" rhymes with

phony and that has pretty
negative connotations. I'd go with something straight-forward like "1st

Annual Plone Awards."'

Agreed, Ploney was a purposefully awful first draft name :)

Matt

[JoAnna Springsteen]

Yeah but Ploney also rhymes with Pony and who doesn't love a pony?

[Donna M Snow]

Oh JoAnna, LOL, I Love your girly sense of humor, heehee
That so made my day

Donna

[JoAnna Springsteen]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Donna M Snow <donna...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh JoAnna, LOL, I Love your girly sense of humor, heehee
> That so made my day

Girly?
Django has ponies.
Plone even has a pony.
Absolutely nothing girly about liking ponies. I bet the plone pony is even blue!

[Chris Calloway]

On 2/13/2009 1:45 PM, JoAnna Springsteen wrote:
> Yeah but Ploney also rhymes with Pony and who doesn't love a pony?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4wc8Fq7bEU

The name "Ploney Award" has been floating around for years and its
"purposefully awful®" sound is part of what makes it so endearing.

--
Sincerely,

Chris Calloway
http://www.secoora.org
office: 332 Chapman Hall phone: (919) 599-3530
mail: Campus Box #3300, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

[Karl Horak]

Please see http://svn.plone.org/svn/plone/plone.pony/. Just set your text
color to blue. :-D

.,,.
,;;*;;;;,
.-'``;-');;.
/' .-. /*;;
.' \d \;; .;;;,
/ o ` \; ,__. ,;*;;;*;,
\__, _.__,' \_.-') __)--.;;;;;*;;;;,
`""`;;;\ /-')_) __) `\' ';;;;;;
;*;;; -') `)_) |\ | ;;;;*;
;;;;| `---` O | | ;;*;;;
*;*;\| O / ;;;;;*
;;;;;/| .-------\ / ;*;;;;;
;;;*;/ \ | '. (`. ;;;*;;;
;;;;;'. ; | ) \ | ;;;;;;
,;*;;;;\/ |. / /` | ';;;*;
;;;;;;/ |/ / /__/ ';;;
'*jgs/ | / | ;*;
`""""` `""""` ;'

JoAnna Springsteen wrote:

>
> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 1:51 PM, Donna M Snow wrote:
>> Oh JoAnna, LOL, I Love your girly sense of humor, heehee
>> That so made my day
>
> Girly?
> Django has ponies.
> Plone even has a pony.
> Absolutely nothing girly about liking ponies. I bet the plone pony is even
> blue!
>
> _______________________________________________
> Evangelism mailing list
> Evang...@lists.plone.org
> http://lists.plone.org/mailman/listinfo/evangelism
>
>

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[Donna M Snow]

awww! Cute pony! OK sorry JoAnna, please pardon my faux pas :-)

I haven't been paying attention to Django and or the fact that they are
into Ponies

/me goes to look at django

Donna

[Xavier Heymans]

Hi Matt,

It is a very good idea. One comments, maybe the list of "Suggested possible categories" could be extended to include non technical expertize.

Xavier

[Nate Aune]

Hi Matt,

I'm glad you took this idea which we informally discussed at the training and ran with it! I think it is a brilliant idea and would love to see it happen.

I took the liberty to post your idea to the Plone Marketing wiki, so that others can see and riff on it.

http://www.openplans.org/projects/plone-marketing/the-ploneys

I will also add this to the list of topics to discuss on the next meeting with the Plone Foundation marketing committee.

Nate

2009/2/14 Xavier Heymans <xav...@zeapartners.org>

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http://twitter.com/natea (daily updates)

[Alexander Limi]

On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:31:14 -0800, Chris Calloway
<c...@unc.edu> wrote:

> The name "Ploney Award" has been floating around for years and its
> "purposefully awful®" sound is part of what makes it so endearing.

It's actually spelled "the Plonies" (as in "the Grammies"), and yes — we
have been discussing this for years. Having the official name be "the
Plone Awards" is probably a good idea, though. Then we can refer to it as
the Plonies inside the community.

It just lacks a person to own it — should be a simple matter of
identifying some categories, set up a timely survey with some good
candidates (as well as a freeform option) before the conference, and keep
it a secret until it's announced at the conference.

Oh, and an awesome Plonies statuette for the winners, of course. ;)

Personally, my opinion is that it shouldn't be a simple popularity
contest, but rather be used as the basis from where the winners are
selected by the judges. This would make it more like the Oscars/Grammies
too — and make it possible to put the spotlight on people/project that get
less attention that they perhaps should have. :)

--
Alexander Limi · http://limi.net

[Calvin Hendryx-Parker]

On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:11 AM, Alexander Limi wrote:

> Oh, and an awesome Plonies statuette for the winners, of course. ;)

Should that be a statue of Limi? :-)

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[Chris Calloway]

On 2/18/2009 8:23 AM, Calvin Hendryx-Parker wrote:
> On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:11 AM, Alexander Limi wrote:
>> Oh, and an awesome Plonies statuette for the winners, of course. ;)
>
> Should that be a statue of Limi? :-)

It should be this:

http://www.collectiblestoday.com/ct/product/prdid-905250.jsp

Look, even the colors are right. :)

--
Sincerely,

Chris Calloway
http://www.secoora.org
office: 332 Chapman Hall phone: (919) 599-3530
mail: Campus Box #3300, UNC-CH, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

[Karl Horak]

For an example of an award that's strictly based on popularity, see
http://shortyawards.com/about/ the Shorty Awards , recently held by the
Twitter folks. A hybrid solution would be to have a people's choice award
in each category for the most popular, but have judges make the final call
for the canonical awards.

Karl

Alexander Limi wrote:
>
> On Fri, 13 Feb 2009 11:31:14 -0800, Chris Calloway
> <c...@unc.edu> wrote:
>
> Personally, my opinion is that it shouldn't be a simple popularity
> contest, but rather be used as the basis from where the winners are
> selected by the judges. This would make it more like the Oscars/Grammies
> too — and make it possible to put the spotlight on people/project that get
> less attention that they perhaps should have. :)
>
> --
> Alexander Limi · http://limi.net
>
>

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[Jon Stahl]

> From: evangelis...@lists.plone.org [mailto:evangelism-
> bou...@lists.plone.org] On Behalf Of Chris Calloway

> On 2/18/2009 8:23 AM, Calvin Hendryx-Parker wrote:
> > On Feb 18, 2009, at 3:11 AM, Alexander Limi wrote:
> >> Oh, and an awesome Plonies statuette for the winners, of course. ;)
> >
> > Should that be a statue of Limi? :-)
>
> It should be this:
>
> http://www.collectiblestoday.com/ct/product/prdid-905250.jsp
>
> Look, even the colors are right. :)

OMG, that is so awesome.

:jon