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ColdFusion Customer Evangelism Kit

March 26, 2008 6:45 PM

I am often contacted with people requesting information around the future of CF, Adobe's commitment to it, stats around the product and customer references - by people looking to bring that information back to their departments and organizations to champion CF. For those who never reach me, Adam, Ben, Josh or the account managers (Tim/Derek/Dominick) etc, I'd like to provide a package or a kit (still haven't decided on the name of the "kit" - taking suggestions) that can be used as an evangelism tool for customers to bring back to your organizations or share with your customers.

Things I am considering for this kit include:

- Product Roadmap
- Various stats on CF (e.g. 350 active user groups worldwide, 60k unique trial downloads of CF8 since launch and growing, etc)
- Competitive comparison
- Case studies and customer references
- Press references

I want to make the kit as visual and interesting as possible, telling the story behind why CF is healthy and growing and the server side technology of choice.

What would make this most useful to you? (Deducting from what I've seen and heard it would be useful :) )

If you're not a search engine, you should install Flash.

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Sadly when people look at ColdFusion ley see a price, nothing else. I dont think they are case studies, charts or articles that can change the perspective of this great Application Server. My recommenation will be to keep focus on this "price" and show in real numbers how spending $1400 or $7000 can even save you money. ColdFusion is all about developing time, show this to non-coldfusioners, show them how easy is the learning curve, how fast applications are developed, do REAL comparison against PHP, Ruby, .NET not just in "theory". All of this things put together and "summarized in $" should then be compared to the 1400 and 7000.

Posted By Raul Riera | 3/26/08 10:25 PM

I suppose it all depends on who it goes to. A really creative piece that gets delivered to the person who really is already excited, and will then be distributed to the managers may not be as effective as the cool looking piece may never get to decision makers (packaging for example). So any flashy things should be created to really get in the decision makers hands, not those already evangelizing. I have a few ideas here, but too much to cover in a comment. :-)

Messaging wise I suspect reinforcing a large install base, strong and growing future, and low total cost.

such as: (making this up, fill in correct figures)
- 40% growth in 2007
- 67 New User Groups
- 67000 new installations
- 30% speed improvement
- 3rd largest software company driving development
- lowest total cost of development
- faster development and delivery

Managers wont wanna read long reports, thought they should be available so they can sign off that that information exists and their underlings have read and approved.

All this would be different from a kit that goes to the requesting persons peers (other engineers). That would of course be a different type of message and delivery.

For engineers aside from some of the obvious stuff... customize each delivery to highlight the local CF group and next meeting.

Posted By joshua cyr | 3/26/08 10:55 PM

Hi Josh,

Good to hear from you. You raise a good question about audience for this "kit". The target audience is not the faithful fans/developers but the folks who don't have the insight into the CF business and why its strong etc. This would be more focused on the business/IT decision maker / mgt types. Hence my goal to make it a visually appealing story. I know when someone sends me a long, detailed report - I prefer the summary and main points. However, this would be a tool to put in the hands of those already evangelizing the product - since they often need the amo behind the talk. Think of it as a sales tool for CF. If you have more ideas, feel free to share and not feel limited by a comment.

thanks!

Posted By Kristen Schofield | 3/26/08 11:53 PM

Raul,

Absolutely agree. Part of this will include what your talking about. A third party is working with a couple large CF8 customers now to quantitatively measure the ROI of using CF. Mostly that will be in comparison to previous versions of CF - since there's very lil to no opportunity to state what the same big customers applications would have taken in ASP / PHP vs CF for example. However, a competitive comparison to some extent should show this - the value prop of CF over free comp and how the time saved to develop, as well as the built in features / functionality / J2EE server etc makes the "free" choices more expenses.

Posted By Kristen Schofield | 3/26/08 11:57 PM

Kristen,

Well in that case I don't know if that could be very useful for the non-coldfusion fan, maybe diggin back into the days of Adobe pre Macromedia? what technology was Adobe using then? why did they changed to Macromedia's site when they adquire it and most importantly, why do they still use it? The reason can't just be "because we own ColdFusion" hehe. Then again, I don't know how people will take this example well since its from the same company hehe.

Posted By Raul Riera | 3/27/08 12:43 AM

	Customers are WAY more credible than the vendor. ;)
	Posted By Kristen Schofield \| 3/27/08 12:57 AM

Perhaps in the kit you could have a list of hosting servers that have CF installed (hopefully they'll have 8 installed; I remember seeing one host that had CF 5, or was it 4? installed as the latest version when I was researching for one that fit my budget). These hosting servers could range from almost free to enterprise, high volume level. And point out that there are places to try out CF8 for as little as 10 dollars a month and that it's easy to move up as needs grow.

Posted By Lola LB | 3/27/08 8:35 AM

Bumper stickers. :) Somewhere deep in the recesses of one of my file cabinets I do have a CF bumper sticker...

Integrating some of the ColdFusion 30onair 'commercials' might be useful as well. They are short and sweet examples of why ColdFusion 'just works', from real developers. Marketing numbers are great but I'm much more likely to adopt something if I hear good things about it from other developers.

Posted By Jim Priest | 3/27/08 1:04 PM

	Jim - there are several "Why CF?" youtube videos posted on the onair site already :)
	Posted By Kristen Schofield \| 3/27/08 2:00 PM

	Yeah - those would be nice to include in some kind of CF 'kit' - either as links or on a CD.
	Posted By Jim Priest \| 3/27/08 2:50 PM

Kristen - you and others are right, audience is key! For me, that's the business leaders, the decision makers. People who understand the difference between "cost" and "investment". Let's get past this idea that we're going to convert PHP developers en mass to ColdFusion. If there are well paying jobs CF jobs out there, the platform will gain legitimacy and recognition.

I'd like to see some honest-to-goodness comparisons to related platforms. No one is going to spend 7k on enterprise CF unless they are in the market for an enterprise platform. As a part of due diligence, I do research on enterprise level J2EE platforms before every upgrade of CF - and CF (enterprise) ends up being the *cheapest* option. Just the server monitor alone can run you 4k per server, and you usually need to buy a development suite on top of that.

I'm saying that JRUN is in the same class as BEA or WEbSphere, but some independent comparisons would be nice - where is the break even? How does it compare to websphere or weblogic express? Get us a blueprint for the CF products, almost like a decision tree. High volume / security / clustering and failover is what you need? Look at CF Enterprise, otherwise CF Standard.

What productivity does CF offer that Rational developer doesn't? Because Rational is 4k per developer, and thats BEFORE you buy the app server. THAT is where Adobe and CF should be chipping away at the competition. Competing with PHP is a race to the bottom, in my mind. And the "cost"? Heck, everything "costs". I mean, if you want to lower your "costs" just fire all of your experienced developers, and replace them with new college graduates every year or two. Problem solved!

Businesses choose the J2EE platform for a reason, and when they do, they need a productivity platform. ColdFusion should be the answer - we need to define the question. IMHO.

Cheers,

Davo

Posted By david | 3/27/08 2:59 PM

	We once pitched a company about preloading video on an LCD portable then sending it. You need a good budget for that one though. :-) http://www.pinnaclepromotions.com/search?ps=video&...
	Posted By joshua cyr \| 3/27/08 3:01 PM

I think that one of the biggest things would be the comparison. But not just as simple as "CF does this and .net doesn't". I would go deeper and find something that they both do, then compare the development time and cost in doing it in CF vs .NET or PHP. This way you could really show the ROI of CF when compared to development hours. Because, lets be honest, the most expensive part of development is the cost of programmers. Yea, some languages are free but if you spend 4x the amount to develop it vs developing in CF is it really free? You end up paying for your "free" language in development.

--Dave

Posted By Dave Ferguson | 3/27/08 3:59 PM

	CF briefcase
	Posted By AndyC \| 3/27/08 4:44 PM

	Translations - making the kit available in, say, Hungarian, German, Polish, etc., would be very useful. Adobe's got a team in Bucharest - surely they could take an afternoon to translate it into Romanian. Oh, and host it somewhere with a nice short URL. Ditto on a Why CF video - short and sweet.
	Posted By Jason Blum \| 3/28/08 7:44 AM

	I just sat through Adam Lehmans presentation about Blaze/ColdFusion for Adobes Developer Week, and you HAVE to get his first 5 minutes in the Kit. I know he's probably honed his intro a million times, still, the clarity and simplicity with which he explained "why ColdFusion" was VERY impressive. Cheers, Davo
	Posted By david \| 3/28/08 3:43 PM

The kit's a great idea. I see two problems/suggestions:

One, those making technology decisions in my company seem to believe web development is just a 2 horse race between IBM/Websphere and Microsoft/.NET. Perhaps it's because were a large company and there's more emphasis than usual on the long-term viability to technology. Or perhaps it's because they only get their information from corporate shrinks (aka Gartner Group consultants) on golf trips (aka technology conferences). Whatever the reason, I think having a message from the CEO and VP's of Adobe in the kit, saying how commmitted Adobe is to CF, how much they're investing in it, etc, would be helpful.

Two, it's not so much the kit, but getting the attention of the decision makers that is key. So packaging the kit correctly - like inside a brand new, Weber Summit S-670 gas grill - could make a difference.

Posted By Slim | 3/28/08 8:37 PM

	No one has said it yet, so I'll say this... If this is intended to be used for "People" who want to pitch CF to their bosses / colleagues; then it should probably include a Slide Deck of sorts, with detailed notes so that the 'People' can use in a formal presentation about the benefits of CF.
	Posted By Jeffry Houser \| 3/29/08 2:39 PM

	You probably also want to include counter-points to the majority of the benefits of competitor platforms, espeically the big one, price.
	Posted By Neil Middleton \| 4/1/08 10:48 AM

	You might want to use this, its still low compared to the "big names" in webdevelopment, but the JUMP ColdFusion made in one year is rather big
	Posted By Raul Riera \| 4/7/08 12:35 PM

	http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/t... Oops
	Posted By Raul Riera \| 4/7/08 12:35 PM

I love the idea of an "Evangelism Kit". I'm glad I had the wherewithal to decide what platform I should base my prototyped applications on at my previous job. Was an easy sell. But, I did have a hard time selling the benefits of CF to the managers to move my code to production. They instead rewrote my prototype application to jsp. Oh well...I still got to do what I wanted with the tools that made me productive.

I just have one question...Why is Macromedia..er..Adobe asking the masses for help to promote CF? I think there's a bit of responsibility on the part of the manufacturer to promote their own products? I have yet to see a billboard or advertisement for ColdFusion anywhere. I've seen tons of Microsoft and Yahoo advertisements. Why can't Adobe throw some marketing dollars at what is probably the best platform for rapid application development? I'd be delighted to see a CF advertisement on a bus go by and have someone ask me, "what's this coldfusion and what's it used for?" I hope this person has time on his/her hands heheheh

Posted By Chris | 4/7/08 8:14 PM

	My feed reader must be broken, 'cause this one slipped by me. It's all in the name... How about 'Flux Capacitor'? Is that copyrighted? 'Project: Speed Demon'? 'Product Warp Drive'? Extreme-ROI-In-A-Box?
	Posted By Steve 'Cutter' Blades \| 4/16/08 4:53 PM

Just to add my 2 cents...

I think you need real stories. I know I've done some incredible things on my current job with ColdFusion, that looking back, were very impressive - and defy convention about what CF should be good at. High-volume reporting, business-data-infrastructure systems management, application synchronisation across low bandwidth, high-latency LANs... Oh and 75 web applications in a unified intranet. All for a single engineering project (albeit one of the biggest in the world)

CF really shines in the enterprise market, and you need to push the two key strengths of CF in that context. Rapid application development on a scalable, highly interoperable platform.

When you talk about CF, don't be afraid to name-drop other vendor technology names (or even your own). .NET, J2EE, COM, DCOM, Java, PDF, Flash, Flex, Lifecycle DS, Exchange, and others are not distractions from the CF story, but a major strength in the enterprise context. ...because CF can work with them all.

Cheers and good luck. Where do we get one? :)

Posted By Ben Davies | 5/1/08 1:36 AM

	Also I thought I read a reference to a Gartner study somewhere that said CFML requires 75% less code than java and 54% less code than .NET to create the same functionality. If you can get your hand on that sort of statistic, you have a tool that will stop arguments dead.
	Posted By Ben Davies \| 5/1/08 1:39 AM

	Businesses choose the J2EE platform for a reason, and when they do, they need a productivity platform. ColdFusion should be the answer - we need to define the question. IMHO. Ciao
	Posted By Alex Griffin \| 7/12/08 8:04 AM

	Kristen - you and others are right, audience is key! For me, that's the business leaders, the decision makers. People who understand the difference between "cost" and "investment". Let's get past this idea that we're going to convert PHP developers en mass to ColdFusion. If there are well paying jobs CF jobs out there, the platform will gain legitimacy and recognition.
	Posted By Karl Kiss \| 7/16/08 9:34 AM