History for BrandValuesAndVision
??changed:
-
Brand Features and Values
In brainstorming the next phase of the company and the two brands,
we came up with a distilled list of the taglines and messages to get
across in our products and brands.
Brands
We have two brands:
o Zope
o Digital Creations
The current plan is to launch a new brand:
o Content management system running on Zope
Here are some sample project names:
o Zaxis, Zeal, Zebu, Zebra, Zodiac, Zenith, Zest, Zoom, Zone
The initial question: should the name of the content management
system running on Zope have a 'Z' and share brand traits (fonts,
colors, etc.)?
New New Brand Strategy
Digital Creations intends to stake out its place in the content
management system market.
During Stratum's first visit here, we told them the goal was to
re-launch the Zope brand as a content management system. After
floating trial balloons and collecting feedback, we realized that
this was a mistake. Zope has a lot of brand loyalty and
awareness, and trying to change Zope is both difficult and
ill-advised. Additionally, we don't want Zope to be narrowed,
just because Digital Creations is narrowing its focus.
Thus the new new brand strategy is to create a new CMS (content
management system) brand atop Zope. Some notes:
o Like Zope, the CMS will be a platform rather than a product,
meaning we will encourage other applications and businesses.
Thus we have a two platform strategy, which can be tough.
o The CMS features and values of the CMS will help provide a
roadmap for Zope, as it will set priorities for development.
Message
Out of the two brands emerge a message. This message is composed
of various facets:
o Ideas, values, features, differentiators, strategies
Artifacts
The message is delivered in a great number of ways:
o Sales kit, investor prospectus, press releases, web sites,
product information, development roadmap
Message Brainstorming
The following are messages that can be distinct to Zope or Digital
Creations.
o First mover as Open Source content management system. This
one is getting a bit tough as ArsDigita now is moving there and
they have $35M.
o Transforming content. People have a mental answer to "What is
content?" that is very constricting. Zope will transform their
ideas about content, management, and brand.
o Open Source means having control. With commercial software,
your technology supplier controls your fate. With Open Source
you get some control back. This can be represented by the car
hood story:
If the auto market was like the software market, cars would
come with their hoods locked shut, and only the dealer could
open the hood to fix problems. Obviously nobody in the auto
market would stand for such a ploy. Even if someone had no
desire to fix the car themselves, they want freedom to choose
their own mechanic. And if the car broke down in the middle
of the desert, it would be nice to crack the hood and poke
around anyway.
o Open Source Vignette. This can't be played in the world at
large verbatim, but it does convey a strategy. Namely the
vendors in the market are about control, and about hype
vs. reality distortion. This leads to market dissatisfaction.
o Time to market. This is two things: Zope/DC have a killer
time to market story, and time to market for content beats
everything (including top-end performance).
o All three tiers as managed content. From an architectural
point of view this one sizzles. App servers have a three-tiered
architecture: presentation, logic, and data. In basically every
other system, the three tiers use different facilities. In the
CMS, we'll stress that all three tiers are treated as managed
content in one facility, and all will get consistent application
of the facility's power.
o Faster ROI. Instead of saying free, cheap, or cost-effective,
per Gary's suggestion we'll say far faster ROI by avoiding
license fees.
o Both build *and* buy. In the "buy vs. build" decision, we are
both. People can pay us to come in and jumpstart development
and deployment. When we leave, though, the customer can own
*all* the intellectual property. Moreover, they are getting a
platform with a bunch of people worldwide that isn't an
evolutionary dead-end like their "build" app.
o Tim's drawing. Tim O'Reilly drew a four stage drawing for me
that I'll attempt to describe below:
1. The early web. Everything was .html files on disk served
up by Apache. Very simple to create minimal content. Power
in the hands of the people.
2. First dynamic web. Simple dynamicism through CGI files on
disk and minimal applications. Equivalent to "build" in buy
vs. build.
3. Revenge of IT. Around 1998, IT fights back with huge,
ponderous architectures that require programmers and database
admins to do anything. These are classic content management
"buy" decisions. In this architecture, the web is a gateway
into a fairly old-style, 1980's application (systems
programming languages connected to relational databases). The
web is "outside" the website application.
4. Content *is* the application. Post-2000, we unify the
original view of the web with the increase in application
sophistication. Both buy and build. Open source means
regaining control. Architecture that puts power back in the
hands of the other 99.99% of the people on the web. Website
is just a place where content comes together from multiple
locations internally and externally. We're not the train,
we're the train station.
o Minimize risk. The Digital Creations method (contract,
development, deployment) is all aimed at minimizing risk. Hard
stuff is done up front, lots of little microdeliveries, etc.
o Zope is Now!. Previous attempt at PR campaign. Says two
things: Zope is about time to market, and Zope has hot buzz as the
next thing.
o The next thing. Tim O'Reilly has been going around saying that
Java+Oracle is the way apps _are_ done and Zope is the way apps
_will_ be done.
o Since Digital Creations only does work in Zope, the value of the
company is well beyond that of a body shop.
o Perfect distance. We have to keep a perfect distance between
the Zope brand and the Digital Creations brand.
o Army of messengers. Having a platform and a passionate
community means our message travels far.
o Open Source means:
- Your business comes first, participate in passion,
relationship based on trust, death of classic software control
model, DC as technology partner, control over your business plan
o Portal (troublesome label) means:
- Not broadcasted content, integrate information, engaging your
own community, scale your internal resources better, very high
trafficed site for rapidly changing content, empower
non-programmers, reusable information
o Through-the-web means:
- Everything managed with a simple facility (web browser), web
object model, database organized like a filesystem, thin client
vs. competition, coherent infosystem (stuff not spread across
the filesystem, /etc/passwd, .htpasswd, etc.),
WebDAV/FTP/XML-RPC/SOAP etc.
o Safely Delegate Control
- Separate SQL and HTML and programmers, rich access control,
safety net (undo, versions, safe DTML, transactions), extend
content beyond corporate walls, customers that have customers
that have ..., move central content "up" for reuse and security,
collaboration
Portal Pilot
[64 more lines...]