[TYPO3-UG US] Partner section and TYPO3.us

[Michelle Heizer]

On Sat, 2005-10-15 at 21:45 +0200, Elmar Hinz wrote:

> Following your discussions I find that you do rather the opposite in the 
> US. You first want to sell the product TYPO3, then you ask what the 
> customer wants from it and you find out in the end that you need easier 
> documentation, easier installation and more customer support. That will 
> give TYPO3 a big push towards public. But the customer can't see into 
> the depth of the product, doesn't ask for clean code, etc.. By this 
> approach you rather will not dig to develop better underlying concepts, 
> to prepare TYPO3 for the future what the TYPO3 association does.

This group was created to market TYPO3 in the US, not to develop TYPO3.
We leave that to the core group and the Association where it belongs.
Like I said, this is not a "fork" of the project but a regional
marketing group. By the way, this is not the only regional marketing
group. In fact, you will even see a few more starting up this year as
part of the international marketing plan.

> I would like to see a TYPO3 association which is strong on both sides on 
> innovative development and on customer orientated marketing. The TYPO3 
> association is still young. It is easier to bring in your marketing 
> orientated thinking in right now. In some years that would be more 
> difficult. Don't you think if you could act as a part of the "official" 
> TYPO3 organisation you would have a better positions towards the market.
> 

I'm in agreement and I think this is the general consensus. Like I said,
I do not want to create a separate Association, but make the current
Association even stronger by gaining more members via TYPO3.us. I had
written a letter to Daniel this morning to ask what our options are.
Specifically, I wanted to know if we could collect money for this
project and from our partners through the TYPO3 Association. We could
still have "levels" as Reuven pointed out, but any extra money would get
disbursed back to the TYPO3 US marketing group for the things we need
such as magazine ads, trade shows, etc. The Association could provide us
with an annual budget. This way our "partners" would also be Association
members and that way we would remain part of a global unified group; we
would be providing the Association with more money for core development
and international marketing; we could offer "regional benefits" to our
Association members; and we wouldn't have to create a separate legal
entity.

Let's not get away from the main purpose of the project and the portal.
Again, we are NOT separating ourselves from the main TYPO3 project. Our
goal is to spread TYPO3 to the US. To accomplish this goal, we are
offering a level of marketing and support directed to a specific
community that will ultimately feed itself back into the main project.
This is a subgroup of the main efforts and it is my hope, as a member of
the international marketing team, to be a conduit between the two
groups. In the future, as we gain more people, we may need to reorganize
again, but let's worry about that when the time comes. I'm very pleased
with the idea of us working on the main project and building bridges
between the two sites. Look at how well it is working with the
documentation review. :)

So for now, let's table the talk about the "partner" section until we
hear back from Daniel and the Association.

Michelle