Tribes
In relation to what happened this weekend I met up with Ramesh Srinivasaraghavan from the evangelism team at Adobe India. While we did not talk much about the elephant in the room, we did talk about other things that really matter.
I was very happy that Ramesh reached out to have this discussion, here is some of my take away …
From the beginning of the meeting it was clear that the way Ramesh looked at community and the way I thought of it was different, in Ramesh’s opinion Adobe’s community is professionals who use Adobe’s technology, people who may be interested in Adobe technology but don’t use it, developers in companies who may become users of Adobe technologies, managers whose teams use Adobe technologies, students in universities, teachers, everybody …. while in my opinion Adobe’s community is comprised of professionals who already use Adobe technology and are passionate about it …for the sake of convenience of discussion, I’ll borrow a term used by Seth Godin and call my understanding of community a Tribe
Ramesh talked about the principal of Participation Inequality (90-9-1) which states …
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
He pointed out that Adobe’s strategy in India so far has been to grow the over all numbers of people involved with their technologies and hence hopefully in turn grow the number of key contributors, the 9 and the 1. He mentioned various challenges like the corporate structure of Indian service oriented companies, the online savvy of Indian developers etc. because of which they think that marketing to the masses at least here in India takes priority over focusing on the Tribe.
I was reminded of this TED talk by Seth Godin …
Ramesh pointed out that the reason the content at various events is “Introductory” is because their goal with most of the events that they organize is to focus on the new people and help them adopt Adobe technologies. He agreed that there is a need to engage more with the tribe but at the same time he pointed out that their primary strategy is still to focus on the masses. We also discussed various ways in which Adobe could engage better with the tribe and hopefully we will start seeing some of that take shape soon.
What do you feel, should Adobe in India continue to focus on marketing to the masses or should they pay more attention to our Tribe?
July 23rd, 2009
I’m glad you and Ramesh got to talk Mrinal. Evangelists are definitely focused on growing the developer base and bringing in new kinds of developers. in some senses, growing the Tribe. Developer relations is more focused on the needs of the Tribe and getting their feedback. At least that’s how it works here in the US.
But I also think that the Tribe is one of our best assets at *getting* new developers. Having you guys talk directly to developers, sharing your experiences, and blogging makes our jobs easier.
That’s my two cents.
=Ryan
[email protected]
July 23rd, 2009
I agree to the point that, Flex is a pretty new technology and we need to promote/market the technology, so more number of users can join and in turn it makes the technology better. But IMHO I think the more important users are the early adopters and the enthusiast which took up the technology and go out of bounds to promote it. I think Mrinal the best example is you, I still remember the kind of evangelism and the enthusiasm which you, Abdul, Manish and other ppl have spread, it might have much more reach then any sort of marketing/sales pitches. So if they can really create some passionate users, and feed them well ( In terms of events and activity around community) those users will be your brand ambassador and which in turn solves the same purposes of making technology reach more ppl.
Its good to hear that Adobe care for the ppl who uses their technology and can lend an honest ear to the suggestion/critique.
Go Adobe
Anupam
July 23rd, 2009
@Ryan I was very glad we met up as well, we both agreed that there is a missing channel of communication between the evangelism team and the tribe and we should fix that.
July 23rd, 2009
If I am a company developing a product, my primay goal will be to bring the product to market, make sure it reaches the maximum number of people, then gaging their response and finally deciding whether it is worth an investment to enhance the product any further.
With India being being such a huge market of technology users, I would not blame Adobe India for wanting to focus their attention to bringing their product – in this case technology to the masses. But Adobe being a multinational company, we also know of the efforts that it does put in to engage the community, especially passionate developers – i.e the Tribe.
While it’s alright to believe that the India market may be different so the strategies Adobe India adopts to grow its developer base compared to its US counterparts may be different, but the passion of the devs here is probably the same as the devs anywhere else. And as Ryan has mentioned “Having you guys talk directly to developers, sharing your experiences, and blogging makes our jobs easier.”
I hope we will see Adobe India getting more involved with the passionate developer community here, because no matter how passionate or good one may get at a job or knowing a technology, they always need a constant boost to make them better, and if this comes from Adobe India in ways of engaging us, it couldn’t be better.
Mariam
July 23rd, 2009
@Anupam I agree, feeding the tribe with quality content, events, knowledge etc. can go a long way in meeting the over all goal of increasing developers base.
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There are two ways to go about this …
1. focus on the mass developer base to hopefully in turn grow the tribe
2. focus on the tribe which can in turn works with you help grow your developer base.
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What Seth points out in that video is that in today’s context the 2nd strategy may work significantly better than the first.
I agree and hope we’ll see a change in approch.
July 23rd, 2009
@Mariam very good point about passion … developers here are very passionate, eager to learn and contribute … satiating their hunger for knowledge and providing them with a feeling of belonging can go a long way.
July 23rd, 2009
I am not sure if Adobe has really done it’s homework well, If flex is just about developing cheesy applications, good look and feel, then adobe is wasting it’s time on thinking of a mass market. I have been working on a full fledged flex application for ~2 years now, and trust me the users, don’t give a damn if your application is slow, does not have a mouse scroll, no built in search.
Whenever i look around, i never see advanced concepts or material from adobe except for a few good blogs from the developers in US. It’s the same ga-ga out here in India, so while we are striving hard at our company to enhance usability, but i think it’s high time adobe invests some time to support complex applications. And wow, people think flex is still new, no way, are they gonna take another 5 years to provide the basic functionality. Do they still want to only answer questions about, adding tabs, labels in a form or so. Wake up !!! dude, and India is the best place, the more developers you have here knowing advanced flex concepts, higher will be the penetration, and in turn cheaper will be the cost. That is when the services company will employ the flex app. If you tell a services company that a senior flex developer is difficult to find and is costlier compared to an ajax guy, they will dump the app. The clients reduce billing every year for an existing piece expecting higher ROI. So, if flex isn’t getting cheaper by the day, it cannot increase it’s reach and if it cannot do so, it will only be trumped some day, which i would never want because i have spent considerable time developing on the platform. So Mr. Ramesh support the tribe, grow the tribe, organize events, webinars. For e.g. if you supported advanced development and had pivot table like components out of the community, flex will fly, than a simple nice looking datagrid with 1000 developers knowing how to code it.
July 23rd, 2009
I thought i am quite new to the whole idea of technology evangelism to comment on this issue.But i am doing so just because i am a Flex Developer and i am the one in Q.
I have been following the whole stuff right from the beginning and now i have have few things to say.I am glad you met Ramesh,i got an opportunity to meet him at a boot camp and i think the way he put forth his idea(Adobe’s Idea) about the whole issue is good.
But taking a point from Ramesh that the focus of the company is to expand its user base and encourage more and more people to opt for the technology is correct,but it is not only Adobe which does this.we who contribute to the community in terms on queries and contacts also do the same in one or the other way.In fact i think we do this better and quicker than anyone else.So,community is like a latent evangelist.I have started using FUG since i started my Flex,for sometime i only opened it when i had a query but now i can comment on almost every post.This is only because of the community.I don’t think it has anything to do with Adobe now.But then after a period of time u grow beyond initial stuff and want to know advanced stuff and more ideas which may not happen at your work place.This is where Mrinal has a point.
I can only hope Adobe evolves it’s idea of Evangelism and give a reason to all the latent evangelists to stick by.
July 23rd, 2009
A technical or technology evangelist is a person who attempts to build a critical mass of support for a given technology in order to establish it as a technical standard in a market that is subject to network effects….has specific skills related to technology marketing and convincing a potential buyer or user to change from older methods to newer.
I took the above definition of evangelism (technology) from Wikipedia, So this explains the view of Ramesh as an evangelist on what he thinks community is. Also the ‘masses’ refer to potential talent who will directly or indirectly benefit from using Adobe technologies.
I loved the ‘Tribe’ concept and video and If I want to relate it to the topic we are discussing. Adobe is already doing that. Identifying user group managers, community champions etc is identifying true passionate leaders who can lead , recognize them, support them.
We have a platform of ‘User Groups’ to meet the needs of the tribes. It is for the leaders of the tribe to show the way forward. There are talented developers who contribute to user group meetings , discuss challenges they face in their project etc and there are many developers who have got the talent but have not yet come forward.
I think with an objective to set a process to resolve the gap ,We can make a list of advanced topics and submit it to our user group managers , we can look around if there is some one among us to help us with the topic , if yes, we encourage the person to share his/her knowledge or we forward the topics to Adobe India. And I really don’t see a reason why will Adobe India not do everything possible to meet this need.
July 23rd, 2009
Really good that Ramash stepped back in their declarations. And happy that you guys are understanding each other.
I wold love one day that Adobe should take care and create a developer relationship in Brazil.
Tribes will always be awsome. Marketing let the others do.
July 24th, 2009
I think, now there is a need for a new group which deals with deep dive sessions/talks, and not just introductory sessions. Although not sure how many will be able to give time to it but I think its a good idea to have one more group. Many times, I have seen in UG meets, few people come to know what is flex and why it is creating noise ?; while there are people, who know, what is flex, and they don’t want to know it again and again, how to write a mxml and an actionscript file and then mix those two in a 1 hour session. Would like to know what others think ?
July 24th, 2009
In my opinion there is need to categories the persons in the group in 3 categories beginner, intermediate and expert and you need to have sessions and talks that are targeted towards the specified category of persons.
Also there is need to have discussions between the senior members what they are developing and discuss with others what problems they are facing so that others may share thoughts with them and learn more.
Also for a developer working in North India like me in Chd. IT Park it is very difficult to come to banglore and attended any kind of event or session by adobe or anyone else.
We have small meeting of few individuals from few companies over here but never anything big.
You need to consider such persons too there are lot of budding individuals that need support of senior members of community like you but you all are only in banglore and only very few can reach you.
so please give a thought on it.
July 25th, 2009
Himanshu,
I disagree that Adobe India is already doing enough to support the tribe … I don’t want to go on that rant again but my previous post said enough about why I think so.
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Abobe on the whole has helped user groups a lot but remember that this discussion has been specifically about Adobe India’s role in all this.
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Mrinal
July 25th, 2009
Igor,
Ramesh and Harish are two different people …. Harish has not taken any of what he said back .. we talked the night I posted about the indecent and he said that the comments we not about me.
1. I don’t believe that, its obvious from the tweets what they are about
2. An Adobe evangelist should not using such words for anyone in the community.
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That said, I have moved past this, trying to focus on the more important things in life.
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Mrinal
July 25th, 2009
Chetan,
Good point about the various levels of audience that comes to user group meetings .. while having a new advanced group is a good idea .. it takes effort to organize this stuff .. so I think it may be better to have advanced meetings in the existing groups. The challenge with that though is that even though we’ve tried in the past to communicate that this meeting will cover advanced content .. we still get beginners at the meeting.
I think that’s ok as long as it is clear to them what is the objective of the current meeting and the speaker can stay focused on the topics he/she was hoping to cover.
Mrinal
July 25th, 2009
Sumit,
I hear you man … my parents live in Panipat, Haryana which is very close to Chandigarh .. so next time I’m visiting my parents I would love to come to Chandigarh and meet with some of the Flex peeps there. I don’t have anything planned right now .. but we could plan it out … drop me an email.
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Mrinal
July 25th, 2009
Mrinal,
I urge you to read my comment on your earlier post. I did agree that there are gaps between expectations and delivery. Nowhere did I say what they are doing is enough.
However, I had to mention what they are doing because your post was way too negative and undermined the efforts put in by the evangelism team.
I think adobe has taken an important step and demonstrated their intent to work closely with the community.
Looking forward to your inputs and work with you over the year to increase the engagement levels of the community
For starters it will be great if you can put up the list of advance topics. I think this was the major part of your concern and also expressed by some other members of the community. I would like to address this concern first.
Mrinal, I understand you were hurt but its time time to focus on solution and stop reiterating the problems, it is not going to take us anywhere.
July 25th, 2009
undermine, really? thanks.
July 25th, 2009
For what its worth that was not my intention
July 27th, 2009
I will put in my views as an erstwhile evangelist and a passionate Flex developer. Apologies if my current status as a Management Grad Student interferes in my judgement…
As someone above mentioned there are 2 ideas at work here:
1) The company’s which needs to bring in more and more people to use the technology.
AND
2) The tribe’s which expects the company whom they support to show them more consideration and importance.
I agree with Seth (great guy) that the tribe really matters to a company and this has always reflected in the way Adobe has been globally. But the problem is when tribe rises above its Community (with a captial C) concept and emanates an aristocracy like feeling (See the next 2 paras for the explanation).
IMHO the above two goals have to merge. The tribe (as defined by Mrinal “comprised of professionals who already use Adobe technology and are passionate about it”) has to be sensitive towards getting more people into the tribe. Unlike the tribe concept (in its real sense), the tribe here is not bound to the idea product, company… etc) which they now stand for. Many might move on to other pastures as time goes on (due to various/ whatever reasons,e.g. Me for my education). So it is the tribe’s responsibility to get more people on board and evangelize to lay-men to get them to be tribes-men (the concept of community evangelism).
E.g.- I attended a SilvaFUG meeting long time back where the first one hour was focused on very basic concepts (like the ones discussed in Adobe India events) by fellow Tribes(wo)man and then the newbies disperse only for the forum to turn into some serious tribe discussions on very advanced topics. Though I see this being done wonderfully by individuals, I feel it missing in some Adobe-India meetings I attended. Either they are basic stuff which bore tribesmen or they are super-advanced stuff that sails over most beginners & intermediates or worse, confuses and scares them to adopt the technology.
IMHO Its not an EITHER-OR, its AND. We need both… Every tribe needs warriors and also a training mechanism that can train the un-initiated to unearth more talent and to replenish the ranks.
My 2 cents
July 27th, 2009
Raghu,
Excellent comments !
You are absolutely right its not an “either-or” situation we need both .. ways to initiate new members into the tribe and ways to keep the existing tribes men/women interested and enthusiastic
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Both, Adobe organized events and User Group meetings currently lack that mix.
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The challenge with UG meeting is that they are short and its harder to create multiple levels of topics in that short time .. but I think we should try.
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At the same time I think adobe organized events should try and create these levels as well, these events have a bigger audience and hence a bigger impact.
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Thanks,
Mrinal
July 27th, 2009
Yes, we need both.