Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Marketing OpenACS to non-geeks

The meeting I'm describing was an unusual one for me; typically, I spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what people want, and then try to match their needs with one of the technologies that I use.  (While I'm a big fan of OpenACS, I don't believe that there is only One True Technology out there, and I've certainly used my share of Zope, J2EE, and Perl/mod_perl over the years.)

In this particular case, I was brought in specifically to show people what OpenACS has to offer as a technology.    Perhaps I should have ignored that fact and tried to figure out what people wanted, but it's not quite as simple as that.

The basic story is as follows: One arm of this organization met with me about 10 months ago and was so persuaded by my description of OpenACS and how it could meet their needs that they decided to go with me.  At the same time, they realized that the initial administration of the system requires my help, and they can't quite afford that on their budget.  So this arm of the organization brought me in to speak with the management and educational staff, to discuss what OpenACS could do for them.

So I didn't know exactly who was coming, and I don't know what their plans are for a Web site from the other groups.  Indeed, they don't know what they want to do.  The only thing that they really know about the Web site is that the old one is ugly and the new one is nice looking.

So my task was basically to (a) introduce OpenACS, (b) tell them what they can do with a Web application, and (c) tell them why OpenACS  is good for this.

It's possible that I was setting myself up for failure, and/or that I should have spoken with people planning to attend this meeting before I made my presentation.  But all of the examples that I gave were concrete things that I know they want to do with their Web site -- but when I would give these examples, people would just look more confused, as if they weren't really sure they want to do these things.

And while it would have been nice to have a local geek with whom I could speak about technology, there isn't anyone who fits this description in the institution.  They have a network administrator (who isn't connected to this stuff), and they have a graphic designer (who hasn't ever worked on a database-backed site before).

Ah, well.  As I say, it was an unusual situation, and it went over OK overall despite the glazed looks on people's eyes.  And perhaps I should have come in with 10 or 20 practical uses for OpenACS that they could use in their own work, rather than encouraging them to allow their imaginations to run wild.  But I am still curious to hear how people describe OpenACS in a relatively short amount of time, particularly to folks who have never thought about the Web as anything more than a glorified brochure.