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What happened to January?

Submitted by Kevin Finney on Fri, 02/04/2011 - 19:45

I'm looking at the date today wondering what happened to January. Already a month into the year, and things couldn't be hotter.

Drupal 7 has launched and DrupalCon Chicago is just around the corner. There is a buzz around Drupal, and people are getting excited about the possibilities.

It's interesting to me though, how many people still wonder what Drupal is, or have not even heard about it. All we do at Web Easy Media is Drupal work, so to think that there is much market confusion about Drupal is akin to blasphemy.

I've had a few conversations lately that changed my awareness though, on how saturated the market knowledge of Drupal is.

I spoke with the CEO of a very respected marketing company, and he thought Drupal was just another blog replacement product, no different than Wordpress, and in fact, not as good.

I had another conversation with the CTO of a development company, and while he knew he had heard of Drupal before, he knew nothing about what it was, or how it worked.

The CEO of a marketing company and the CTO of a development company are two of our KEY audiences. If these people whom I respect tremendously, don't know what Drupal is, then how can we expect other decision makers to include Drupal in their decision trees.

So while progress surrounds us, and there has never been greater buzz about Drupal in the marketplace, we still face an identity crisis that must be met head on. In an effort to build a product for all people, we're effectively isolating ourselves from the individual needs of discreet market segments.

The moral of the story leads me right back to where I was at the beginning of 2010:

  1. We need to reach out and educate our market.
  2. We need to offer clear, concise, pre-thought-through solutions to common problems.
  3. We need to make it easier for marketers, programers, designers, and business owners to fall in love with Drupal.
  4. And we need to support the Drupal community and evangelize it's virtues.

So look for more thoughts on just how we at WebEasyMedia.com play to do this in 2011.