Runtime Revolution Ships Revolution Media

[Jerry Daniels]

Judy,

I have begun to believe the dilemma that Revolution (and many other  
great products) face is the "cult software" phenomenon. I am starting  
to think software becomes "cultish" and loses its appeal to people  
who are not part of the "cult" because of a corruption of the  
creative process whereby:

1. the developers of the software lose their "faith" and "vision" and  
start believing in "features"
2. as a result, the software becomes something less appealing to new  
users (non-cult members)

Many feedback sessions, however well-intentioned, end up being ego  
battles whereby the technical types with less assertive social skill  
lose faith in their product, their company and themselves. In short,  
they start urinating in the punch bowl during breaks. (NOTE: this has  
actually happened.)

If I were Kevin and Mark, I would avoid reading this list at every  
opportunity. I believe the over-all effect of this list tends to be  
debilitating for them and might even neuter them creatively speaking.  
It would be like watching the Catholic channel right before having  
sex. Oops...I actually like that. Well, you know what I'm trying to say.

Jerry

Buy Constellation from Runtime Revolution!
http://revstudio.runrev.com/section/revselect/constellation/



On Apr 12, 2006, at 12:05 PM, Judy Perry wrote:

> It almost sounds like RevConWest...
>
> Almost.
>
> Just to play Devil's Advocate, how do you know that your participating
> end-users are not hand-picked to ensure a certain outcome?
>
> Not that I'm accusing you of doing that, but I participated in an  
> external
> evaluator session for our first online master's degree.  The fur was
> positively flying (and most improbably, not on my particular  
> account), but
> when I later voiced some of my concerns to the program head, she  
> seemed
> most blissful in her ignorance.  Later, when the program made its
> self-assessment to a national conference, what I had witnessed had  
> been
> entirely sugar-coated.
>
> I love the process you describe.  I guess it all depends upon the
> willingness of the company to actually listen to what is being said as
> opposed to hearing what they would like to hear.  Your customers  
> are most
> fortunate that your company is of the former rather than the latter.
>
> Rev clearly has the opportunity to be of the former as well.
>
> Judy
>
> On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 Roger.E.Eller at sealedair.com wrote:
>
>> I fully agree with this approach. It makes for a win/win situation  
>> for
>> both the company as well as the established customer base. As a  
>> matter of
>> fact, our company utilizes a certain high-end system that is
>> internationally respected in the industry. Each year, a group of  
>> end-users
>> and management attends an event which allows us direct access to the
>> developers of our chosen system. The users sit down and voice their
>> concerns, problems, bugs, feature requests, etc. to the entire  
>> group of
>> developers and leaders of this company. We even vote on what is most
>> important, and user opinion actually carries more weight than  
>> anything
>> else. After all, the customer is always right. It's like bugzilla,  
>> but
>> without the clunky interface, and you leave the event knowing that  
>> your
>> votes and input have made a real difference in the direction of the
>> product.
>
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