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Zuehlke / zuehlke.github.io

Zühlke Github Page
http://zuehlke.github.io
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Shorter Teaser - Less redundancy with Zühlke corporate webpage #5

Closed carstenkind closed 8 years ago

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @bruderol on January 20, 2016 16:49

The github page's purpose is a different than the Zühlke company webpage. The page should not be cluttered with standard text about what Zühlke is (and especially this text should not be the most prominent and most big text on the page). People who want to know what Zühlke is, can click on the link to the Zühlke webpage or will probably directly go to our webpage instead.

Therefore the first part of the teaser (which is 100% redundant with the corporate webpage and not at all targeted to the github community audience, that we want to attract) should be removed. The second paragraph of the introductory text is more than sufficient to give some introductory information about Zühlke and Open Source activities at Zühlke (even this text is allready quite long enough).

Agreed solution between @carstenkind, @aXXL70 and @bruderol:

Producing cool, innovative solutions and solving tough technical problems is what Zühlke lives for and has been successful at over several decades. Knowledge sharing is something we cultivate and we strongly believe in the power of the Open Source Software communities.

  • Maybe some improvements of positioning of the text to see more real content right from the start (feasability needs to be clarified)

Some arguments:

Copied from original issue: Zuehlke/zuehlke.github.io-sources#7

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @bruderol on January 20, 2016 16:57

Because of many discussions (per email with Carsten and Axel and in other issues, e.g. in https://github.com/Zuehlke/zuehlke.github.io-sources/issues/3), I opened this now as a separate issue and listed the arguments that I see, for they not get forgotten. Feel free to add other arguments and discuss here. I still hope, that we can change this, for a better github page and for attracting more people from the open source community (e.g. as potential future colleagues, which should be one major purpose of this page!).

Please vote here, if you have same oppinion or discuss if you disagree. Thanks!

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @bruderol on January 20, 2016 17:22

A detail concerning the second part of the introductory text: I think the text "even in our projects" is unnecessary in the second part of the teaser and does not make it better but less fluent to read (of course this is relevant for our projects, would we otherwise mention it? and why "even"??)

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @tknerr on January 20, 2016 21:23

@bruderol +1 +1 +1 +1...

@carstenkind Axel needs a github handle so we can @mention him and he can follow the discussion here ;)

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @aXXL70 on January 22, 2016 14:3

I am on! Thx Carsten. Will get back to you with our thoughts and comments on our actions.

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

From @damphyr on January 22, 2016 15:6

@bruderol :100:

Honestly, every discussion on what text should go up that took place at inception time (which to my shame is a whole year ago) seems to have disappeared in a puff of smoke. :disappointed:

I would just take a left at the exit on landing on this page, wouldn't even know there were links underneath. To prove my point, here's my browser window on the page (My browser is always full screen)

screen shot 2016-01-22 at 16 00 05
aXXL70 commented 8 years ago

Hello fellow Githubers, Thank you for participating in the discussion as to why exactly marketing advocates for the current version of this site.

I will not go into too much detail about the underlying marketing principles but rather try and explain our decisions based on the discussion points raised here:

(1) "•No unnecessary redundancy with company webpage (who keeps this in synch?)" -> It is not about redundancy but about repetitive messages through different channels: In order to make the audience aware of a message content, it must be repeated consistently and as often as possible. People using Github are not necessarily paying a visit to our website. With this very short intro, they still get a sense of what the company is doing.

(2) "•not push the same message into each channel (Zitat Carsten: "Giesskannenprinzipp" statt "Zielgruppengerecht")" -> Marketing psychology is of a differing opinion: is is absolutely vital to push the same story through different channels as long as the brand recognition and awareness is at a comparatively low level.

(3) "•Focus on the target audience and what they are realy interessted in when going on this github page: e.g. What does Zühlke do in the area of Open Source Software? Which projects on github is Zühlke invollved in? Why is Zühlke a good partner concerning Open Source components or tools? What are the achievements and know how of Zühlke in open source area? How can I as a customer profit from Open Source know how and open source projects of Zühlke? ... " -> A good point and we are happy to include this information. I suggest, we collect the answers to your questions and fit them into the existing second part of the text.

(4) "•For other general information about Zühlke, this is the wrong page to go to, nobody will go to a github page for reading a general company profile." -> As far as I understand, this argument is is already presented in arguments (1) and (2), if not can you pls specify?

(5) "•apear more attractive to people who are interested in Open Source activities of Zühlke, and focus on what they are realy interessted (see above)" -> A thought experiment - walking in a strangers' shoes: When browsing github, imagine a site with very interesting content. Would you not want to learn a thing or two about the company the provider of the content works for? I certainly would and I would hate to leave the site to do so.

(no numbering due to missing argument) "•do not bore visitors with general company texts that they do not want to read on such a page. •avoid that visitors think instead: ◦oh no, yet another marketing page, with no or not much relevant content concerning Open Source" -> This is a very personal view coming across as a general assumption, which I will not comment further.

(no numbering due to missing argument) "◦they seem not to have much know how about how to make a webpage that is targeted to its audience (in this case the open source github community)" -> Now, this "comment leaves me speechless. I would never dare to utter such a comment about your abilities as a software architect and I refuse to comment. You may want to reconsider this statement since it is completely off the mark.

(6) "• http://blog.zuehlke.com has also no such initial teaser, that nobody wants to read on such pages (probably because of same arguments)" ->Wrong: There will most probably be the same teaser, once the blog has been revisited and adapted to the look and feel of the website (the applicable term here is consistent corporate image or CI). Again, what "nobody whants to read" is a statement, we do not leave others to judge. (7) "•less scrolling down to see the relevant content --> better usability (because that is also what Zühlke wants to stand for)" -> "I am with you on this one and yes, we consider shortening and working on the layout of both text paras in order to UX.

•probably more ... feel free to add more ...

We will keep you all posted on the progress here.

Thanks again for constructive feedback. Looking forward to more!

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

target audience

You need marketing psychology if you don't know much about the target audience. So you may use repetitions to gain some percents more awareness. But this does not apply here! We know the target audience very well. This is us. Here we are! Just ask us, what we like and what we don't like. There is no stranger. And we know even more: Our target audience is just surfing on GitHub! And we do know even more: We know the three possible reasons, why they are on the page. They want the answer on one of the following questions:

  1. What is Zühlke doing with Open Source?
  2. What cool projects do they have? 3, What people are working for Zühlke?

Tell that Dr. Oetker marketing. Die wären im siebten Himmel. So please throw away marketing psychology. You don't need it here. You can achieve a lot more!

What does count?

Every Github user has his own personal account. The personal achievements are very important and a lot of open source projects are driven by appreciation and respect. The communities are usually friendly and open minded. On the other hand it's hard: You yield only respect if you provide something valuable. For example my reputation is pretty bad, because I haven't provided anything valuable yet. Organisations play a minor role in this game. So what matters on GitHub is just content. And the only content that counts are projects and repositories. Nothing else. Consequence: Show your content.

The trade-off

There is a trade-off repeating this company message and this is it needs space. It hides the relevant content everybody on the site is looking for. And that weights so much more than this small positive effect of repeating a message nobody is interested in visiting this page.

Personal opinions.

@aXXL70, what's wrong with Rolf's statements you refused to comment? It's how GitHubbers think. I'm sure that this is not Rolf's personal opinion but represents the opinion of the vast majority on GitHub. You can't clone a marketing text, compile it and try it out. It's waste from this point of view. I think you should read Rolf's statements carefully. You can learn a lot from them how our target audience is thinking, wether you like it or not. No reason to be upset. I would love to welcome further 100 Rolfs and Torbens (and others of course, too and with different names) as colleagues!.

Corollary: The title

The title should reflect, that this is not Zühlke's work. Zühlke hasn't paid for most of it. But the owners are proud on their work and don't hesitate to confirm that their asset is used in Zühlke projects. So, "Zühlke Open Source" is somehow misleading. Zühlke just supports open source.

bruderol commented 8 years ago

Concerning the remark about the title: I think the title is okay. At least I like it. Short and more or less precise enough. Or what would be better? Do not see why the title should be a problem. We should just clearly state for each listed project whether it is driven mainly by Zühlke employees or not (especially if not, we should list precisely what our achievements in this project are or relativate and state that this is only a project that we think is very important for us and we have contributed only some small contributions to it).

bruderol commented 8 years ago

Comment of @aXXL70 concerning this issue here (submited on issue #10 ):

Again, I am here to discuss these topics and, as stated in a earlier conversation, would be perfectly happy to put your input into actionable items, e.g. shorten the intro text on the main page.

My proposal: cut away one or two sentences of the general Zühlke info and shorten and specify the second part about our commitment to open source dev and github. Rolf, would you want to kick off that second part by putting together some bullet points on the what and why of our github presence?

Looking forward to your thoughts, comments and actions

best

Axel

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70

Does the second paragraph of the introduction not already cover this? What would be missing in your opinion?

As far as I know, there were exactly this discussions already going on about one year ago to formulate this text (I was only involved a little bit in this, Carsten knows this better, @carstenkind ), with many people involved, which ended with this second paragraph text:

" Producing cool, innovative solutions and solving tough technical problems is what Zühlke lives for and has been successful at over several decades. Open Source Software has been evolving for many years and is still getting more and more important, even in our projects. Information exchange and knowledge sharing is something we cultivate and we strongly believe in the power of the Open Source Software communities. This is the place where we want to share our open source projects and our contributions to other open source projects with the community. "

If I remember right, there was also somebody from Marketing involved already - or not?

I not want to say, that this text is perfect (if you ask me, there are somethings that need improvement), but at least we should not start from scratch all the time again, because many people already gave some of there valuable input and invested some work to shape this text, to have an attractive introduction on this page. If something very important is missing, I think, that we should try to make this existing shorter text better (and maybe even more shorter, because already long enough), instead of putting some general company marketing text in front or starting from scratch again. As you can see, the first part of this text gives already a short (more github audience focused) introduction to Zühlke. Why don't you use this text and give some input what is missing or wrong in this text?

Thank you.

vgt commented 8 years ago

I would like to support the "developer view" that the current landing page feels too much like an add. I think the repos should receive more focus.

bruderol commented 8 years ago

Proposed solution agreed on in discussion with @carstenkind and @aXXL70 on the phone:

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70 and @carstenkind: sorry for coming with some other late ideas and thoughts, inspired by our very good and highly constructive discussion (see above) that we had just now, on how to improve the header text even further:

When reading the text again, it became obvious to me, that the second sentence "Open Source Software has been evolving for many years and is still getting more and more important. " is also obsolete or implicitly given or a very boring information for people browsing on a github page (because they know, otherwise they would not browse there). The third sentence is more important and tells something about us (not just about Open Source). And telling something about us (from a Marketing point of view) is what we should enforce, isnt it?

Therefore I propose to shorten the text even more to just "Producing cool, innovative solutions and solving tough technical problems is what Zühlke lives for and has been successful at over several decades. Knowledge sharing is something we cultivate and we strongly believe in the power of the Open Source Software communities.", what do you think?

This is just an additional idea to our discussion, you two (Carsten and Axel) can decide, what you want to do with this idea. Thank you so much for everything and for taking all my tough critics and ideas so seriously! Great work! Ok, I shut up now :wink:

aXXL70 commented 8 years ago

Totally agreed on from my end. Carsten, ok with you? @kabaehr will make the changes and include your porposal. If we agree that this is a good solution to everybody I would close the topic next week. OK?

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70 Great! Awesome! :smile: :top: :+1: :100:

carstenkind commented 8 years ago

Yes, fine with me. It was my sentence. I wish somebody could continuously look over my e-mails, because I tend to lengthen them with such boring information.:+1:

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@carstenkind hihi, sorry, I have the same kind of problem :smile: ... and I only realized that this sentence is not realy most important, when reading it for about the 10th times (yes, I read your emails!) Have a good day. Cool, that we all agree! :smile:

aXXL70 commented 8 years ago

Only happy bunnies here, great! Carsten, I think it is ok to close this topic for now. Enjoy the days and your upcoming weekend!

tknerr commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70 @bruderol @carstenkind

big thumbs up! :+1: :+1: :+1:

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70 as soon as it is realized, as discussed above, you (or who ever realized it) can close it (see close button below). Thank you so much!

I added a short description of what we agreed upon to the first description of this issue (at the top), just to avoid misunderstandings, for the one that realizes this.

kabaehr commented 8 years ago

Great compromise :)

aXXL70 commented 8 years ago

Great job, everybody! Praise to kabaehr, carstenkind, bruderol and everybody else who had a stake, a contribution to make or simply thoughts to share and thus helped realising this extremely cool looking Github site. I really think, here we are at the forefront of company representations. Looking forward to others to follow.

Kudos to the team!

bruderol commented 8 years ago

@aXXL70 YES :+1: :smile: - now I agree, that we are "at the forefront of company representations", really great! Thank you so much! And sorry again, for my not so diplomatic and very critical feedback.

@kabaehr Thank you for implementing it :+1:

The styling of the header might need some improvement, but it is okay for now. By the way: did you try to make "Open Source Software" bold in the teaser text (as it is for some words in the company description on our web page)?? Maybe that would compensate a little bit for the now missing title on the page. But this is just an idea. Thank you.

aXXL70 commented 8 years ago

@bruderol: I can take a swing ;-). And in this case I learned a thing or two about communities. Which is always worth going though a tough debate. https://assets-cdn.github.com/images/icons/emoji/unicode/1f44d.png

@kabaehr: I like it and as bruderol (btw: this acronym reminds me of a brother in monk terms, and seem so fitting since I got to know you as a lead evangelist in the brotherhood of Scenarioo ;-)) put it: we can always cange what we don't like.

A special thanks also goes to Klaus Liebe who saw benefit in kabaehrs dedication to the project and thus allocated time budget to it.