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« on: January 21, 2013, 02:54 AM »
Greetings from the other side of the fence!
More of a desperate User than anything, but 30 years in international corporate counselling makes me like an old, old racehorse: I still react to the starter's gun. :-)
Two things that made me very successful in corporate turnaround consulting were my habit of rule-breaking and the "5 Whys".
Rule-breaking meant simply challenging accepted conventions and here by example is a giant one: "Don't tell them the price till the end of the pitch".
This bit of insanity is still alive and well to this very day. Even the peddlers of home exercising equipment and cooking utensils have this insane belief that people will be interested in a 15 minute or 30 minute sales pitch before they get to hearing the price.Of course, the product has to have some value to it for any sort of pitch to work. But greater sales always go up to an informed buyer.
This is vitally tied into another amazing belief that the price always has to be sugarcoated or hidden in some way. An excellent way to signal to the prospective buyer that the deal isn't a good one.
Of course, here is another codicil:The seller needs to believe in his product and that the price is right.
Another very peculiar belief that is limited entirely to the Western world is that software should be free, after all, it is easy to create for a competent programmer. He (usually) doesn't have anything in the way of overheads, most of the code is usually borrowed, and he cuts the code quite often in an employer's time. Oh, and any really good code cutter finds it all very easy to do.......
This is an area of the jungle that I wasted several good years on in the Linux zone, trying to educate those very well-meaning mainly extremely young people that profit of one kind or another is vitally necessary for everybody's survival. All I kept trying to do was inculcate the idea that at least overheads and direct costs should be met and that promotion was also going to be vital, if any headway was to be made against the Microsoft monster.
I even proposed a very simple solution: make the whole organisation a legal, non-profit and thus tax-deductible exercise.
I also put forward the idea that a simple "administration fee" of $10 should be charged and split 50-50 between the organisation and whoever designed the version.
Implicitly though, is the codicil that professional/rapid support to a commercial entity of any kind would be quotable or tendered on the System.
The alternative being Community Support via a Bulletin Board Forum.
It would have worked then, it would work now for DONATIONCODER and to satisfy the desire for universal availability, a form could be offered to apply for a no-charge version on the grounds of inability to pay, or as a reverse donation in the case of a charity.
The "5 Whys?"
Every objection to change must answer the question "Why do it that way", 5 times.
Peace! Or else!