Send in the Clowns

Like an anxious NASA engineer fixated on a monitor during a shuttle launch, I was refreshing the Dot enough the other day to throw off the visitor metrics. I had just posted about the new Marketing Working Group and was curious about the initial reaction.

Having been in the software development idustry for over a decade, I know from personal experience how frustrating sales and marketing departments can be. "You said our product can calculate the last digit of pi?" "You told them we'd have this release done 5 weeks early?" "No, I can't do a full client installation over lunch." "You agreed to let them run JBoss on a potato clock?"

Further, I'm sure that some use KDE as an escape, and the last thing that they want is the same type of structure or frustration that they have during their work day. So, I was prepared for the worst.

But in the end I was almost disappointed. Apart from the horse head in my bed and the threat of cement overshoes from Matt Broadstone, the response has been quite positive to the new Marketing Working Group. Both in public postings and private emails, the KDE community has been very welcoming and receptive; so the folks that discussed this endeavor at aKademy were certainly on to a good idea.

Better yet, I've found that not only are Martijn and Sebas up to the task of this group, but I've really enjoyed working with them as well. We're not at the point of sharing baby pictures yet, but that's probably not far off.

So, I'd like to thank everyone for the initial support - and our work will only increase the trust over time. Impressing people with the foundation, the desktop, the community and the applications? We might have the easiest jobs at KDE - make us earn our keep!