"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Outlandish Josh

Published on Sat, 2006-11-25 21:04

Sleazy Josh And His "Work-Related" Videos

So, I posted a little commercial-like video for my company extolling the virtues of Drupal using elements of my daily life in the State of Jefferson. Good times.

Here's that video:

One thing I want to call attention to is my facial expression in that last slot-machine shot:

That's about as sleazy as I get, what some affectionately call "crazy eyes." It's the epitome of why I'm feared by mothers and hated by fathers all across this great nation. In the final cut I wipe away from it pretty quick, but the original take is pretty interesting. You can see the acting!

Responses

Sun, 2006-11-26 23:21 — Sam Tresler

So, this isn't criticism or suggestion, or anything of the sort, but do you find your clients really care about any of that?

I'm honestly curious here as I started out trying to sell Drupal, and quickly found that - the same as I did in theater - I was selling myself and my consultation capacity more than I was selling drupal.

I'd geared myself all up for all these questions that you answer (rather nicely) and almost none of them were asked - people wanted to talk about what their site looked like, and how it operated and really didn't care how I got there. The ones that were specifically looking for a drupal dev, never needed to be sold on drupal.

I've had people requesting more information on drupal, but never had to sell it. Now... people wanting to look at my portfolio, ho I'd worked with, if I had done anything like their project before, my general business skills, etc - that was all Very Important.

I don't know, maybe we are just targetting two different crowds, but I;ve tried saying 'database abstraction layer' in a meeting and before I get it out, the clients eyes roll back in their head and they start wondering to themselves "isn't this why I'm paying you? so I don't need to hear the words 'database abstraction layer'?"

Honestly just curious - do you find you need to sell drupal itself?

Sun, 2006-11-26 23:29 — Outlandish Josh

I don't know that anyone really cares about this stuff, but I think when you move into the mid-to-enterprise level realm, and you're dealing with a client who employs people to be their "tech brains" (or even has someone who's a CTO) these kinds of suggestions get more important. It could also be because we've been mixing it up in the Valley too long.

It's true, most people don't understand how their website works and only know how it looks. Frankly I'm not really interested in those people as clients. Not that aesthetics aren't a real make-or-break for a site, but there's nothing really interesting to me about making prettier sites for people.

Mon, 2006-11-27 02:55 — Sam Tresler

Cool, I kinda thought we were courting a different sort.

On the flip side, I love the chopping wood intro with references to 'Hard Work' play that up.

Mon, 2006-11-27 03:01 — Outlandish Josh

That's the idea!

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