xDev "We are Xojo" - contributions sought

The column is intended to show the width and breath of who uses Xojo: old and young, professional and hobbyist, everyone.

It is a good column to present yourself, your app, your company, so grab the opportunity :wink:

Submissions please to Markus@xdevmag.com

Best Regards

Markus

So you are looking for xDev customer quotes or just people in general who have benefited from being part of the Xojo community?

Everybody.

Okay.

Imagine it a bit like meeting a fellow Xojo user, and telling him or her about yourself.

Hello Markus,

Can you give us more information about the submissions? Like if the submissions must be edited, spelling corrections and so on.

About what subjects are you looking for?

Thank you.

I seem to be having trouble understanding the concept of this??

Are you asking people for a one liner, such as “Tom Smith - TS Software Development” OR are you asking people to create what is essentially - unpaid articles for the magazine?

It isn’t exactly clear what you are offering in return for peoples commitment?
Or is this running on the premise that you write a brief article, and you gain exposure via the magazine.

Promotion ?

[quote=171433:@Richard Summers]
Or is this running on the premise that you write a brief article, and you gain exposure via the magazine.[/quote]

This. It’s intended to introduce yourself to people who use Xojo, and help tell the story of how you got started, and how you found Xojo.

My “We Are Xojo” story was published in issue 12.5 of the magazine, and I found it a fun and fairly quick process, and Markus was very helpful and supportive.

This is what I was trying to determine - whether there was any remuneration for the requested article, or if exposure to the Xojo community was the reward.

Thanks for clearing that up :slight_smile:

I bet we all want to read an article about you, Richard! :slight_smile:

I know I do.

@Amando Blasco
@Mike Cotrone
@Tim Hare
@Albin Kiland

Sorry to disappoint you but there is nothing about me which would be of any interest to you guys - move along, move along :slight_smile:

My services are only appropriate to business owners, and from what I can gather, the majority of Xojo users which I am aware of, are hobbyists.
Will be interesting though to get a background on other members :slight_smile:

[quote=171324:@Markus Winter]The column is intended to show the width and breath of who uses Xojo: old and young, professional and hobbyist, everyone.

It is a good column to present yourself, your app, your company, so grab the opportunity :wink:

Submissions please to Markus@xdevmag.com

Best Regards

Markus[/quote]
I give you permission to use anything out of my Gravatar bio but you’ll have to get it yourself.

Its pretty lame actually. So I suppose its not of much use to you.

Well, I’m sure Marc would love to pay everyone $1,000 (and I know I would LOVE to get it) but the reality is that the income from xDev has to feed Marc and his family, pay for insurance, pension contributions, etc.

If you consider the size of the Xojo community then you quickly realize that the $50 that are being paid for each column is a token of appreciation, but has little relation to the effort going into each column.

For example I spend about three DAYS on each of my “Tips&Tricks” columns, a total of about 25-30 hours. That involves searching for tips, testing, writing it up, proof-reading, re-writing, re-writing again, etc. I might be a bit slow or maybe I’m a perfectionist, but it is a lot of time to spend on it for very little dosh. But then it is more a labour of love and an effort to contribute to the community anyway.

You might think that the “We are Xojo” column is easy, that I have hardly anything to do. Actually the “We are Xojo” column is not just more work, it is work that is “out of my hands”. With Tips&Tricks I’m in control, I know what I have and when I have it. With “We are Xojo” I ask for contributions here, I email people directly, and while I have a “pool” of people who expressed an interest most of them are too busy to find the time … and you don’t want to pester them too often. In the end you might get a contribution two weeks before the deadline or a day after, or none at all, which is a bit nerve racking. Out of a dozen people I correspond with I might get one contribution. When you do have one then proof-reading begins, not just for errors or grammar but understandability and flow of the story as well (you know what you want to say, but that’s not always what is being understood by someone else reading it). So the story can go back and forth a few times, each time with another round of proof-reading. I find it important to keep the feel of the storytelling. For example we had some great French contributors, and while their English was not perfect, it had a charme that I did not want to loose, so it is important to correct mistakes but not to “over-edit”.

What do contributors get out of it? For one, exposure, as has been said. Everyone knows Christian and Bob and what they do. It isn’t even necessary to mention their family names. But while I know some other names here (like yours) from their posts I don’t have a clue about what they do or why.

But my motivation for this column was a different one. Xojo is used by many who are NOT professional programmers, who have not studied IT. They are called “hobbyists” to distinguish them from the serious programmers. But these “hobbyists” are people who have a successful career, who are (often very accomplished) professionals in their own field, or people who have done many different things and done them quite sucessfully. I wanted to show how Xojo is used in real life, to solve real problems, by people who might not “get” the finer points of programming (yet) and who might ask beginners question … but don’t underestimate them, because they are not “hobbyists”. They are not professional programmers, but they were able to teach themselves enough Xojo to solve real problems. And do it in their spare time.

And boy, have we got some great contributions there. People with multiple degrees, people who taught themselves an instrument and play in a professional orchestra, oil workers, Scientists, etc. If anyone still thinks of them as “hobbyists” then go and read the column in the back issues.

Another aspect of the column is that Xojo is a small community, in many respects more like a family than other communities. I thought it would be good to get to know those other family members. Like those distant cousins that you meet at a wedding or funeral. And like those family gatherings it builds a sense of community.

@Richard: you say your “services are only appropriate to business owners”. Perfect. It is always great to get different experiences and points of view to broaden ones own horizon, to become aware of the different approaches and demands of each situation. So I’m sure people would be interested in your story.

[quote=171481:@Richard Summers]the majority of Xojo users which I am aware of, are hobbyists.
Will be interesting though to get a background on other members[/quote]
At the company I work for we develop software for construction companies. We have 4 developers using Xojo full time, two of which are using Windows and Two of us (myself included) that use a Mac.
PS: I got my degree as a programmer/analyst a long time ago, and I studied this because using computers was my hobby. Now I have the fortunate situation that I get paid to do my hobby. I still learn new stuff and still feel like it is a good hobby after all these years. So in that sense I am not only a professional, but also a hobbyist. Also trust me when I say that the hobbyist in me loves to play with programming language and find interesting new uses. I get lots of fun out of some of the mini projects I make in my spare time.