I did come across a Red Toad Media article worth mentioning yesterday: The Difference between MODx and WordPress. This is a well written article and reflects many of the arguments I have found myself making, less eloquently, regarding both WordPress and MODx (yes, I’m speaking to you Cotton).

I know that I tend to write pretty exclusively about using MODx, but as a developer I would encourage anyone just starting out to develop familiarity with many of the CMS/Framework options out there. This includes MODx, WordPress and even Drupal.

This has come into play recently as we have hired a new Creative Director and a Programmer who are well versed in Drupal. Adding Drupal to our Pleth lineup has been nice in that it allows us an attractive, integrated eCommerce option in Ubercart. While there is promising work on the horizon for MODx in terms of eCommerce there isn’t a comparable solution available today.

By broadening our knowledge base and adding another tool to our repertoire, Pleth has been able to pursue new business opportunities that we might have traditionally shied away from.

On the former point I can say I was not disappointed. The venue was good and everyone involved was great. It was nice to put a face on many of the community members that I have been communicating with over recent years. I can honestly say that I had no appreciation for how long and how hard everyone at Collabpad has been working on the MODx project. All in all it was a positive experience.

On the latter point, coupled with an updated perspective on Revolution, my response was a little mixed. I would characterize the conference as being “programmer-centric”. The impression I also walked away with was that Revolution, at least in the short-term, is also “programmer-centric”. I have stated on many occasions that I am not a programmer, I am a developer. As a developer I tend to be the middleman between the graphic designer and a programmer. MODx is the tool that I use to bridge that particular gap, but for the most part I don’t write programming code.

I don’t want my comments here to be interpreted as being negative on the direction of Revolution, rather constructive in that they/we still have a long way to go with this project. I don’t know that as a non-programmer if I will be able to rapidly deploy Revolution, at least not until more of the commonly used resources are developed. Even after a full release there will still be a lot of community work to be done, on many fronts.

Right now Revolution seems to be squarely focused on meeting the needs of programmers and I realize that this may be a necessary stage in a larger process. After all, who else will develop our snippets, plugins, modules and widgets? I personally feel that if widespread adoption of MODx Revolution is to occur, it will likely be fueled by developers such as myself who tend not to create the tools (code), but who tend to successively deploy them in new and creative ways. I think that is likely one of the reasons why CMS systems like WordPress have enjoyed a broader appeal comparatively. We don’t want developers to become disenfranchised because MODx is perceived as a programmers tool with an overwhelming learning curve. Just don’t forget that we are sitting in the audience too. I hope everyone contributing to MODx keeps that in mind as this project moves forward and as more MODxpos are planned.

For the sake of keeping this a positive post I will resist the urge to rant about the customer service I have received from Goodman Air Conditioning and Heating company.

The Background

Almost 2 years ago, in August, I purchased one of Goodman’s units through a local vendor (a one man show), had it installed, loved the unit and life was great. A few months later as the transition into winter began I realized that the heating portion of the unit didn’t function appropriately. So, we made the call to the vendor and received a service call to no avail. Well, the problems persisted and the service calls continued throughout the winter.

As spring time came around I found out that my local vendor was having health problems and was going to have to retire. He did the “right thing” and handed me off to the company above him in the distribution chain.

Well as you can probably guess, this new scenario didn’t work out very well and following a single, unsuccessful service call the owner of the new company told me he was “washing his hands” of the whole thing. He related that he was not going to lose any more money on me. I found this really odd since he had promised me he would stay with me until the situation was resolved, I was the one with the cold house, I was out about $3000 and was facing having to completely replace the defective unit out of my own pocket.

As my second winter with the unit began to roll around I started calling the manufacturer directly. To say this was an exercise in futility would be an understatement.

The Point

A by-product of my dozens of phone calls with the manufacturer was that they inadvertently called my original, local vendor who was unaware that the situation was ongoing and that I had essentially been hung out to dry.

This is the same man who had, 2 years earlier, sold and installed the unit into my house. In the mean time he had experienced serious health issues, sold his company and had retired. He had taken care of his responsibilities and handed me off to a company that should have taken care of my situation and here he was standing in my doorway. Not only has he now taken up my cause with the manufacturer, but he has purchased replacement parts on my behalf and has installed those parts on his own time. I am now confident that this will be resolved since recently learning that this problem is a “known issue”. A new computer board is en route.

For the sake of winding down a long post I just want to relate how grateful I am that someone stepped up and took responsibility for this situation (thank you Billy Trivitt).

In business, the value of good customer service cannot be underestimated. I often think people in technology struggle with customer service and treat it as if it were something elusive and puzzling. From where I sit it’s not, it’s often a matter of doing right by your customers and staying with them until they are satisfied. I know it’s not always easy, but I can tell you that from my experience it’s what your customers expect. And honestly, isn’t it what they deserve?

As I stated, this is all based on a limited assessment of the application but my first impression is that this is an improvement when compared to Tweetdeck. I will say that I may end up missing the Facebook component. This is a feature that is currently unique to Tweetdeck. This feature has been a bit of an irritant too, because it shows all Facebook posts and doesn’t filter post-ers that I have already identified inside of Facebook.

As I was looking over the slide show (below) on TechCrunch, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that canceled show.

I have been Twittering for about 48 hours now and I do have to admit I still do not get it, but with that said it is somewhat addictive. As I sit at work, I have an app on my desktop call Twhirl that I can instantly type my thoughts. While I am out of the office, I can type messages into Google Talk on my Blackberry and they show up. And finally, as I was sitting in my recliner tonight, for some strange reason I had the urge to log into the system and type something. The information is meaning less, I think, but I still had the urge to do it. It has also evolked a blog post on my blog which has been dorment since inception.