New CEO “Chief Maker” and EllisLab Focus
EllisLab makes excellent software. At the end of the day, it’s the one critical thing that we do for our customers, and directing effort elsewhere frankly ignores that most important endeavor. Our Manifesto is as much an internal reminder as it is a way to communicate to the world what type of company we are and what’s important to us.
As of today I am EllisLab’s new CEO, and while that title reflects my authority, it does not communicate what I do. In a company of makers, everyone, even the CEO, should be capable of contributing directly to the software. My chosen job title is an affirmation of that commitment: Chief Maker. Having a title that reflects what I do as well as our company’s focus reminds us daily of that mission, and provides an opportunity to explain that culture to others. Outside of helping make software, my responsibility is to provide a laser-like focus to the organization.
That laser is not pointed at me or any other individual on the team, but on the most important and visible component of EllisLab, the product your clients rely on every day: ExpressionEngine. What you can expect is a refined, simplified focus on the software we make for you. This is and will be our direction, our drive, our flywheel, and our communication will reflect that focus.
It is absolutely vital before setting off in a direction that you have the right people on board. I’m pleased that today our Maker Strategy has resulted in EllisLab going from a company where less than half of the staff were able to contribute directly to ExpressionEngine, to 100%. This is no hyperbole, from the top down, even our stellar Customer Advocates are now contributing directly to our products. To ExpressionEngine.
“Maker Strategy” may at first sound like jargon, but the term sheds a clear light on who we are, why we do what we do, and how we make decisions. It isn’t a process, it’s a mentality. We are so confident in this direction that we aren’t afraid to generate excitement for things we’re building. We aren’t afraid of competition (ahem, bring it), and we aren’t afraid of potentially disappointing a fantastic customer or even employee that wants us to chase some other Good Thing that in reality takes us away from pushing our product forward relentlessly.
We’re excited for the future because ExpressionEngine is the face of our company, and every single person on our team wants and is able to help make sure it remains the best content management platform available, with rock solid support that you can count on.
That’s our focus, and nothing else matters. Did I mention “bring it”?
Comments & Feedback
Where is Leslie?
stinhambo
Looks like Leslie is no longer CEO, according to his post. I didn’t see anything about his future with the company though past the end of the year.
Christopher Kennedy
This post sounds great in theory, but it also reads a lot like Leslie’s post when he started, which have been extremely painful for the community and the product. If the words translate into action that’s great, but we’ve been burnt before.
It would have also been nice to have some acknowledgement of the fact that you’re no longer offering free support, that there is a pro network, you just didn’t want the rest of us in it (even though we can deliver projects to the same quality on the same scale) and that you’re removing the volume discount for those of us that have been buying for a long time.
I wish you luck Derek, and I hope to see some dramatic changes in the next few months.
Ben
Ben Lilley
Ben, I understand and thank you for your perspective. You’re right that only time will tell, so you’ll see limited promises from me about future plans, as we try to simply demonstrate it in what ships.
Just one point of clarification, our Enterprise Partners program is not the Pro Network, it is something entirely new and separate from the professionals listings. I don’t think I’ve seen your feedback come in about that program Ben, please make sure you get that to us in the coming weeks.
Derek Jones
Hey Derek. Best of luck in your new role.
Will there be a more comprehensive explanation of what happened to the Pro Network? How did the small number of companies get selected for the Enterprise Partners program? Are there any steps the rest of the firms in the Pro Network can take to re-establish their good standing with Ellis Lab?
The Pro Network was a source for several leads for our business and we’ve developed several solid relationships with businesses who found us through it. In one case, we were even found by a business who was searching for an new EE shop after having a falling out with one of the firms from your short list. There seem to be several other well-respected, quality firms in the EE community, much older than our firm, that are missing from your shortlist as well. On what criteria did you make the decision that some EE firms in your Pro Network are better than others?
Ben Parizek
Hi Derek, best of luck in your new role.
I hope one of your priorities will be to enhance the communication skills we have seen from EllisLab. U understand the difference between the old Pro Network and the Enterprise Partners. As a ProNet member your leaving me hanging out here.
Because of the abrupt nature of your decision we, your loyal professional users, haven’t had time to prepare. I have multiple outstanding quotes with multiple clients. In these quotes I always explain ExpressionEngine and the Pro Network. If any of these client decide to check up on my claimed membership, and i always encourage them to do so, they will get a very mixed message. Am I the one lying to them about the Pro Network membership? Is there a Pro Network? They won’t know because they don’t have a understanding about the inner workings of EllisLab.
If the problem with the Pro Network was that some people weren’t updating their profiles a simple email would have sufficed. Anybody who didn’t checkin within two weeks could be (temporarily) removed until the contacted you. Simpel solution to the problems you mentioned. But no, EllisLab has to do something much more radical. And do that without appearing to think about the business they affect with their choises.
Hope we can all have an open discussion about things like this BEFORE changes are made. Isn’t that what a community is for?
With Kind regard,
Bas van Ginkel
Bas van Ginkel
I’m disappointed to hear that you are no longer interested in small developers who are building sites for non-commercial organisations.
I have been a committed EE user for the last 6 years building sites for sports clubs and associations, mostly as a volunteer or more recently doing some paid work. The total bill for a club website is usually around £1000, that includes the EE license fee and about £130 for addon licenses. So your support options are impossible to include.
So by dropping the non-commercial license and free support it makes it hard to think I can carry on using EE in the future.
As an experienced user I have not needed any support from EllisLab for a while now, with the exception of a couple of bugs in the software that were causing me problems. But the option to have free support when it might be needed justified the cost of paying for a commercial product when there are many free options out there.
I still like the power that EE gives me to build sites the way that I want, but it’s hard to justify why it’s worth £200 + another £130 for addons to build a relatively simple site. I’ve stuck with it over the years as the costs have risen because I know how to use it and justified the cost by the time it saved me learning something new. But more than doubling the license fee and removing support is a big jump.
Paul Frost (orienteer)
Wait, what? The non-commercial license and free support have been dropped? I can’t think of how to express how shocked and disappointed I am at this move. What was the reasoning behind this? 90% of my clientele are non-profit organizations, so with this one move, my entire livelihood is threatened. Why?
Michael C. (ProImage)
Sorry to double-comment, but I just took a closer look at the support package pricing, and honestly I’m shocked. No, it’s actually more than that. You know how sometimes you have these nightmares where something is going terribly, horribly wrong and you can’t do anything about it, and when you manage to wake up you have to think real hard about how it wasn’t real and you didn’t actually just lose your family to a car accident or something? That’s how I feel now, except I don’t think I’m dreaming…
Michael C. (ProImage)
I think the decision to drop the non commercial license is an error. At $99 dollars I decided it was worth it to try out ee. Especially since it is not really a complete product without buying several add ons. I think this decision is more likely to drive people unfamiliar with ee to use WP or ModX. I love ee but time will tell.
diarbyrag
Will there be any new major updates for Codeigniter like, CakePHP, PyroCMS etc do, to keep up to date with moving times and php version upgrades??
the_unforgiven
I have been a long-time supporter of a paid support system as an alternative to the previous forum support, which was very unorganized.
However I was SHOCKED today when I saw the pricing. Its ALL aimed towards larger EE customers with several licenses.
Where is the individual support package that just covers 1 site, and the occasional help. An individual doesn’t need “unlimited site” support for $49 a month…. $588 annually?? This is unbelievable.
Support should be priced per site, or by the number of support requests. Why not just have users pay for each support ticket?
I would much rather pay 5-10 monthly per site, with limited support tickets OR pay $10-15 per ticket when I need it.
As a user that rarely uses support, this pricing is unrealistic. I have really enjoyed your product, and hope you re-work the pricing before your customers have to begin looking for a different product.
BMPIRE
“However I was SHOCKED today when I saw the pricing. Its ALL aimed towards larger EE customers with several licenses. Where is the individual support package that just covers 1 site, and the occasional help. An individual doesn’t need “unlimited site” support for $49 a month”
I actually think its a kick in the teeth for both small AND larger users. The smaller, or new users (1 license), I think are likely to need more support, but this is unaffordable for them, BUT the more experienced users with lots of EE sites like us, hardly ever need support any more, and still being a small company (many EE licenses does not make us a large company) means we wont subscribe to this plan when we will hardly use it! So no support for either of us.
Maybe its the larger organisations (regardless of the number of licenses they have) they want to target. Perhaps a sort of “outsource your web management issues to us” kind of service. Large organisations could probably afford it more. But I would guess most of EllisLabs customers are on the smaller side, web agencies or one man bands. So I would guess most EL customers would not go for the support plans. Its a massive stab in our backs.
amityweb
And what about all (and I think they are counltess) the smaller players? The non-profits? The envangelists on-the-street? Open source is going to take in that % of users. A pitty. Because if I have to invest all that time to a new system, I’ll be professing it too.. Damn pitty!!! (and imho a seriously bad move.. though time will tell of course)
CreativeZ
We’ve always been up against open-source, even in the days of pMachine. The solution isn’t a race to the bottom in price. That’s their model. Our model is making better software and caring about whether or not the people that use it succeed instead of merely bragging about the number of people we have in the room.
Change is hard, especially when it’s not only tangible change, but also changing expectations. We’ll be talking about license changes, working with non-profits, and support along with a plethora of other changes we’ve made in the coming days and weeks, stay tuned.
Derek Jones
Hello Derek,
On Sunday, my firm received an email notifying us that the EE Pro Network no longer exists. I assume that the majority of EE Pro Members got the same email, with the exception of the seven firms who now are listed as “Enterprise Service Partners”. I have responded directly to that email with my feedback, but I feel that a public discussion is warranted. Other Pro Network Members might benefit from an open dialogue with EllisLab on the subject of the program’s termination, and we may thereby discover a fair and reasonable solution.
First, I feel that it was entirely inappropriate to terminate this program without any notice to the members. My firm is walking through a proposal with a large, potential client this week, and in it we are prominently noted as ExpressionEngine Pros. So now we need to explain that, over a weekend, the program no longer exists. This simply doesn’t instill much confidence in EllisLab as a stable, responsible software vendor.
If the termination of the program was planned, then the members were kept in the dark and not given reasonable notice. If the decision was made only very recently, it would seem a rather impulsive one. Either is troubling.
Second, the justification (stale profile data) is not a sensible rationale for completely terminating this program. The baby was thrown out with the bathwater. Simply requiring members to confirm their profile details from time to time would have solved that. Mr. van Ginkel rightly made that point. One might reasonably infer that EllisLab intends to disband the program for other reasons. I for one would like to know if the Pro Network is being eliminated to make way for a fee-based replacement, under the name “Enterprise Service Partners” or otherwise. I don’t know this to be true (it’s just something that occurred to me as a possibility), so I invite EllisLab to go on the record regarding this. I can’t speak for all the other Pro Network Members, but it’s not incomprehensible that we’d all appreciate some clarity on this important point.
Finally, I think Mr. Parizek touched on a critical topic:
“How did the small number of companies get selected for the Enterprise Partners program? Are there any steps the rest of the firms in the Pro Network can take to re-establish their good standing with Ellis Lab?”
My firm, Pedrera, has created ExpressionEngine websites for the National Constitution Center, BT (British Telecom), Virgin Mobile, and many others. Are we not qualified to be an “enterprise service partner”, too? I have seen and respected the work of many other firms who were Pro Members – big and small alike – who are not on the new list. Why aren’t they?
I understand that EllisLab’s position is that the Pro Network was one thing, and the “Enterprise Service Partners” is another thing. “But a rose by any other name is still a rose.” Customers looking for developers who would have found them on the Pro Network will now see the 7 firms on the ESP. In a practical way, how is this any different than deleting all but seven of the Pro Members?
Further to Mr. Parizek’s point, EllisLab has not communicated how these seven firms were selected. What was the evaluation criteria? Were they truly the only seven firms that could meet that criteria? What is the process for other firms to get listed? Did these firms pay to be on the new, short list?
Some transparency on EllisLab’s new business model on development partners might go a long way to alleviating the concerns of a development community that is clearly reeling from unexpected, poorly communicated changes.
As disappointed as I am, I am still a diehard EE guy, and so are my developers. All that I ask is that you reevaluate the status of the Pro Network, and that you make a sound decision in the interest of both EllisLab and the Pro Network members.
Most Sincerely,
Tim Carter
Tim Carter
Hi Tim,
I received and read your private feedback too, thank you. Inviting almost four hundred people to make public comment is not reasonable, no more than I would guess you would invite your client to bring four hundred managers into a meeting, and broadcast it on national television.
So I’m not going to encourage this conversation to be in the comments, but it’s not going to be in an echo chamber either. We’re gathering feedback, and after people have had ample time to communicate their goals and business needs to us, we’ll aggregate it and give opportunity for you to hear from each other as well. I think you’d be surprised by how polar the feedback has been, ranging from ‘bring it back now, exactly as it was’ to ‘you need to charge for membership to keep lower quality firms out’. Most has been somewhere in the middle.
My point is, each business sees this clearly from their perspective, and so are confused that we don’t jump to meet that need. But there’s a forest here we have to consider, and we aren’t going to and can’t please everyone. What we can do is identify what the root challenges are for everyone who has expressed their view, and determine where our effort can and should go to meet the majority of those needs.
Derek Jones
Hi Derek,
i would like to show my appreciation for the way your handling the large volume of reaction your email have caused. While understandably not responding to every comment out there you are present in the discussion, giving us a feeling that the things we write are being read.
After the first shock and 48 hours of reflection i’m starting to understand that the Pro Network was flawed in some ways, while doing exactly what it should in others. So i hope you’ll get some good quality feedback and ideas about how to bring back a better Pro Network.
One thing i do hope is that you also take into consideration the time sensitive nature of this process. We understand you need time to evaluate and come back with a plan that makes the Pro Network viable and stable for the years to come. But meanwhile we’re without some our sales arguments that help us convince our clients to chose for ExpressionEngine above other CMS’s.
With kind regard,
Bas van Ginkel
Bas van Ginkel
I was not in the pro-network, but Tims questions do seem valid. Derek, could you address them?
- Why was the program terminated overnight without a prior announcement of some sort?
- How did the [current mentioned] companies get selected for the Enterprise Partners program?
- What is the process for other firms to get listed?
If such big changes are on the radar (pro-network termination AND support-model change),
May i ask why EllisLab didn’t communicate this, in say a PixelBuzz newsletter or via a website announcement?
i guess a lot of the “uncomfortable reactions” is because of this being “fait accompli”
GDmac - expocom
That could be, but change is uncomfortable, and the reality is that I was delivering bad news. I think these conversations would have been the same a month ago if I had sent that email a month ago. It was not as simple as removing people who had not updated their data. The program was broken, the right way to do it was just to start over. Timing it with our site relaunch was the right thing to do since the entire volume of our content was changing, and that was not something we wanted to telegraph in advance.
Derek Jones
To me this feel like a big [fill in the blank] to all the small to medium businesses that have invested their time and money into EE over the years. It feels to me like EE’s saying “Hey small customers, thanks buying our product over the years and helping us grow, but we don’t need you anymore now, so bye bye now, please pay up or go play elsewhere.”
The links that are pointing to the old EE Pro Network partners that are now redirecting to the new enterprise partners just confirms this mentality to me.
Jan Paul
Jan those links do not point to the enterprise partners, they are redirected to a Pro Net closure landing page. The Pro Network is being rebooted, and the new one will have greater meaning and visibility than the old, and work has already begun with the input of previous members.
The new focus is on eliminating efforts unrelated to the product, not turning attention to a new market. The later article “Why Enterprise?” provides some context to the presence of enterprise anything on our site.
Derek Jones
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