Most people are Human Doings so when we have to do something we will talk more about it? Alpha 3 will allow more things to be done and this will cause more talk…
In Bulgarian we have a saying “There is no sense of empty talk” 
I like the “No empty talk” approach of MaidSafe marketing team …
is exactly how I meant it. I’ll say it how I think it just as anyone else does.
Nobody watches Disney or HBO.
I get the point, but every change starts with a whisper, we are beyond a whisper now. Not easy to grow this, but possible. Thinking positive is always step 1.
No countdown clock needed, no yelling off the top of the mountain while the pieces are dispersed and the “network” as a whole is still vaporware until everything comes together and is found feasible and reliable. Focus on the product and let the rest fall into place as it may, no product then no point to anything.
There’s lots to comment on in this post and I will try to do this properly when I have a little more time. But in summary:
We can always do better in Marketing (and increasing the team again should help immensely with this) - this is a fact and will always remain our starting point for any discussion.
So saying, I’m pretty sure we have don’t plans to secretly unveil something so significant without trying to rinse it across every channel we can (in a reasonable, non-spammy way of course )
But we need to be focused on who we’re trying to reach with the messaging (ie early adopter/developers respond to a totally different message to the one given to the casual non-tech Facebook-loving older family generations (to make a massive generalisation), Fleming is obviously predominantly a technical release in terms of functionality (but that’s not to say we’re going to ignore other more educational material that can/will be released around it or the opportunity that a major release affords us as an inflection point) - but there’s clearly also an accelerator effect across the ecosystem from say attracting dapp devs in particular that we’d all love to hit.
alas we take no credit for Wreck-It Ralph etc - but let’s also be honest, marketing is far more than simply the Marketing team or even the wider MaidSafe team - it’s every single person on this forum, spending hours every day, supporting each other, engaging in technical discussion and yes, also providing the reasoned criticisms. It’s those writing the articles, sharing the stories on Twitter, pushing out their podcasts, wearing the tshirts, pounding the streets handing out flyers, sharing the videos and generally keeping the faith and joining in, in whatever your role is within the community today as we all work towards the same goals. A symbol in a Disney film is neither here nor there - but at the same time, it’s also everything - a logo that symbolises a decentralised autonomous private and secure network that will be launching just as soon as we can all get over that line because it’s what every single one of us refuses to stop until we achieve? That symbol didn’t just appear onscreen in Hollywood by mistake. It got there because of marketing - with a small ‘m’. And that’s your team as well as mine. We’re all in it together. And with that, off the soapbox… Onwards! 
Only you seem to have this perception that contrary to history and common sense that things will be surprise releases. In any case the only release that needs longish fanfare is the final release. And that is a way off anyhow. In any case the final release will have its fanfare in the months leading up to it because of the release candidates that precede it.
As to developers running out of work, well delaying a large portion of the project for 3 extra months means that people will be doing little useful work just itching to get back to it. Alpha 3 affects vaults, messaging, safecoin, data movement and so on, which are all things required for alpha 4 and they cannot proceed with those areas because building upon potentially faulty code that might require major changes is not smart.
Core devs are not UI/UX devs and require retraining if they were to attempt it. So yes 3 months delay would mean some devs are scratching around for things to do. Its pretty obvious your experience of large projects is low. When you get involved in them as a team member then you realise that any significant (& unnecessary) delay in a major section (2 weeks or more) affects negatively the whole project’s timing.
And alpha products are not worth any amount of delay. Often alphas are only released to insiders (vetted followers and smallish number) for testing. Look at game development, they require people to apply to be alpha & beta testers and limit their number. The fanfare for the product is in the alphas and betas being released which herald the final product. The excitement is built up during these releases because of the releases and no delays are allowed for.
But if marketing wasn’t working then I very much doubt it would have occurred in the film.
Obviously the marketing is reaching way outside of this community and the flow on effect has started.
So marketing is working and how much more so will it work as the marketing team grows and does even more marketing. And as you say it can also be improved.
Unfortunately for some the project taking time to do means they get disheartened and want to hurry things up and to see the project talked about everywhere even though there isn’t a network for people to use.
Well said Dug, I could not agree more. I have been busier than ever as a community member after being inspired by a silly movie I saw with my kids that briefly showed the world one of my passions. Yes I was already here, yes I would have put in effort already but the tech and the marketing lead to someone somewhere putting it in a major film and that inspired me and others to do more and I suspect that it will carry on that SAFE ‘Network’ effect.
make fixed time line for marketing is bad for real job (software development).
Im afraid that it looks like shortsighted approach.
All the more powerful, if you ask me. Anyone with a war chest can buy their way into the plethora of paid marketing outfits. Indeed paid marketing of tech with little substance and essentially generic potential is what helped to prime the mania that drove the last bull run…until it popped. In contrast, that a massive and notoriously risk-averse company like Disney would independently decide to promote The SAFE Network speaks volumes both about the impact of what MaidSafe is developing and the level of substantial attention it’s attracting.
Sure, but did they really promote SAFE ? Logo appearance doesnt mean that they wanted to hail this project, maybe the logo was cool in their opinion, just sayin.
You must not be well acquainted with how Disney works, haha. They don’t do things on whim or by chance. Indeed they are so risk averse that having bought the rights to the Star Wars franchise they simply remixed and super sized episode 4 to produce episode 7. Their biggest investments of late have been rehashing old successes into “live action” versions. In short, I highly doubt that the logo placement was random, but rather a well-placed Easter egg. Years from now, it’ll feature in a throwback, “remember when…” special. 
I hope you are right 
As to marketing, let me add about community growth.
Cryptocurrency exchanges have a huge of active members and folk subscribed to newsletters.
Majority of them are searching new coin listings and delve into projects after that.
But only Safe marketing team should define exchange names and start dates depend on price strategy.
@zeroflaw I liked your idea, but yeah, there’s really nothing in this alpha release worth getting outsiders excited about.
We are a long way away from the final countdown, but when the time comes we should definitely consider it.
Though I’m not a fan of a countdown clock, I was earlier, but I’m starting to get the concept. If you are currently looking at other projects, they do not meet deadlines and are basically going through the process that Maidsafe went through a couple of years ago.
I think it’s better to not have a timeline but some sort of a goal line. For myself I’m having issues with that. I am a fan of tech but I do not have a technology background (as in not working in IT). I do understand the different items like routing, etc. But I have no idea what really big items are and what small items are.
Also it’s not very clear to me at what point what will be deliverd. I don’t mean that timewise but more release wise.
First we had the alphas.
Alpha 1: Vaults
Alpha 2: Mutable Data
Alpha 3: Consensus
However, Alpha 3 has now also been divided in 3? different submilestones. I’m a bit confused by what is now done under which milestone and under which alpha version.
It would be nice to have some sort of a visible overview of what needs to be done under which milestone/alpha. Also with a short explanation of what it is and whether it is technically difficult or easy.
Count up clock? Not time based count, but a task based pie chart-ish count up clock. Would be a nice graphic.
that’s difficult because not every goals has the same amount of difficulty. So finishing 1 part could mean more % than the other, which is hard to predict I guess. Good example is github. They use this system. It can look like the product is almost done but the biggest issues are still open.
yes, but would like to see something like a difficulty meter and a way to see what/why that step is necessary in the process. (So if I press disjoint groups, or fly over it, I get some more info).
Also more info on what will be done in Fleming and Maxwell would be nice.
But overall it is what I meant.
