OK, I give it up all in one go. I’m 189cm tall, 10 to 20 kg overweight, depending on who you ask (my own opinion seemingly doesn’t count) and I’m conservative and… so on (who cares).
And I kind of like Rhino.
Pro-Rhino in short. Pro-McNeel I guess would be an implication. And I really hope that the Rhino-developer gang (I’m impressed 99.9% of the times they respond on this forum) guards the spirit in which Rhino has come to where it stands today (GH combined with integrated Animation probably would give it a boost). The 99.9% (Forum) satisfaction rate includes some “bad day”-responses, proving that we’re all humans and that after some “bad days” most of us also have “good days”. And so on.
But I do understand that also McNeel feel a need to somehow guard their interests, and also try to find ways to figure out how to stay in business and also grow their business. But one thing should be clear, or two:
§1. If the product is very expensive, the “customer” (paying the checks) is a CEO or some other indiidual which goes by PR Mumbo Jumbo.
§2. If the product cost can be contained within a household budget, then the customer is also very likely the end user, a group of people who is essentially resistant to PR Mumbo Jumbo, or more lilkely - allergic to it.
This Forum speaks to §2 people, and does it quite well most of the time. Hinting about the significance of improving the Forum. Like Rating and Filtering posts (could make an already good Forum 10-100 times better) could turn out to be a gold mine.
I mean, people are actually getting help here, and many many good ideas are shared, both solutions and improvement ideas about the product itself. Even “strongly opinionated posts” can be of value as well (after letting some posts cool for a day or two).
COMPLEXITY => DOCUMENTATION
I think that Rhino has become such a powerful Swiss Knife tool that it follows that it can be rather complex to use - which leads to the conclusion that an effort to produce a Best In Class Documentation (after Autodesk) would do good.
The connection between Complexity & Steep Learning Curve implies that Excellent Documentation probably could be a success formula for McNeel (surprise, surprise).
Better documentation would make the tool useful also for new users ( equals more new customers). Lowering a rather steep learning curve should not be underestimated as a selling argument (again, PR talk don’t impress on §2 people). Perhaps some smarter solutions for some experienced licensing annoyances could also be considered.
At last: The best non-BS PR is summarized in invoking sympathy. The worst thing to do would then be the opposite. An example of mixed feelings regarding sympathy & dislike would be Autodesk and their Documentation. The “entire world” goes to their excellent documentation pages to learn CAD concepts, and when people finally understand difficult concepts, it invokes sympathy. At least among §2 people. But much of the AD license policies invokes… ah, never mind.
Provide useful tools, don’t mess with the licenses, strive for reasonable learning curves (docs is key here) and invoke sympathy.
My shoe size? 44. Sometimes 45. But knowing that is not going to increase sales for anyone (not even for shoe makers).
// Rolf
