Making the class progress public

[derekfountain]

When I first saw the latest class content popping up in the public CM forum I thought Mike/Greg had made a mistake in the website configuration. From Mike's comment about the discussion soon "going dark" it's apparent that this was clearly a planned move. I was just pondering the merits of doing so. And my conclusion, so far, is that it's a brilliant idea!

I'm not involved in the behind-the-scenes CM activities so I don't know well it sells, or how much activity the website gets, or anything else, but my assumption is that, because it's something of a niche product that improves something that PS users get for free, it must be a tricky sell. And it further occurs to me that showing how newbies progress from "little clue" through the various techniques as taught in the class, to some level of expertise where they can fix both thoroughly and slightly broken images, has got to be a good thing.

Demonstrating what CM can achieve is surely the best way of selling it and building its user base. I put my before/after images from when I did the class on my website and I've had a few comments from people who were impressed. I can't help thinking that showing the learning/usage progress will also be impressive to prospective users/customers. Before and after shots can only raise so much interest. Plus it gets good, interesting content into the public forums - I enjoyed looking at the "first stab" attempts I saw people had made this morning and will be rather disappointed when Mike makes the discussion "go dark".

Of course, the problem is that the course has a value, and that needs to be realised, and that's a tricky balancing act. Show too much and prospective customers won't need to pay for a class of their own. I guess a starting point would be to make the original full sized images only available to class subscribers, and to obviously only allow posting to subscribers. Would that be enough of a restriction? I'm not sure. The idea also comes to mind that maybe a discounted class could be bundled with a CM sale - say an option of 50% off your class when buying CM.

Anyway, enough of another of my rambles. :) The CM forums are too quiet, and my eyes lit up this morning when on my regular daily visit to the website I found a dozen messages to read. There must be a way of encouraging and developing this discussion and curving activity while still putting food on Mike's table!

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Well said.  The one week of before-after images is an experimental thing, and I'm inclined to leave it open at least a couple more days, because it is generating interest.  This portion of the class consists of contributed images, so there is not the issue of giving away the store that there is with the written portion of the class.

Another thought would be to make something like an "image a day" a permanent feature of the curvemeister forum.  We'll see.