90p Admin

1. How big do we want our group to become? 2. Do we want to have a vendor member section - maye on a test basis Not today - just eventually?

1. I tend to think of 150ish being a good number in the Sage 100 community at least. There is a point where more people is just more people. I'd prefer to focus on quality instead of quantity. There is something special in the exclusivity of being a 90Minder. 2. Yes if there is interest. There are issues in the current setup in Socialcast, but I don't think any of them are insurmountable. We'd have to set them up as External and they'd have to be managed. Plus someone would have to manage the vendor group(s).

Should the 150 number be companies - or individuals? I tend to think in terms of companies because with larger firms the individuals come and go. I'd like to thin out Socialcast groups if we can. I don't see us presently needing much beyond: Open to all: Sage 100 Routine Sage 100 Urgent Sage News Industry News Private: 90 Minds Consulting Group Admin

What about Sage CRM and Scripting?

150 individuals. Members from larger firms will come and go.

Just a quick thought, will post more later but I think we should reevaluate the reduced rate 90Minds fellow membership as it applies to new members joining. The specific example is Brett Zimmerman and Net@Work. Does switching firms automatically qualify the new firm to lower rates??? Brett was independent when we started charging membership, then he joined Oasis which qualified them for the lower rate, now he is at Net@Work which qualifies them. Brett is invoiced directly for his dues. Net@Work qualified earlier because of Mike Fitzgerald. Personally, I think this loop hole needs to be tightened.

I think in cases of social collaboration, sometimes quantity does drive quality. Specifically, the more contributors we have, the more chance that there will be good contributions and good responses. It's not as if artificially enforced smaller numbers creates quality members. We've had (and still have) some members that never contribute. The larger we become, the more independent we become from the machinations of Sage. I would like to get to a point where we have a full time administrator like ITA does. That person could be dedicated full time to helping us create value for the group in different areas (and execute the growing number of tasks to execute these plans).

If you're talking collaboration and engagement, I agree, @PeterWolf. However, there are quite a few members who don't actually contribute. The goal of the group has always been to have actively participating members.

@JeffSchwenk it's an interesting point. Has this been a ""problem"" with anyone besides Brett?

I agree with you Robert. I guess my point was that the more we have, the more the bell curve should move to where we want it to be. There will always be the laggards who don't contribute and the number of laggards will increase with total number of members, but the leaders and middle pack will also increase as well.

It's a balance between the rising tide raising all ships and being able to find the wheat for all of the chaff.

That's a good slogan but that's not the real issue here is it? It's not that we have a lot of irrelevant conversations, it's that some people don't say anything. So more members should equal more responders (in theory). That's my understanding anyway.

@JeffSchwenk @RobertWood - My primary concern about the cost is that it's not confusing. For example, when I'm at lunch at ITA (or anywhere with another Sage partner) and someone asks me about 90 Minds and the cost I would like to be able to reply that the new member dues are $ x per person for membership. If the dues are $ x per company and $ y per person that we admit to Socialcast that's ok too. I just am confused at juggling separate costs and trying to explain 90 Minds Fellow v Affiliate. It's a great differentiator but confusing to new people who just want to collaborate in Socialcast. What I'd like to see is that the dues get people into Socialcast. That's our definition of 90 Minds member. From there we can have other private invitation only subgroups where we can lessen the concern about competitors.

It's not a slogan. It's my take. You can take it or leave it.

Sure you did. It's OK. I'm just not interested in a debate. I threw my thoughts out there.

Well I didn't mean to be dismissive ... I just meant that I don't think it's irrelevant conversations (chaff) vs good conversations (wheat), it's that we don't have enough conversations.

The other thing that can happen is you make membership just expensive enough (grandfathering existing) that you start not caring about lookers. That's been our theory on the Fellow v Affiliate. My only real concern is that trying to have a discussion with a potential new member is somewhat confusing to explain the differences. And even then they don't really listen and just want to ""get in"" and sometimes ask a question. Then if we have an event where it's affiliate v fellow admission they don't understand why they can't go, etc. TL;DR: Make it easy to explain membership

I would agree with Wayne's point about making it easy to explain membership. Also - and we've discussed this before - if someone is not a contributor but they pay their bills, I'm good with that. They are paying but not playing. That's their choice.

@RobertWood - Yes I did mean to be dismissive but I didn't mean to be so rude about it. Sorry. I don't think the wheat vs chaff analogy applies in this case.

So you've stated.

Anyone besides Peter and I want to respond to Wayne's questions? I'd like to hear what everyone thinks.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Peter and I can't be the only people who have an opinion on these topics.

Tis the weekend. Be patient!

Is the question about size or vendor membership??? Same question, same debate?? I agree with Peter - why would you want to exclude members just because we hit a random 150 members? Yes, some will rarely or never contribute but do we care if they are paying their ""confusing"" membership? As for Fellow vs. Associate, when talking to new prospective members, it should be as an Associate - $500 for the first member from a firm and $250 for each additional member of said firm. Second year, $400/$150 (I think I have that right?). And yes, it was a weekend, a weekend very close to Christmas. I'm having the in-laws on Christmas Day - all 17 of them plus a new baby - so I was busy not only shopping but cleaning. There, now I feel better.....

Explaining the differences should be fairly easy and straight forward. Prospective members don't need to know about the multiple tiers as they don't qualify for at least a year (if ever). We are a group that collaborates on Sage 100 technical issues though we are trying to grow the groups to bring in more CRM, Sage 100 and other types of contributions. $500 for the initial company member, 250 for each additional. We do offer one or two conferences per year which is a great way to meet the other members and develop your network. Keep it simple, no need to mention the inner circle to prospects. As far as optimal number, I don't know of one but I don't think we are there yet. We are experiencing growing pains regarding the distinction between vendors and resellers, consultants and marketing/sales types. We aren't at the critical mass of membership where we can support a full time employee. And before that happens, we have to decide what we want to be when we mature. If we start seeing an increase in large company membership, their wants and ends are very different (as the ITA recognizes). I think if we grow the business, this will be an even bigger issue to tackle. But more importantly, what will the state of Sage 100 be in five years?? We had an interesting meeting at the ITA regarding Intact and netsuite. I don't see many of the existing membership taking those products on. As the senior partner said, give me 8 more years to ride this to retirement.......

Part of the issues with the distinction between Fellows & Associates is when you have something like MOTM where it was Fellows only before. Anything where Jeff asks ""Where is the value to the Fellows?"" is in the same category. Someone eventually mentions that they are doing something and you get a handful of Associates who want to know or you get someone who joins wanting to do whatever. It's not a big deal to explain if you're comfortable with what the distinction is but there isn't really a distinction other than the admin group recognized someone met some non criteria. The 150 I threw out there was somewhat arbitrary, but communities go through a transformation somewhere between 150 and 250 members. I'm not saying we don't want to go through that change, but we just have to realize it's going to happen. If we are to breach that boundary, we need to automate some things. Things start to fall through the cracks more. Some of those who are just paying their ""confusing"" membership results in the highest workload for Jeff, Wayne, and me in forgotten passwords or forgetting which email address they used, queries, or third notices from Jeff to pay their bills. While it may not be that much work, it adds up.

Totally agree @RobertWood . Once we get over that boundary, I think the first thing that has to change is compensation for those you mentioned - you, Jeff and Wayne who handle the day to day things. I think Jim gets compensated based on his planning activities (which he is very good at!). I don't expect any compensation other than the possible reimbursement of things for events. How are those bylaws coming ???

I'm locking myself in a room later this week to get something for the admin group to look at next week.

Procrastination is my middle name.

It is currently an unpaid position so no pressure Robert - except for those of us pressuring you!!

You mean like me and you, @ThereseLogeais?

Um, something like that, yes! However, you do way more than me on a day to day basis.

My wife would probably disagree...

Boy sorry I am late to the party it was a busy weekend and monday. As I remember, we brought on Oasis as a farm team for main membership. It seems like the farm team have kind of become just part of the team. Our goal has always been to encourage and facilitate collaboration. As the caretakers for 90minds we need to be continuing find ways to do that. The Fellow designation was one of those was one of those ways. I think that MOTM is another one of those ways. As we all get to know one another this should build relationships and likely more collaboration. Regarding the original question the size of 90mimds. I think if we can provide good value and a safe place to collaborate. We don't really have a limit. Bit as i said we need to have a safe non competing environment. I think we need to be careful in who we allow as members. ) membership committee) If we pollute it with non-collaborator then our stream fill up with spam. So I don't care on he number provided they are contributing members. Regarding vendor members, I think that our external contributor channels are made for that purpose. The question is do we put then in one stream or one per area. I think the jury is out on what they use the stream for other them posting info for us to review. But if they are willing to pay for a stream I am all for it.

Sorry for the typos. It is crazy what you can do on an iPhone.

Are you still awake, @JimWoodhead ?

What I think is safest is to create the core groups as collaboration only - no advertising or solicitation. Those groups should be places that we could allow anyone in and not be uncomfortable (Sage, a vendor, etc). I'm NOT saying to let anyone in. I'm saying the CONTENT in those groups should be 100% collaboration around technical issues. It's a break-fix and tech tips / best practices area. For more confidential issues such as MOTF type things create separate categories and make those invite only and private. I'm working on a fee schedule to explain this so that new members know exactly what they're getting --- ie the groups they have access to and what they can expect and what the cost is for the first person and subsequent people.

Fee Schedule: Basic Consulting (for new members - this is not what the existing fellows pay) https://docs.google.com/a/community.90minds.com/document/d/1ORdc86cOD7bMEKMY_Iv1DrM0a7K_UsgcLwXg9y_6uro/edit?usp=sharing

I put some comments on it.

Thanks - I didn't intentionally drop the $$ -- I tried searching the back discussions and stumbled upon what I thought our fees were. With respect to offering refunds I think many members would want to be able to view our group activity to be sure its what they want. Our policy either needs to be no refunds or some defined period of time -- this saves us having to individually deal with the question should it come up.

Jeff do we have a different second year fee? If so what's that? I want to put it into the fee schedule.

500/250 first year. 400/200 is the renewal number for Associates.

First person (per year)"" - What does this refer to (not clear)? First person from a company or from a specific office? And what does the (per year) refer to since it changes in year two?

Can you see now how sitting at a lunch table with a prospective member is an exercise in frustration? If we cannot figure out the fee structure ....

Maybe it is because I run the invoices but how can it get much simpler. $500 for first member from firm, $250 for everyone else. Want to renew? $400/200 for subsequent years. In fact that is the simplest part of the qualification. Are you a consultant in GOOD standing with Sage? I sure hope so as I have no way of telling. Is more of your job responsibilities more in sales/marketing? Oops, sorry. Do you sell more Sage products than your own? Oops, sorry you are vendor. Oops, sorry!

It is because you run the invoices and I think we need a member FAQ/price list which I'm working on.