Sage 100

Hi Everyone - in preparation for potentially allowing non-members to access Socialcast I would like to tighten up our use of groups. Socialcast lets us create private and public groups. This is a private (by invite only) group. It's existence and contents is only viewable by those in the group. Let's get into the habit of posting into the different group categories: 90 Minds Members = Group private talk 90 Minds Sales = Sharing best business practices 90 Minds Urgent Support = Tech support needed now Ask90Minds = RSS feed from our Ask90Minds.com site (primarily viewing) Blogging = Coordinate blogging Orphans and Problems = Discussing problem customers/leads Political Fun = Politics Rants = Off topic area to blow off steam or make a pointed observation Sage Community = RSS feed from Sage Community of new messages Sage EPR MAS = All technical non-urgent Sage support questions Socialcast Chatter = Q&A about Socialcast Tech News - News about other ERP and/or technology

Ok, I didn't realize that we were going to start to open the group for others. Guess I need to look back at other posts. Why were we going to open this to nonmembers? Is it going to be to other resellers? Sorry if it was already talked about.

I am open to ideas on how to recruit new members. It seems that the easiest way would be to add them to Socialcast but not into private groups. This however does expose any information that people posted outside of specific groups in Socialcast. So what would our other alternatives be? Ideally I think we want to test out potential new members before adding them as full members (and as to the reason on why we would add new members - see the previous Socialcast messages over the past few days). We could.... a. Create a duplicate Socialcast and put potential new members in there. This would probably require us all to create another Socialcast account and/or reconfigure for duplicate access (my guess is not even a handful of present 90 Minds folks would bother) b. Use some type of group chat separate from Socialcast where new members could mingle with existing 90 Minds members but not see the full Socialcast messages until/if they were invited to join 90 Minds. At that point they'd be added into Socialcast and they would be able to see message history. c. Throw caution to the wind - admit people we think would be good members to full Socialcast access. We'll probably see that 75% or more post two messages and then disappear leaving us to disable their accounts or constantly prod for participation. Or other suggestions? ....

So what are we trying to accomplish? See how many times they will post? Then look at the Sage Forum. After all that is how we started this group, right? I wouldn't say that is all we want to do. I would check the geographic area to see if they overlap anyone. Then I would go through some sort of interview process by the group. I think to be added to the group a group member should sponsor that person. They would post to the list the info about the person and why they think they should be added to the group as well as the person wanting to be added to the group would write a statement on why they want to join and what they would bring to the table. The sponsor would then take any interview questions from the group and rely it to the person wanting to join and get the answers. If the group wants to add them then they are added. There would be a probationary time 3 months or so that the person has access to everything but can be dropped for any reason. During the probationary time the sponsor is their primary contact to getting help with the group. If the sponsor notices during this time that they are not contributing or is causing issues with other members then they will be asked to have the person be dropped and they will interact with them about it. After the probationary time then it would be same rules as all other members. Just my thought on it.

I'm going to step back and let the group reach a consensus. Hearing nothing I'll assume that ""wither and die"" is the choice.

I like Todd's ideas. Bring new people aboard based on recommendations from other members. Surely we know of other resellers we have met that would be good contributors to the group? Maybe resellers we see on LinkedIn or on the Sage Community.

The problem is that we seem (I seem) to keep asking for that and from what I can tell the consensus really is to just let things stay as is. When is the last new member that anyone recommended? Ever?

Is there sort of ""map"" that shows who each person's ""territory"" is to avoid recommending someone who would overlap?

Also, is there a list of people who were passed over or dumped so that someone does not recommend them again?

I don't think so but we have about half a dozen members who've disappeared in a relatively short amount of time. Primarily I think we'd want to find companies that are under 10 consultants in size, have 10 years or more in business, and are not geographically competitive to an active member.

Who has disappeared?

You can scan through here. I count at least 5 who I haven't seen or heard from in the last 6 months. http://community.90minds.com/find-a-member/by-state/