90p Admin

Ok guys we've hit a pretty serious technical issue with OASIS. Those who we have brought in as External Collaborators have no ability to search. That means they essentially only can get value from scrolling though posts. To me this is unacceptable. Jim Woodhead asked Socialcast about the issue. Socialcast basically has the same response to everything which is not yet, good idea, we're planning it, no timetable. Welcome to the world of SaaS. We've got to deal with it and move along... I have a couple thoughts: 1. Socialcast is a one termer for us. I'm not sold on this technology or the company behind it. We need to keep our eyes wide open for an exit with our year is up. Hopefully Google Plus will add groups and we can switch to that service and their free model. What's done is done so we need to adapt to the present situation. 2. We need to introduce search independent of waiting for Socialcast to pull their thumb/fists out of their asses. For this reason I think we probably need to take our External Collaborators and make them full Socialcast accounts (though not 90 Minds members). This brings up a host of other things we'll need to deal with: a. Making it crystal clear who is a 90 Minds member b. Cleansing out prior public ""share with my colleagues"" from any mention of competitors. c. Have an ""all hands"" member announcement to paint a picture of what's happening, when and why 3. I think we continue using the "" * "" groups. I don't see us having to make any group changes through over time we may want to add more. Continue to use a "" * "" in front of the groups that are open to external collaborators. I think that designation works well. The biggest issue is that Blytheco is going to be joining us for technical areas only. We need to be sure in the main ""share with my colleagues"" that we do a good job of pulling critical discussion. I would leave that to each member to do -- perhaps give them a 2 week warning. And have it so that only the content originator pulls their original post - that we won't ""censor"" anything. I could also be convinced that this is a serious enough change ----- converting a private area to essentially public ----- that is should only be done by vote of 90 Minds members since it could be argued that to some degree it may expose confidential info -- or at least discussion members thought would remain private. Thoughts??

I don't see Google Plus being the answer. Any reason to not look at some traditional forum software other than it's a hassle to administer and maintain? I think @PeterWolf put some effort into looking a while back. He might have some thoughts.

A year is a long time and if Google Plus added in some group features there could be a compelling offer. It definitely is not close to working for us as it stands today.

Still early, give Peter a chance to post his thoughts. We may have to pay someone within the group to adminster the forum on their server.

I think that's a mistake. The power in our group is in collaboration not becoming administrators or maintainers of technology. Forums are great but they require administration, if they crash or go down while our administrator is busy then we're screwed. This is just a bad idea. Worse in my opinion than Socialcast.

Wow... that is unbelievable news. I agree with Wayne that if we installed forum software, it would be a pisser because someone would have to own it, support it, etc. That being said, there are several cloud based options. I didn't look very deep because the idea was 86'd. It raises another point: didn't we pay a bunch of money to Socialcast? If we pick up and move along, are we out the $$$$? I cannot believe how crappy these baby dot com / cloud companies are with features, sales, marketing, etc...

I don't think we are saying it is a great idea. We are just looking for solutions/options to achieve the goal.

The main reason we stayed with Socialcast was switching costs. Everyone was already comfortable logging in, etc. I don't think we lose anything by paying and staying a year (remember we charged the OASIS folks which fully paid for the fee). However as we approach the end of our agreement -- which I think must have been September -- we should be thinking about the next step of whether to stay with Socialcast or to migrate. My thought is that: 1. It's easier to treat Socialcast (et al) as a communication platform rather than a wiki where we feel indebted to stay. 2. We'd be better off to compile key information into some type of online hosted Wiki/Data store and treat the Socialcast type platforms as temporary -- meaning we don't feel we need to be tied to them to extract/search prior posts. It's possible that Google will kick it into high gear and by 2012 have the ability for us to use groups within Google Plus. If that were to happen then we might be able to get by with a free option. I'm just saying keep an eye on that possibility. For new we are not very far into this whole OASIS thing. We'll undoubtedly have more experiences and our needs may change yet again by the time our Socialcast expiration runs out. I find that with much of these shared hosting providers (SAAS) there's not a ton of flexibility for them to make big programming type changes.

They actually said that they have the search function scheduled to be next year. (edited) Not sure that means much but we might be able to limp along till then. Frankly the search capability is poor in socialcast aways. I usually have to explore to find anything I want. My .02 anyways.....

I say we dial back down to defcon 4 and make the announcement that the search capabilities are coming first quarter next year (or ""tear"" as Jim calls it). Not ideal but ... as @WayneSchulz states - this is a communication system and not a KB or forum or wiki.

I'll say a prayer and hope Sage isn't secretly in charge of the programming............

It means December 21, 2012. @JeffSchwenk Um, it works in a browser other than IE and isn't using a dated back end. I think we're safe.