The TN20 Treehouse

We at GroupSwim see tremendous potential in the power that the OpenSocial Project will offer both developers and consumers of social applications.  GroupSwim is dedicated to initiating and supporting open standards that emerge in the social application and community space.

With Google taking the lead, and generating impressive industry support, we see both positives and negatives as a potential supporting developer.  Read/Write Web has a nice, concise piece on the pros and cons of a Google led initiative in this area (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/opensocial_three_big_concerns.php).  We are less concerned about the 3rd point that Marshall raises about lack of IT support and questioning why we don’t use micro-formats and existing standards.  To that last point, the existing standards and micro-formats have not been sufficient to create a powerful, yet easy user experience.

What we like about the OpenSocial Project is it puts a stake in the ground TODAY.  We are not going back and forth in committees, arguing personal agendas.  This can go live (as Plaxo proved) today if you are interested.  This point of immediate availability needs to be tempered by the questions Marshall raises in his Read/Write post.  The issues of Google control and a write-only API need to be addressed as the list of partners begin supporting the spec.

GroupSwim will support the OpenSocial Project in a future release of our product.  We are cautiously optimistic that the OpenSocial Project will be one of many open initiatives that will continue to allow users to take charge of their information across many different environments.

For any Chicago Cubs fan, this post-season this year was painfully brief. I felt compelled to write a little poem about it, to help me process it all. Please to enjoy…

–

They still sing the blues in Chicago.
by Luke Ball

It began with potential—a nice place to begin—
A team with top talent, and a desire to win.
A decision, it seemed, had been made at the top:
It was time the Cubs’ losing streak came to a stop.

The season, it started, but not quite as planned.
The Brewers seemed to have us out-gunned and out-manned.
And Lou’s style must have been quite a shock after Dusty,
For our playing looked rough, inconsistent, and rusty.

But then June came around, and a sea-change took place,
The Cubs, they got hot! We were back in the race!
Holy cow, they were good! Do cynics dare dream?
The North side, it seemed, had one hell of a team!

Through fistfights and tirades, and trades and derision,
Our boys came around and they won their division!
The time, it was now, our fortunes, reversing;
Let be damned all these murmurs of losing and cursing!

But woe to October! How we loathe that postseason!
“Why is that?” you might ask? This team showed us the reason.
Wrigely’s champagne-soaked champions quick came up lame;
They went to the playoffs, but they lost in three games!

It was hard to see players who had all been so clutch,
Fail when they were just on the brink of so much.
There was no Steve Bartman, no black cat, no goat.
This was a good team that, quite simply, choked.

I don’t blame Sweet Lou for pulling Big Z,
Strong bullpen, plus rest; it all made sense to me.
And I had marveled at Marmol all season long…
What a poor moment for it to all go so wrong.

But the dinger off Carlos was just the beginning:
Eight runs in game two left us slim chance of winning.
Back in friendly confines, we’re sure to win now,
But without our top hitters, it’s not really clear how.

They were pressing too hard as they swung from their heels,
Overtrying to prove all their high-profile deals.
We spent 400 million to get the job done
but when ’should’ turned ‘must’, we couldn’t walk in a run.

I go to the doctor, he asks me “What hurts?”
I say “Lilly and Hill, Eyre, Marmol and Wuertz.”
But he still needs more symptoms to make his decree,
So I hand him Soriano, Ramirez, and Lee.

It’s not that they stunk (though they’re justly maligned),
It’s those streaks in this season when they all truly shined.
They broke down our walls, made us once more believe.
We handed them hope, and oh! what we received.

A failure of hitting, a failure of pitching,
A collapse so abrupt that it left the fans twitching.
Three heartbreaking games in four heartbreaking days
Ending heartbreakingly with four double plays.

The Cubs so efficiently failed when it mattered.
For the ninety-ninth time, a summer’s dreams shattered.
Now the season’s all over, the clubhouse all packed,
Is it a good thing or bad that they’re almost all coming back?

God help me, I love ‘em, and I won’t give up hope,
(Though I may need through April to properly mope).
And it pains me to to say it, these two words we all fear,
But I truly believe we’ve got a great shot Next Year.

Most organizations, especially commercial businesses, require strong leadership to be successful. I’m hard pressed to think of an example where this isn’t the case. There is a decent article in Fortune (10/1/07) about companies that spend significant time and money on developing leaders. However, it isn’t always easy to find your leaders. You typically need a strong HR process, current leadership committed to developing leadership, or future leaders who take the time to aggressively manage their career; many organizations lack all three.
One tool in your arsenal for finding future leaders is an online community. If you use an internal community, you can use it to identify potential leaders. An online community is a perfect stage for people to demonstrate qualities that are important for leadership:

1. Willingness to share information
2. Willingness to take chances and make mistakes (i.e. they aren’t afraid to post information)
3. Ability to communicate effectively
4. Ability to inspire others to participate

It takes guts and knowledge to be an active member of an online community. There will always be “experts” in communities that don’t necessarily want to become leaders. They may be very technical or simply wish to share with the community without assuming a leadership role; this is fine. Most organizations are made up of a small percentage of leaders and experts. An online community is a perfect way to both types to come together for the benefit of all. Use this asset creatively to help identify and develop future company leaders.

There is one important thing we all need to do when starting a new community - roll-out the welcome mat.  An on-line community has the same needs as any group when it gets started.  The new group members must feel welcome and involved and the earlier the better.  When a user gets invited to a group, you have one opportunity to make a first impression.  We suggest putting time into the email, marketing campaign, and/or advertising you are using to recruit new members.  In this communication, you should definitely explain the purpose of the group and what the members hope to get out of it.  People aren’t likely to stay engaged or even try a group if they aren’t sure why they are going there.
Here are some tactics to consider once a user joins a group:
1. If you can track it, send them a personal email after they log into the site for the first time welcoming them. 
2. Send them an email or note after they’ve posted their first contribution.  Make it a point to comment on whatever they wrote and tell them how unique or useful it was.  Or, make sure you or someone in the community responds to their first post.  Studies have shown that there is a statistically higher chance someone will come back to a community if their first post was noticed. 
3. Follow-up with them 2 weeks after they join to make sure they are happy.
If you employ any or all of these tactics, you are more likely to create a successful, vibrant on-line community.

We are working very hard to make GroupSwim the best community software on the planet.  We want you and your group to have fun collaborating.  We also want to make the content from your discussions instantly useful to you and everyone in your community.  Here is a quick snapshot of the things we added in the last 2 weeks:
·         New insert image capability in the post form:  Next to the link button on the post form tool bar is a new feature that allows you to insert any image from the web as long as it’s URL addressable. 
·         Delete discussions:  We got the message!  When you delete a discussion, now it disappears, gone, kaput, no more.  The only place you will ever see a crossed out discussion:  your history, if you watch-listed a deleted discussion.  
·         “Select All” in member management:  We now provide a select all action in the side bar.  This is most effective for the invitation requests and open invitations sections.
·         Updated permissions:  We added a new option in privacy and access permissions (subgroups and main group).  If you use the custom option within privacy and access permissions, you can now control who is allowed to reply.   This allows you to setup groups that are read only (only managers can post and reply) or anyone can post or reply. 
·         Improved rendering on uploaded images: We improved our image uploader - newly uploaded thumbnails and images should be a lot clearer.
·         HTML is now allowed in the group description field (see about page) and announcement field.
Just 2 weeks ago, we added the following:
·         File attachments:   Not only did we add file attachments, but the file size limits are very generous at 10mb per post.   File attachments can be added to new discussions and individual replies.  You can see the file attachment function in the post form.  We have big plans moving forward with files, so stay tuned.
·         Edit and delete controls:  You can now edit and delete all your posts, including add and remove attachments.  Mouse over the “+” symbol next to the thumb rating controls.
·         Inappropriate content flag:  See something you don’t like just use the flag and it will collapse (like using the down thumb) and report the discussion to the manager.
·         Thumb rating controls:  New discussion thumb rating controls that now show the number of up thumb and down thumbs in line for each discussion and reply.
·         Score bar and new discussion ballooners: We added a very cool score bar and discussion ballooners to make it obvious which discussions are considered the best.   The score bar is displayed in the new discussion fly-outs and the about box on each discussion page.
·         Sort Options: On the discussion lists we moved the sort options to be directly over the discussion subject to make it easier switching between recent discussions and popular.
·         Post Form:  Check out the new emoticons that Luke custom designed for GroupSwim!   

New features for Group site Owners and Managers
·         Content moderation:   Community members can now flag inappropriate discussions.  All flagged content is tracked in the new Site Activity Log.  If a discussion or reply is flagged it will have a waving flag next to the users display name in the discussion or reply flagged.   Mouse over the flag to see how many times it was flagged.   Only the Group site, manager and the person who flagged the post can see the waving flag.
·         New activity log:  All flagged and deleted discussions and replies are tracked in the site activity log.   This tool provides a central place to track all flagged content across the group site and for each subgroup.   The site activity log can be accessed by the owner and all managers via the group site settings.  Note: each subgroup has its own version of the activity log
·         Deleting:  Managers and Owners can now delete discussions and individual replies.  The delete discussion control is in the actions column.  The delete reply function is next thumb rating controls and can be accessed by mousing over the “+” symbol.
·         Attachments: New permission control in site settings where you can turn attachments on or off for your group site.
·         Content scoring model:   In the past we relied on user ratings via thumbs-up and thumbs-down to rank discussions.  We decided to take this several steps farther.  Now all content is automatically ranked based on collective community participation in addition to thumb rankings.   This means the most popular discussions will be automatically surfaced regardless if people use the thumbs or not.
If you have great ideas for us, please post them in the Pool and we will get right on it!

If your organization is like most groups, lots of useful knowledge and experience is locked-up inside people’s heads.  We all do our best passing on information through email, contributing to knowledge bases (if one is available that people actually use), mentoring others, etc.  Alas, these strategies help but don’t cut it. When a new person comes into a group or if someone leaves, the need to transfer knowledge is critical.  Also, you’ll find that the best people are constantly asked the same questions over and over again as new people either join or don’t remember to check whatever sources might be available.

Therefore, you need to capture knowledge differently; try utilizing a solution like GroupSwim.  When anyone in a group wants to ask a question, shares a best practice or lesson learned, or provides something that doesn’t warrant a formal document, they enter it into GroupSwim. Once the comment is posted, GroupSwim (or the author) tags the comment to enable others to search for it in the future and monitor topics of interest. When people respond to the comment, they add new tags if appropriate further enhancing its usability; they also vote on the usefulness of the entry through a simple click. The result of this process is the really good bits of knowledge float to the top of the pile where others can easily find them. This process allows you to gather ideas and practices on a real-time basis that can be easily found through the use of tagging and searching.

One of the critical success factors for using a system like this is changing the culture of how people work. Before using this kind system, you typically exchange knowledge like everyone else; through the use of “Reply All” emails, Instant Messaging, or hallway conversations.  You’ll need to encourage people to use the tool instead of lapsing into old habits. If you see someone emailing something that is better suited for GroupSwim, reply “Take it to the board.”

The combination of a powerful technology, cultural change, and working differently allows you to build a knowledge pool that is constantly refreshed and expanded as people do their day-to-day work. It also serves as a source for the other things like white papers, best practice documents, and new training.

We had a big day today showing off GroupSwim at TechCrunch40.    Response to GroupSwim has been fantastic!   Lots of really enthusiastic responses and new communities created in response to our day of demos.    Check us out at TechCrunch40 and be sure and vote for GroupSwim, here!

We were very busy over the Labor Day holiday and just put the finishing touches on a new GroupSwim release. The focus of the release was new, powerful, options to configure groups, integrating GroupSwim with other systems, and new ways for your members to stay up to date.

Here’s what’s new:

• Vastly expanded permissions options so you can easily configure your groups, in just about anyway imaginable. From read only, to wide open, and any combination between.
• Auto-join groups: you can now setup a subgroup that automatically adds all group members, no invites required.
• Email-blast: for owners and managers, you can post and send an email alert to the entire group site, regardless of email settings
• Single sign-on: you can now integrate GroupSwim with your existing systems and provide a single sign-on experience.
• SSL support for your Group
• RSS support has been added to member home pages, all subgroups and the watchlist. This is a great way for members to stay current and reduce the number of email alerts.

If you’re interested in integrating GroupSwim into your existing web property or turning on SSL, email us, and we can get you started.

We have been receiving a lot of inquiries about embedding GroupSwim into your site or application. The good news, yes, you can do this and we’re almost done testing our API.  We’re wrapping up a couple integrations to finalize everything and we’ll be open for business shortly

To answer a few of the questions:

1) Yes, we support single sign-in
2) Yes, you can run under your own domain
3) Yes, you can auto-load your members
4) Yes, you can use your branding

The best way to get started is to create your group site and we can integrate your new groups shortly.

If you interested, just email us, and we can get started.