Everyone who creates a free account here is a “member”. Who’s it for talks about “visitors”, “members” and “supporting members”.
…sign up, I’m falling behind greeting them and helping them get started on the right foot. I’m looking for a volunteer for a few weeks (we’ll be specific when you volunteer) to…
We’ll meet for an hour zoom, once a week. 1on1 access to me; for you to use however you like… questions about this platform, or anything else you want to ask me about etc.
You’ll come up with a plan (nothing crazy, just a basic idea of what we want to do) to greet new members.
You’ll do that as new people arrive.
Afterwards—after the weeks have gone by—you can step down, continue on, or whatever you prefer.
You’ve had the lion’s share of responsibility with our group. And I appreciate all you do!
My WIC3 (Writing in Community) class is wrapping up in a couple of weeks and I’d like to help you.
I don’t know how long I’ll be able to be a Greeter but I can try to learn what you do and come up with a simple (nothing fancy or complicated) and sustainable plan of action with you and your blessing.
I’ll check with you about how long a commitment would help.
This idea morphed from my original post way up top — I’d love for @lovelace to chime in here But in general: Rather than a single person who’d work directly with me, we think it would be way cooler to have a merry band of people who work together—with a “greeters” group and some coordination just to ensure new members here are welcomed and introduced to our culture.
After we talked I thought about what I would need to know if a new person joined our merry crew. You’re the mastermind behind the machine. So you tell me – is there a way to have an alert sent to the Welcome Committee?
I agree that it would be a good idea to have several greeters in our ‘Welcome Aboard’ group and perhaps rotate responsibility for a month at a time as we do in our monthly discussion about Seth Godin’s The Practice.
We need:
*An alert message to the greeters when a new person signs on
*A welcome message with some guidance about the platform as well as what’s available
PS - Not-A-Bot Message
*The willingness to mentor the new member in the onboarding process
*A Call to Action to encourage new members to become supporting members for the nominal annual fee.
These are my morning off-the-cuff thoughts following the discussion you and I had.
I can make that happen, yes. Two ways I can imagine…
A to-the-group PM that says ‘new user “bob” is the obvious way.
But we could also make a private category for the greeters. There would then be a place to have discussions, and a new topic could be created there automatically for each new user. Then you could collaborate about that user in replies (“i said hello”, “i checed back w them” “anyone know how to do X… they asked about that”)
Definitely worth giving the Private Greeter Category (another name) a try. And also have an alert sent to the Welcome crew. I see what you mean about making The Newbie a Topic. I envisioned the “Howdy!” “Welcome Aboard” crew as a group similar to our friends in our monthly The Practice group.
Has anyone else shown an interest in greeting new members?
There is now an @greeters group, and a dedicated #greeters category accessible to members of the group for their internal coordination and discussions.
I’ll work on setting up automation to post into that category as new users log in. For the moment, I’ll simply post in there by hand when I notice new people creating accounts…
After some discussion, @lovelace and I have started a greeters group. If anyone would like to join in helping greet new community members, we could really use a couple more people.
There’s a separate space where the greeters can communicate–for example if someone asks you a question, you can get help from the other greeters.
As new people sign into the community, it simply a matter of saying hello and seeing how we might help them. (There’s roughly a new login each week, but we’ve a little backlog at the moment.)
These are wonderful things to make sure we do. But (you knew a “but” was coming ) I wonder if we boil it down to a single question we use to start a discussion? “What are you hoping to get from joining this community?” (and variations thereof)
I’d like to test if this community provides more value to folks who already have a podcast running and want to find an edge or next steps of some kind. Or are we encouraging folks new to podcasting who need a heap of guidance to join us?
My intuition is that we are orientated to the former. I think we can add conversations that are more rewarding. Plus this audience should then find the investment in subscribing worthwhile.
Just thinking out loud. I’ll hug anybody from anywhere
My guess is that we’re attracting people who are the former. Lots of people here who are already podcasting, or at least beyond the initial “how do I start” stage.
) I wonder if we boil it down to a single question we use to start a discussion? “What are you hoping to get from joining this community?” (and variations thereof)