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  1. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, What are the benefits of a support community?   
    When your customers buy or use your products, they will have many questions. They may have issues using the product, or they may have requests for future versions based on their needs.
    Managing and responding to those questions and requests quickly increases conversion, satisfaction and the likelihood or purchasing again.
    The statistics back this up.

    There is no doubt that unless you have a support community for your brand,  you are not delivering the best experience for your customers and risk losing them to competitors that do.
    Building a support community around your product or service will positively drive your business across all departments from product development through sales and into customer support.
    Let's break it down and look at the key benefits for each department.
    Customer Service
    Encouraging your customers to visit your support community is the simplest way to reduce the cost of supporting your product or service. Creating a self-help culture allows other more experienced customers to offer assistance and troubleshoot any problems they have.
    73% of customers fall in love with a brand because of friendly customer service representatives.**
    Quite often, new customers encounter the same issues that would flood customer support if they were all channelled to your support desk. For example, consider a company that produces an internet-enabled smart device. Less technically savvy customers will likely contact support to troubleshoot initial connectivity issues which can quickly be resolved by peers in the support community.
    These questions and answers form a crowdsourced knowledge base that will allow customers to help themselves without any intervention from your team. Furthermore, these questions will feature in external search results, driving more traffic to your site.

    Sales
    The primary purpose of your community may have initially been to help support your customers, but it quickly becomes a valuable resource to help drive sales.
    Your support community will be a relaxed place where customers talk to each other honestly and openly. They will be less inhibited than they would if they were talking to your sales agents.
    Customers might be discussing a need for more functionality that you have in another product or service. Your sales team can move these conversations from the community to your CRM to curate new sales leads.
    72% of customers will tell 6 people or more if they have a satisfying experience. - Esteban Kolsky
    Customers that have had positive interactions with their peers and members of your support team will become advocates for your brand. They will help sell your product over social media and among their friend circles. Given than 90% of customers are influenced by a positive review when buying a product*, having brand advocates is critical to your growth.

    Marketing
    There are several costly routes to learning about your customers and their wants and needs. You can conduct external surveys, or pay for research groups to look at your products and offer feedback.
    56% of customers don't mind sharing their personal information in exchange for better service.**
    The most effective method is to look at your community.
    Your customers will be posting their thoughts daily. They'll tell you exactly how they use your products, offering you valuable insight into the problems they are solving with your product. This information should be used as the basis of new marketing campaigns.

    Project Development
    Your support community is a direct line to your customers. You no longer need to use external tools and services to determine which features you should add next. You'll be told directly!
    55% of customers are willing to spend more money with a company that guarantees them a satisfying experience.**
    You'll find that some feature requests bubble up regularly. These are the ones you will want to move to your product roadmap.
    Invision Community allows you to segment your community into private areas for beta testing. Your developers can interact with this group to work directly with your customers to shape new functionality.
    Harnessing analytical data will inform development decisions. Invision Community can track keywords in user-generated content. If you have released a new feature, you can track how often it is mentioned in conversations to monitor its uptake.
    52% of customers believe that companies need to take action on their feedback.*

    Setting up your Invision Community
    Now we've looked at the compelling reasons you should create a support community around your products, let's take a look at how to set up your Invision Community.
    Support Desk
    Invision Community has a fully-featured built in support desk functionality. Commerce has all the features you need, including multiple support desk categories, reply by email, pre-written reply templates and private notes.

     
    However, if you already use another support desk such as Zendesk then our API tools mean that Invision Community can integrate with your existing support flow seamlessly.
    Keyword Tracking
    Invision Community allows you to track how often specific words or phrases. This is useful to monitor which of your products are trending or monitoring uptake on new features.
    To set this up, visit the Statistics section of the Admin CP.
    Question and Answers
    To formalize a support or ideation area within your support community, Invision Community offers a Question and Answer forum type.
    Question and Answer forum types allow your members to post questions and enable other members to upvote the questions and replies. Your support team can also flag specific responses as the "best answer" which turns historical questions into a crowdsourced knowledge base.
    Showcasing Great Content
    Invision Community has several tools to highlight great customer-created content. You can pin topics, and feature specific replies within those topics.
    You can also convert posts into new articles within a formal knowledge base or blog to further help your customers find the right answers to their questions.
    Extensibility
    Invision Community has OAuth and a REST API out of the box. This means it's trivial to extend Invision Community to work within your existing flows. Integrate Invision Community to your SalesForce CRM and Zendesk support systems seamlessly.
    Create a federated search to integrate your external knowledge base with client-generated knowledge.
    The options are limitless, and we can take care of any custom integrations for you.
    If you have any questions, please let me know below, or contact us to see how we can help you harness the power of community for your business.
    * https://www.customerthermometer.com/customer-service/customer-service-and-satisfaction-statistics-for-2019/
    ** https://www.qminder.com/customer-service-statistics/
  2. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Audience or community?   
    I've said before that when I visit a new website, I often look for a link to their community.
    It's not uncommon for some brands to have a link to their Twitter account and Facebook page, with a hashtag they'd like you to use when discussing their products.
    That is an audience, not a community.
    A true community encourages group conversation and empowers people to contribute ideas, promotion, content and support.
    A community gives its members a true sense of belonging and more importantly it provides a sense of identity.
    A community is an ongoing dialogue between you and your customers. It allows you to nurture and grow relationships far beyond what is possible with a hashtag on Twitter.
    Now consider an audience. Let's say you and 500 other people go to a venue to watch a stand-up comic perform. There may be a little interaction between the comic and the audience, but you are there to be quiet and listen. When the show is over, you go home.

    Now imagine that instead of going home after the show, you all spend a while talking about the show and the comic. You talk about which bits you enjoyed and which bits made you laugh the most. You compare this comic with other favourites. You share video clips and jokes.
    This is a community.
    An audience will follow you and consumes what you broadcast, but it is a one-dimensional relationship. Consider the case of Lush Cosmetics, who earlier this year removed their Facebook Group and replaced their community with a Twitter feed and an app "where the latest digital experiments unfold".
    I feel this is a missed opportunity to bring customers together to talk about Lush products, share tips, reviews and builder a stronger relationship with Lush.
    I've also seen startups trying to build a community on Instagram with a hashtag. They tend to search popular hashtags in their business niche and attempt to befriend individuals who are active with those hashtags intending to broadcast their information. This is all fine, but they are just curating an audience.
    A community is more than a list of followers, and it's impossible to control what content is tagged with hashtags. Just ask McDonalds who quickly realised this with their 'McDStories' campaign.

    What do you think? Let me know below.
  3. Like
    media reacted to Joel R for a blog entry, 4x4 What Do Visitors See When They Visit?   
    What do visitors see when they visit your online community? And when was the last time you logged out to browse like a visitor?  
    Check out these 4x4 tips of four items in less than four minutes for the visitor experience:
    Check your Registration Process, especially any social sign-ins. You may want to increase or reduce security checks.  You may need to fix social logins. And you may want to offer an easier onboarding like Quick Registration + Profile Completion.     Read your Guest Sign-up Widget.  This is the most important text in your entire community, since it's the first message visitors will read.  Is your Guest Signup Widget giving visitors the first impression you'd like, with proper keywords and messaging?    Audit your Visitor Permissions.  In the ACP, go to Groups > Guests > Permissions.  Do your guests have access to the right boards and categories?   Test on other browsers and devices. Most of us don't have ten different computers and smartphones running different OS's and browsers, so it can be hard to check the UIX.  Luckily, there are free cross-browser tools like BrowserShots.org or Device Mode on Chrome Devtools that can help.    Hope you enjoy these tips, and if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below. 
  4. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, CrossFit suspends Facebook and Instagram accounts   
    A month ago, CrossFit, Inc. posted a scathing blog entry outlining why they made the decision to quit Facebook and Instagram.
    I first came across CrossFit back in early 2007 when I was looking for new ways to improve my fitness. Their fitness programming was a breath of fresh air. Most workouts were based around either long cardio workouts such as running or traditional gym workouts with weights and machines.
    CrossFit successfully combined the two into a short intense workout which gained popularity very quickly.
    I was a fan immediately and followed the WODs (workout of the day) as closely as possible and watched the early CrossFit stars emerge.
    CrossFit, Inc. is very strong-minded. Their press release cites several reasons for their abandonment of the Facebook platform.
    They also expand on this and believe that "Facebook collaborates with government security agencies on massive citizen surveillance programs such as PRISM", "Facebook, as a matter of business and principle, has weak intellectual property protections and is slow to close down IP theft accounts." and "Facebook has poor security protocols and has been subject to the largest security breaches of user data in history."
    It's certainly a bold move.
    CrossFit does have a legacy forum system which dates back from its early days which gets some use still.
    I think that investing in that community platform through modernisation along with a solid community building strategy could pay dividends in them taking back control of their conversation without fear of falling foul of any heavy-handed moderation beyond their control.
    Modern community platforms like ours have plenty of tools to automate basic moderation, encourage more engagement and work well on mobile devices.
    CrossFit, Inc join Lush Cosmetics as high profile brands that have taken themselves off Facebook completely.
    Do you think we'll see a resurgence of owned-communities?
  5. Like
    media reacted to Joel R for a blog entry, The Power of Influence: Building Trust and Governance in a Community   
    Communities are bound by a code of conduct that govern user behavior. 
    Sometimes these rules are explicitly written, such as terms, guidelines, or my personal favorite: “Must Read Before Posting Or Banned!!!” topics. (That’s a joke.  Please don’t ever write a topic like that!)  Sometimes the rules are unwritten, based on evolving behaviors and user-to-user interaction.  No matter the method of conduct or scale of communication, all communities contain these community guideposts that govern user behavior. 
    Being able to influence, and being influenced by, these rules of conduct is our second element of Sense of Community. 

    Community Managers. The original influencers.
    The privilege to persuade is a powerful feeling.  It fills users with a sense of control, knowing that they can impact others.  It gives purpose to users, who will tap into their inner helpfulness by assisting others. And it imparts a sense of satisfaction, which is one of the highest transcendent values a user can feel. 
    It also leads to a better community. Over time, the mutual interaction between members builds trust, forming a community of authenticity where users can expect repeatable and expected behaviors.  It also leads to good governance, where members embrace the codes of conduct by the group, inculcate the code into their own behaviors, and repeat the code to newer members – reinforcing the very codes they learned themselves. Members conform to community rules and standards, sacrificing a little bit of their own individuality but gaining acceptance by the community. 
    Clearly, influence and persuasion is a powerful element.  Let’s take a look at some ways in which you can build a better community by unlocking the power of influence. 
    1. Show New Members How to Influence
    If your community is anything like mine, you have a welcome topic or message: Do this, read, that, follow this. It’s usually filled with stuff to influence the member. 
    But have you thought about giving the new member an opportunity to influence? And not just in a superficial manner like posting an Introduction topic, but one that’s filled with meaning and purpose.  In addition to linking to the best guides and expert content in your community, ask your users to help other members, answer challenging topics, or identify any skills that can help others. 
    2. Influence through explanations
    Have you seen communities where the moderators take heavy-handed actions and do things without prior notice? Or they assume you know everything?  It feels rude, unwelcoming, and very cliquish. On the other hand, I’ve also seen communities where the moderators and community managers take the time to explain every response.
    When you take the time to explain the response, you share your reasoning with others.  That’s influence.  Over time, users will turn around to repeat the reasoning to others, which builds good governance.  (It also means less work for you!).  Communities are built on transparency and trust, and the more you can openly establish your community norms, the more clearly other users can repeat and reinforce your governance.
    3. Be influenced by asking for help
    One of the most powerful and uplifting things you can do is to ask your members for genuine help.  Be candid.  Be vulnerable.  Explain the challenge. And ask for help.  You will find members who will rise to the occasion. 
    Humans are naturally compassionate.  We will always help others if we can and communities are one of the best platforms to ask and receive help.  If you ever make a mistake, take on a big project, or if you’re ever in over your head, don’t be afraid to ask for help and allow others to influence you. 
    4. Influence as a privilege
    One of the stellar reasons for choosing Invision Community are the multiple ways to publish content.  You can offer user albums, polls, blogs, articles, discussions, files, clubs, the list goes on.  This allows you to offer increasing channels of influence for your superusers. 
    Unfortunately, most communities throw all the choices at a new user, hoping one will stick.  That’s like asking a new member who steps into a room of strangers if he wants a microphone, a loudspeaker, and a spotlight!  That can be scary. Influence is something to be gained over time, in small bits of comfort and trust.
    5. Appreciate the influence. 
    One of the most inspiring actions you can do as a community manager is to acknowledge and appreciate the influence of others.  When you do, you affirm the influence of others.
    It's one of the simplest things you can do too.  Pick three random post by members on your site and reply: “I appreciate this contribution because …”.  You’ll be surprised by how well members respond to your note of appreciation. 
    CONCLUSION

    The best influencers are the members who care about the needs and wants of other members.
    The power to influence is one of the greatest gifts you can give to your members. By allowing them to influence other members, the codes of conduct, and even the direction of your community, they feel a deeper sense of community because they can make an impact on others.
    The most influential members in a community are surprisingly not the ones who post the most or who act the most dominant.  The best influencers are the members who care about the needs and wants of other members.
    Share in the comments below one of your success stories on how you influenced – or were influenced by – another member.   As always, I appreciate your contribution to join me in helping Invision Communities of all sizes build more rewarding and successful communities.
  6. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Les Paul, or Gibson SG?   
    It was a poster of Slash holding his Gibson Les Paul slung low on his waist playing live that got me into guitars.
    The crunching power chords of Appetite For Destruction were a long way from the three chords I could manage on a beaten up acoustic with a hole in the side, but I kept on trying until I could play those riffs.
    I still hold a special love for the Les Paul (as well as the Explorer made famous by Hetfield palm muting his way through multiple albums with Metallica).
    So, I'm especially thrilled to see the official Gibson forums relaunched with Invision Community 4.
    Check it out: https://forum.gibson.com

    It's great timing as I've recently freed my guitars from the loft and have started to play again.

    Anyone else here play guitar, and should we start our own band?
  7. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Work smarter with 5 of our best time saving features   
    Have you ever found yourself muttering "there has to be an easier way" when managing your community?
    If you have, it's likely that you are not the first person to think that. Invision Community has been refined over nearly two decades, and in that time we've received a lot of feedback from clients running very large and busy sites.
    We love a short cut, especially when it makes our clients lives easier.
    There's plenty of time-saving features throughout Invision Community, and here are five of the best.
    Saved Actions
    If you routinely perform the same actions to a topic, such as replying before closing it or moving the topic to a different forum, then saved actions will save you a lot of time.
    Let's look at a practical example. You have a forum where your members can suggest new features for your product. You might choose to move some of these suggestions to another forum to shortlist them for inclusion in a future version, or to discuss further. You also may like to reply thanking the member for their idea, but it's not feasible at this time.
    Here you would set up two saved actions, one that replies and moves the topic to a specific forum, and one that replies to the topic and closes it for further commenting.

    Your saved actions are accessible via the moderation menu
    You and your moderating team can select these saved actions quickly when reading a topic to perform multiple moderation steps in one go.
    RSS Feeds
    If your community regularly discusses topics that feature in the latest news, then you can quickly seed these discussions using the RSS feed import tool.

    Not only can you import almost any public RSS feed into your community, but you also have control over how these topics are displayed, to whom they are attributed to and how the link back to the source article looks.
    RSS feed import is an often overlooked but handy tool at starting productive discussions without the need to source and post them manually.
    iCal Feeds
    The iCal feed can be considered as the sister feature to the RSS Feed Import tool. It works in a very similar way in that it can accept almost any public iCal feed and import events into your community's calendar.
    This is especially useful if you maintain an event stream outside of the community, but wish to share those events with your members in a native way, or perhaps you already have a calendar product used by your organisation.
    Using the iCal feed tool to populate your community calendar with key dates relevant to your community can be achieved very quickly.
    Auto-moderation
    Moderating a busy community can be a time-consuming task. Trying to review new posts and topics to ensure they meet your community standards as they come in can be daunting.
    Fortunately, Invision Community has an ace up its sleeve.
    Auto-moderation allows you to use the power of your community to identify and remove content that does not meet your community standards. The administrator sets up a threshold so that when a specific number of reports for that content item is crossed, the content is hidden.

    Auto-moderation has a lot of options to configure which we covered in this blog article recently.
    Group promotion
    Ensuring your members feel valued and rewarded for their contributions is key to member retention and keeping engagement high.
    A simple way to reward long term regular contributors is to elevate their permissions. This can mean that they have access to otherwise hidden areas, or they get more allowances in terms of upload space and fewer restrictions.
    To do this manually would take a significant amount of time. Thankfully, Invision Community has a feature called Group Promotion.
    This tool allows the administrator to set up specific thresholds such as post count, or time since joining which then move the member into a new group when triggered.
    This all happens automatically. Just set it up and let it run!
    We spoke about Group Promotion recently, take a look here to learn more about this feature.
    How many of you are already using these features, and which ones did we miss off our list? I'd love to know.
     
  8. Like
    media reacted to Joel R for a blog entry, Boundaries & Identity: Building Membership in a Community   
    Cultivating a strong Sense of Community is a clear goal for community builders.  Develop a strong sense of community, and you’ve built a community experience that sparks a more meaningful and connected community that your members will love. 
    A strong sense of community means:
    An integrated community where members feel personally related An impactful community where a member can influence and be influenced by the group.  A fulfilling community where members meet the needs of others and can feel rewarded.  A shared community, where users undergo common history, time together, and social experiences.  Do you believe you’ve developed a strong sense of community?  Follow long as we critically examine the first element in the Sense of Community: Membership. 

    Membership
    Boundaries of communities have always existed, whether it be neighborhoods, social groups, or online communities.  By definition, there are people who belong and people who do not.  It’s okay to decline membership to users, thereby providing a more comfortable space for members who are accepted. 
    Here are some time-tested tips from my years of community management that touch upon various attributes of membership:
    Don’t try to be everything to everyone.  It’s far better to be an exclusive community to a smaller, impassioned group of users than to dilute your community for a wide audience.  Not everybody deserves to belong, and by intentionally removing irrelevant members, it makes it a more purposeful community for those who can join.  Define who should belong, and outline the requirements on your Registration screen and Guest Sign-up widget. 
    Boundaries are walls, but safe walls.  Although there’s the pain of rejection and isolation of private communities, it’s offset with the positive benefits of joining.  It creates a space where members can feel safe to open up, to feel related to one another, and to feel protected.  Reinforce the benefits of joining the community to new members in a welcome message. 
    A new sense of identification.  Not only do members join the group, they should develop an extended sense of belonging and identity with the group.  The more strongly you can define the sense of belongingness, the more deeply the member will feel connected.  There should be a feeling of acceptance, an expectation that one fits in, and a willingness to sacrifice for the group.  Create a welcome team that immediately reaches out both publicly and privately, ask how the new member can contribute, and constantly highlight how the community has gone above-and-beyond in members helping members.   
    The higher the boundary, the greater the reward.  Personal investment is an important contributor to a member’s feeling of group membership.  By working for a membership, a member will feel like he’s earned a place – and that the membership will be more meaningful and valuable.  You can ask guests for their accreditations, background, or how they can contribute to the community. 
    The power of symbols.  Social groups throughout history have long used symbols, icons, ceremonies, and group language to cultivate a unique sense of identity.  These conventions are powerful representations of a group.  You can cultivate and write a common language in your Invision Community in large ways and small by uploading unique reactions, changing the language string, and celebrating community-specific holidays and events.     
    As you re-evaluate your community framework with me, take the time to outline what it means to be a member of your community.  Defining your membership goes hand-in-hand with defining your purpose.  It should touch upon these five attributes of membership: boundaries, emotional safety, sense of belonging, personal investment, and common symbolism.  Establish clear distinctions for your community’s membership qualifications, and you’ll be able to develop a deep Sense of Community from the very start of a member’s registration. 
    Share with me and others how you've defined your community's membership in the comments below.  I love to hear about other Invision Communities.  
    Joel, 
    Invision Community Advocate and Certified Community Manager
  9. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, The benefits of owning your data   
    I noticed something new in the chiller cabinet at the petrol station after filling yesterday.
    Bottles of Grape Fanta sitting alongside the more mundane and pedestrian drinks such as Coke Zero and Pepsi Max.
    I grabbed two bottles.
    After draining one in record time, I googled around to see where I could get more of this delicious nectar, and it discovered that it's a new flavour being launched in the UK.
    The really interesting thing was that Coca Cola used data stored in the self service machines that offer different flavours (such as those at cinemas) to determine which new flavours to bring to the market.
    Grape was the second most popular flavour after regular orange, so the company knew they had a market ready for premixed bottles.
    In a world where we fear what Big Tech does with our data, it's easy to forget that data has a valid use in your business.
    It's why we make it clear that with Invision Community, you own your data. We just look after it for you.

    This gives you the freedom to discover new trends within your business and use them to drive sales.
  10. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Why did Lush quit social media?   
    In a move that surprised many, British cosmetics firm Lush has chosen to quit social media.
    With a combined following across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, Lush has a combined audience of over 1.2 million followers.
    Lush are being a little cryptic about its reasons but cite having to pay for visibility and getting tired of trying to produce content so just that algorithms will rank it highly.
    "Increasingly, social media is making it harder and harder for us to talk to each other directly. We are tired of fighting with algorithms, and we do not want to pay to appear in your newsfeed. So we’ve decided it’s time to bid farewell to some of our social channels and open up the conversation between you and us instead."
    It feels like sacrilege for a brand to come off social media, but I'm not surprised.
    Social media is about broadcasting more than it is about meaningful conversation.
    And now, even with a huge following,  broadcasting doesn't get the same reach it did a few years ago with platforms pushing paid options more and more.
    Lush also targets a very young demographic that simply aren't using social media anymore.
    The firm said it was "cutting out the middleman between ourselves and the Lush community".
    It remains unclear which direction Lush is going to take to facilitate conversations, but using an independent community platform like Invision Community should be considered.
    It cuts out any algorithm biased, money hungry platform. It opens up the conversation between the brand and its customers in a meaningful way, and the brand is completely in control of their data and what their customers see.
    At Invision Community, we're seeing more and more brands looking for a solution outside of social media.
    Perhaps this will accelerate the trend.
  11. Like
    media reacted to HelenG for a blog entry, How I Started My Community - Part 2 Building Engagement   
    Since the last blog entry in this series I have been very busy. I’m still working full time so haven’t been able to spend as much time as I would have liked on The Dogly Mail but I’m really enjoying the time I can.
    Early growth has been promising and I have been experimenting with different ideas that have come from founder members to see what might work long term.
    We recently broke the 100 member milestone and that all came from word of mouth. We’re not talking huge numbers but I’m very encouraged for the future. My focus is now on building interactions with four main areas of the site.

     
    Forums
    I had imagined the forums being the most active area after seeing other Invision Communities but I don’t think there are enough regularly active members yet for this area to be truly useful so it is (for now) not the main priority. I am however using some forums functionality effectively. I’ve added a special offers forum that is viewable by non members but to get to the actual topic contents you need to register. This seems to be enticing a few people to sign up and I want to approach more retailers to build on this.
    I also installed Simple Topic from the marketplace to simplify the posting process down to the absolute minimum steps required.
    Polls are also proving popular and new members who may not want to commit to introducing themselves or posting a full topic are at least interacting. I’ll be looking for more ways of adding easy interactions such as this.
    If anybody has any ideas for encouraging early discussion please let me know in the comments.
    Articles
    In the articles section new items are slowly being added and I find this a good opportunity to show some personality and indicate to users what they can expect from the rest of the site. I am trying all kinds of articles such as news, reviews, recipes and dog training guides to find out what I should focus on. I would also like to attract some guest writers for different viewpoints and to free up some of my time. Being able to see article view counts in Invision Community and the direct commenting functionality gives me good feedback.
    Events
    The launch of the events section coincided with a large dog related event in London and through it I was able to collaborate with the event organisers and do some succesful networking. This has led to some future opportunities for product reviews and reinforces my point from the last blog article where not all of your time should be spent behind the keyboard. Most of the events are being added by myself but hopefully as this section builds others will find it useful for promoting their own events.
    Photos
    One of the early members was quick to suggest we incorporate image sharing into the website as after all how can anybody resist cute photos of puppies? For this I originally looked at the Invision Gallery but felt that this section needed to have a voting element and Gallery was perhaps too feature rich. I wanted it to be a simple first interation with the website. I wanted people to be able to vote and more importantly encourage their friends to sign up and vote too.
    We started out with a simple topic and for the first month with not many people this worked great. One post was an entry and people could “Like” their favourites. It quickly became quite popular and it was clear that we would need something dedicated to the task so I commissioned some custom work.
    This was real investment but is already showing promising signs after launching April 1st. New members can now enter the photo competition and register at the same time so most new registrations are now coming from this route.
    I’ve recently discovered the profile completion feature so will enable that this month to try and increase engagement a bit further. I want to keep to our non intrusive privacy policy so this will all be optional and limited to member photo and some simple dog breed and numer of dogs fields. The Auto Welcome plugin from the marketplace will also be used when I figure out the best way to deploy it.
     
    With what I have learned so far I have a better idea of what is going to work to attract registrations and there is also a credible amount of content.
    This month I will be starting to look into some paid promotion with the hope of hitting my next milestone of 250 members.

    I will share my findings and hopefully some helpful marketing tips next month.
  12. Like
    media reacted to Guest Writer for a blog entry, Case Study: Building Safe Spaces for The Trevor Project   
    Every day, LGBTQ young people from all walks of life log into TrevorSpace, the world’s largest moderated safe space for LGBTQ youth online.
    Here, young people can support each other, share their stories, and find refuge from what might be a less than accepting environment offline.
    Launched in 2008, TrevorSpace is housed under The Trevor Project, the foremost suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for LGBTQ youth in the world. Having an affirming digital community has been an indispensable resource for the youth The Trevor Project aims to protect, but guiding it to the success it enjoys today has had its challenges.
    Shortly after its launch, TrevorSpace rapidly grew to serve tens of thousands of users in just a few years. While the platform initially started on commercial community software, some unique requirements led the organization to go custom, building a community platform from the ground up.

    Faced with increasing hosting and development costs and declining user activity, senior leadership faced a tough decision: either dramatically transform the program, or discontinue it altogether. That’s when Invision Community stepped in.
    “We were already planning a digital transformation, replacing everything from our physical computers to our crisis services software infrastructure, the platforms that young people use to reach out to us, like TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText,” John Callery, director of technology at The Trevor Project said of the challenges facing the organization at the time. “We had to be very careful with our resources and where we allocated our time.”
    Continuing the TrevorSpace program would mean The Trevor Project needed to move to a solution that could be implemented and managed with very limited resources while still providing the quality of care that the community had come to expect. It also meant meeting the specific needs of the organization’s mission, particularly around safety.
    After looking into the Invision Community platform per the suggestion of a team member, it became clear that they had all of the fundamentals TrevorSpace was looking for, like messages boards, social networking, and private messaging.
    Here was a chance to save the platform.
    Customers rarely have the opportunity to meet the people behind the technology they use. This wasn’t the case for The Trevor Project and the Invision Community team, who made it clear they believed in our mission to support LGBTQ youth in crisis and were willing to partner with us to realize our specific needs and figure out new solutions.
    Through utilizing the Invision Community team’s applications and plugins, we were able to meet all of our community’s custom needs, adding functionality unique to TrevorSpace to protect our users, many of whom are especially vulnerable when it comes to their privacy. None of this would have been possible without the incredible support of the Invision Community team.
    For just one example of how crucial TrevorSpace is to young LGBTQ people around the world, listen to Mani Cavalieri, the community’s product manager: “When the most prevalent forms of social media are so enmeshed with our in-person relationships, LGBTQ youth often lose a safe place to explore their identities. TrevorSpace is one of those special communities that balances anonymity (often a necessity for safety) with real, personal connections.” Since joining the team, Mani has already seen multiple instances of users finding lifelong friends - and even partners - over the years on TrevorSpace - and on the Invision Community platform, it is able to reach more users than ever before.
    In January 2018, TrevorSpace received double the number of registrations than any other month in the program’s 10-year history. We continue to see more than a thousand new registered members each week.
    As we begin international promotion of the program, we expect to break many more records in the coming year. As we continue to grow TrevorSpace, we also continue to rely on Invision Community’s extensibility.
    Our mission is to improve support networks and mental resilience for our users. This requires us to understand our users’ behavior and needs from a different perspective than other online communities, and it will continue to require more custom solutions.
    The marketplace of plugins, as well as the enthusiastic support of the Invision Community team, enable us to be bold in our ambitions, to build out a community that is truly unique in its class, and to improve the lives of those that need a supportive community the most.
    As one user puts in, in their welcome message to each newcomer: “That's our little secret - there's some one here, going through what you're going through. Whether that be mental health, body issues, parents, friends, and whatever else life as someone who's LGBTQ+ can throw at you. Reach out, and someone will be there for you.”
    - This entry was written by The Trevor Project team

    https://www.trevorspace.org
    https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
  13. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Podcast with Matt: Facebook or Forums?   
    I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak on the Expert Focus podcast,  hosted by experienced community manager and public speaker, Claire Dowdall.
    Claire has significant experience in managing and developing strategies for increasing Facebook Group engagement for high profile speakers and entrepreneurs, while my background is with independent communities.

    This set us up nicely for a lively conversation to really pull apart what makes for a successful community, and what platforms to consider when starting out.
    From Expert Focus:

    I really enjoyed speaking with Claire, and I hope you find a little time to tune in.

    Listen now:
    iTunes link for Apple devices On Spotify On all other devices
  14. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Don't hide your community away!   
    One of the first things I do when visiting a site that I know has a community is to try and find it.
    More often than not, it's hidden away in the footer links or buried in several sub-menus and labelled something relatively obscure like "Fans" or "Support".
    This is a massive lost opportunity!
    We all know that social proof is incredibly important when making a purchasing decision.
    When I buy something on Amazon or book a holiday, the first thing I do is scour the reviews. Are the reviews mostly positive? What did other people think about the product after receiving it?
    I might see two almost identical products and the reviews, not the price that'll always sway me.
    It's that urge to herd to keep safe at play.
    So why bury all that out of the way?
    Your community should be full of fantastic social proof — hundreds of customers using your product and creating a buzz.
    Is it a fear of criticism? We all have had bad experiences with clients who are less than rational with feedback, but that's OK.
    The Harry Potter series of books are beloved by millions, made J.K Rowling a fortune, made a celebrated movie series and opened up several themed attractions which are always busy.
    Yet, there are a significant number of 1-star reviews on Amazon.

    Not everyone will get you or your business.
    You always have the opportunity to reply and explain your side, and you are always in control with moderation tools.
    Let's face it; if you are to handle negative feedback, it's better to manage it on your community than see it all over social media, Google reviews and review sites like TripAdvisor.
    Maybe you're a little embarrassed because the community platform is old and doesn't match your branding.
    If that's the case, then come and talk to us! We specialise in migrating communities from legacy platforms with poor mobile support. We offer brand matching services too.
    Maybe it's just that you're unsure of what to do with your community.
    I get that too. It can be hard to know how it fits in with your brand. I'm happy to help there also. Feel free to drop a comment below.
    Our product has several ways to pull content from the community and feature it on your site.
    We've helped big brands like LEGO®, Sega, Warner Bros. and more nurture a prosperous community that enhances their business.
    The bottom line is that a well manage community should be central to your brand and website.
    Hiding it among the "Privacy Policy" links is a huge missed opportunity.
    - Matt
  15. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, The incredible power of anonymity when growing your community   
    We attach a significant amount of personally identifiable data to our social media profiles daily.
    I regularly use social media to share photos of my kids and holidays. I post my personal thoughts on products I've used and TV shows I've watched. I'm even tagged in location-based check-ins.
    It's all there in my news feed for anyone to see.
    I'm not alone. More and more of us live our lives through the prism of social media. We share things we love, things we loathe and things that make us laugh.
    With just a few clicks, you can discover a lot of information about a person. More often than not, you can see where they work, where they live and what school they went to.
    Scrolling through their timeline often reveals their stance on hot topics such as gun control, the current President and other recent headline news items.
    This information follows you when you join a Facebook Group. Your past Tweets are always available to trawl through.

     
    Indeed, there may be some groups that you decide you cannot post in as people would be able to identify you. 
    This is particularly true for stigmatised conditions, such as financial help, illness and mental health.
    After all, if you were seeking help with a large amount of debt or managing an embarrassing medical condition, you wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that work colleagues, friends and family could read your posts.
    The benefit of anonymity for stigmatised topics
    "Forums can all offer some initial anonymity, a community, and information that geographically proximate others may not have. What stigma-related forums uniquely offer is that the anonymity protects those who are not ready to be publicly associated with sensitive topics; the community helps to neutralise the “spoilage” of identity that accompanies stigma." (1)
    Unlike social media where reams of personal data is willingly added, and which can identify you to other online users, forums allow you to add as much information as you are comfortable with.
    Support communities for mental health and illness flourish using forums for this reason. An individual may feel devalued in society and unwilling to share their condition over social media.

     
    "Nowadays people can both avoid and proactively cope with this devaluation by turning to online forums populated by others who share the same devalued group membership." (1)
    Forums offer a safe space for these individuals to seek and receive support from others without disclosing large amounts of identifiable data.
    Allowing a level of anonymity encourages more people to register and over time, they will develop ties with other users.
    For an individual with a stigmatized condition, a forum may be a real life-line in coping with the condition as face-to-face support is often limited.
    Adrial Dale, who owns Herpes Opportunity agrees.
    "In order for us to truly be able to work through the shame that stigma can trigger, it's absolutely vital for us to feel safe to open up and tell all. Through opening up, we not only get to share with an understanding and compassionate community (which normalizes our shared experiences), but we're also able to begin to release what has felt like our own solitary burden to bear. 
    Then a magical thing can happen ... an alchemical process that transforms shame into an opportunity for connection. An opportunity for us to be accepted for who we are *behind* the thick wall of shame. And ultimately, an opportunity to accept ourselves.
    Especially in these days of the internet not feeling so private (even in places where it absolutely should be), having true privacy and anonymity is paramount for communities like Herpes Opportunity. Anything other than that is grounds for paranoia and holding back from sharing ourselves. (In fact, just the other day someone messaged me asking "Are private messages really private?") Fear can lead to closing ourselves off, which can lead to isolation and paranoia, which can lead to a downward spiral of self-loathing and depression. On the other hand, safety, connection and compassion creates an an okayness with the nitty-grittiness of what it means to be human."
    The benefit of expressing a new identity
    "People may strategically express identities when they think they will not be punished, and/or connect them to an audience that is valued." (1)
    It is arguably true that not so many years ago, tech-related communities were very much male-dominated, with female contributions valued less.
    Forums allow a way to create a new identity that is either gender-neutral thus allowing the male users to assume a gender, or overtly male to ensure their contributions are evaluated on merit, and not with any gender bias.

     
    Christopher Marks who owns Nano-Reef has seen this first hand.
    "During a discussion with a women’s group in our generally male dominant hobby, a number of women had expressed the benefit of having an anonymous username and profile when asking for help and advice on forums, they receive equal help without the unfortunate gender bias or belittling that can sometimes happen in real life when seeking the same help in person."
    Invision Community's Jennifer has also experience of this on her own community; RPG Initiative.
    "RPG Initiative is a community for all roleplayers. We focus on all text-based roleplaying forms that are hosted on the internet. We encourage roleplayers to find each other, discuss roleplay and grow as collaborative writers here at the Initiative in a safe environment."
    Jennifer relies on, and encourages anonymity. She knows that because her site is predominately female, some female users identify as male to increase the chances of getting others to collaborate with them.
    "Male players are rare, in fact, I recently ran a poll on my site and of those that responded to it less than 15% of them are male (or identify as such). So this gets them more attention and in turn, more people that want to write with them."
    Jennifer explains how anonymity is critical to her site's growth.
    "Anonymity is a difficult thing to accomplish in a small niche like mine, but it's sort of like a small town where everyone knows everyone, and they likely know all of your secrets. So enforcing rules to preserve anonymity is really important to my community and me. This includes prohibiting the "naming of names" or the "site" that the drama is coming from when seeking for advice or help. This doesn't negate that people may know the existing situation or people involved because they are also involved or know some of the people involved, but it helps cut down on the drama and the spread of negativity and false information about people."
    With a forum community, you can truly be who you want to be.
    This is not so with social media where others can create bias based on your gender, looks or topical preferences.
    Together, together
    "In her early work, Turkle argued that the internet provided myriad positive opportunities for self-transformation, but more recently, she argues that the explosion in social media options has led us to develop superficial, emotionally lazy but instantly available virtual relationships." (1)
    It's hard to argue against this statement when you consider the content that predominates social media. And often an endless stream of self-focused content.
    "Indeed, we provide clear evidence that online forums afford users a way of being genuinely “together, together”, as opposed to what Turkle calls “alone together.”(1)
    The bottom line is that it has been proven that allowing a degree on anonymity increases engagement across all niches, but especially those that are built to support those with stigmatised conditions. These forums have a greater sense of community and depth than those built on social media.
    When you allow your members to take back control of their privacy, you are empowering them to make decisions about what to share.
    Given how eroded our privacy is in our modern always-connected world, this is a precious gift.
    If you are looking to create a new community then consider this before choosing your community platform.
    References:
    1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S074756321500268X
    2: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2017.1339370
  16. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, 2019 Year of Community   
    It's a new year, and a new beginning. And the possibilities are endless for you and your community.
    It’s an exciting time to be leading an online community with Invision Community - whether you’re starting out or switching over - and the new year is the perfect opportunity to start anew.

    How are you celebrating the new year with your community? What are your community goals for 2019?

    To kick off the new year, I’ve outlined guidance for several types of communities, whether you’re just starting out or you’re looking to take your community to the next level.
    New Community
    Are you a new community or looking to start one? You’re in the best position because you have a blank slate and everything is possible. Invest in a formative experience during your first year of defining your community’s purpose.
    What are your community’s mission, goals, and objectives? What is your competitive advantage against other similar communities or are you developing a new niche? How are you going to develop content programming, site features, or digital services in support of that advantage? What is your marketing plan to attract new users? Who is your core base of users, and what’s your plan to cultivate your first set of superusers? What is your budget to create a sustainable plan for hosting? Interest Community
    Are you a hobbyist with an established community of passion? Your community is a labor of love for you, and while it can feel like you’re pouring your heart and soul into it on a daily basis, it can be refreshing to take a step back and take stock of your community’s purpose, engagement goals, and how you want to lead in 2019 through fresh eyes.
    What’s your plan to create more emotionally-driven storytelling in your community? How are you going to deepen your tribal connection to users and between users? How can you incorporate member feedback into your New Year’s resolutions through polls, surveys, and member insights? How are you building a scalable community that leverages automation, staff, and user generated content to achieve your objectives? What are your engagement metrics year over year for 2018, and what is your projection for 2019 metrics like active members, online activity, best answers, and other user targets? How are you going to achieve those engagement metrics through initiatives like new pathways for engagement or enhanced training for staff? Enterprise
    Are you a brand community that’s part of a parent organization? Your organization probably already understands the value of investing in an online community, but rest assured that you’re in good company. In the 50th Anniversary report by the research firm IDC, it’s estimated that 80% of all Fortune 5000 companies will host an online community by 2020.

    As a community manager, you’ve probably covered all the basics such as approving your community’s budget for the new year, provided performance reviews of your staff, and mapped out your community strategy to align with organizational goals. Nevertheless, there are always more opportunities to increase your community’s prominence:
    What new early-stage relationships do you want to cultivate with employees, suppliers, vendors or partners? How can you create more networking touch points between your community and key constituencies to deliver community-driven solutions? How can you present your community’s data to stakeholders in new ways for better insight? How can you vest key stakeholders into community decisions and let them be a rewarding part of the conversation? What growth areas are happening within the organization, and how can you make the community be an integral part of its delivery? My personal New Year’s resolution is to develop my website into a Community of Excellence. This involves incorporating thought leadership from professional community management resources, making data-driven decisions, and formalizing a growth plan based on best practices. I hope you’ll join me in a year-long journey of community management as we conceptualize, learn, and discuss how to co-build Communities of Excellence.

    It’s a new year of endless opportunities to drive new growth and excellence for our members and communities.

    What are your community goals for 2019? Share in the comments below or in the exclusive Client Lounge in the Invision Community forums, so we can cheer each other on, check-in periodically, and provide peer mentorship for each other.

    Join me in a Year of Community.
    - Joel R

    Joel R is a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. When he's not running his own successful community, he's peppering Invision Community's private Slack channel with his feedback, community management experience and increasingly outrageous demands (everything is true except the last part).

  17. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Which hat do you wear?   
    A successful community manager is a combination of so many things.
    Being a successful community manager demands that you be a multi-faceted person and to apply a dynamic personality to a position that’s always in flux.  You’re the authorized ambassador of your organization; you’re the chief moderator who sets and enforces community guidelines; and you’re the counselor and friend to all of your peers in the community.  You may also be the one who updates your community suite, approves members, and manages the moderator team.  Oh, and you find time to be the social media coordinator, digital designer-in-training, and all-around fantastic human being.
    You wear many hats and it can be challenging to juggle all of those hats. So what do you do?
     
    Take a breather.  The good news is that you don’t have to wear all the hats, all the time.  My head used to spin at the sheer amount of work that I faced as a solo community manager - especially when my community first started out – and I didn’t have a disciplined approach to community management.  I didn’t even know what hats to wear!
    Over time, I’ve learned that there are specific ‘hats’ to community management.  The best way to figure out which hats to juggle?  Determine which hats are most important to you, which hats to wear for a specific goal, and which ones to swap out as your needs change.  Create the change you believe in by wearing the right hat.
    Evangelist
    No matter the niche or industry, you should be a self-professed evangelist who is passionate and always learning about the topic.  This personal interest will shine over time with your expertise in helping other users, bringing in new members with your helpful knowledge, and focusing discussion to evolving trends.  You’re trusted as a leading voice of the community and your organization, and you can use your expertise to spread the positive impact of your organization’s mission.  
    User Advocate
    You’re passionate about your users because you understand that the beating heart of your community is the valuable feedback, peer support, and testimonials that your users provide. You’re a champion of nurturing a positive and supportive community that’s aligned with your organizations’ goals.  Customer service is a vital component to your team’s community outreach.
    Digital Marketer
    An effective community manager will engage people, even outside of the community.  This means being a leading voice on external sites like blogs, partner communities, social media, industry events, and professional organizations.  It extends the reach of your organization through non-traditional marketing and gives you and your community an online impact in relevant areas.
    Relationship Builder
    Part of your job is to be a networker for all the people around you and to be a bridge for authentic relationships.  You want to listen to the ensuing conversations happening around your product, company, or industry, then add value and build relationships with key stakeholders both online and in-person.  It’s especially important to build meaningful relationships within your organization to advocate for your organization’s mission through your community.
    Suite Administrator
    Finally, you should be an expert in Invision Community to leverage the built-in tools.  Invision Community makes it easy for community managers of all technical backgrounds to get started and run successful communities.  The more you learn of the Administrator and Moderator functionality, the more effective you become in supervising your community staff and driving your organization’s success.
    Community Management is one of the most exciting and rewarding roles in the modern web.  It’s a position that’s filled with dynamism and people, and you grow yourself in ways that you never imagined.  An effective community manager needs to extend herself by trying on new hats.  And while some of these hats may be new to you at first, I encourage you to try all the hats and slowly develop your expertise in these new roles over time.  Putting on more hats is the first step to becoming a more valuable and effective community manager.
      
    What hat do you wear today, and what hat do you want to wear tomorrow?  No matter which new role you decide to embark upon, hats off to you for stepping up and growing yourself as a community manager.  

    Joel R is a mystery wrapped inside an enigma. When he's not running his own successful community, he's peppering Invision Community's private Slack channel with his feedback, community management experience and increasingly outrageous demands (everything is true except the last part).
  18. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: What do you want for Christmas?   
    Famously, all Maria Carey wants for Christmas, is you. This is great news if you're a Maria Carey fan.
    As the holiday season draws closer and our staff chat channel turns to egg nog, twinkly lights and why is wrapping so hard, we asked the question:
    What would you like for Christmas?

    Brandon
    With so many children, Christmas is more focused on them and the family than myself. My eldest son who started college this year just returned home for the holiday season yesterday which has been awesome. You don't realize how it's like a piece of you is missing until they're back. I guess you could call that a Christmas present for me. Also, my wife and I took a quick 2 day cruise to the Bahamas as a gift to ourselves. My children have not requested very much for Christmas this year either, so my wife and I have decided we're going to plan a trip to Disney/Orlando for some time later in 2019 as a family gift instead of focusing on a bunch of little toys the kids will quickly get bored with. The family time together is the best Christmas gift to me.

    Awww

    Mark H
    In truth, what I’d like for Christmas isn’t something Sanata could provide. At my age I already have most of the “things” I simply want, and the things I really *need* I already have; family and friends. But… I wouldn’t object to Santa dropping off a new gaming computer with a motherboard for an Intel core i9, an RTX 2080 Ti video card, 16 GB of RAM, and one or two NVME SSD’s.

    Me too

    Andy
    I’ve been trying to de-clutter my life for most of the year so hopefully I won’t get much in the way of stocking fillers and things that are fun for a few days and then pushed in a drawer. I’m not a total Scrooge though, honest. I’m really looking forward to spending time with family and friends, Christmas Day walks in the snow and coming home to a toasty warm fire and a few beers… just the simple things really.

    Marc S
    I think you get to the point with Christmas where presents become largely unimportant, and its more a time for family to get together and have fun etc. But I guess if I'm going to choose anything particular that I know I would use, I would probably go for a new iMac pro with all the extras. LOL. Seriously though, I'm happy with the break, a few drinks and games. This is what Christmas is all about. Lost a couple of family members over the past 12 month, and unfortunately none of us live forever. Brings home the realisation that there is more to life than material items, as much as we all enjoy them.

    Where's My Computer?
    Jennifer
    I don't really celebrate Christmas traditionally in my house. Like almost everyone in my house has already gotten all of their Christmas gifts. I would probably want just a quiet night with a long hot bath, my favorite bath bomb and a glass of wine.

    She really does
    How I became a cliche mom that wants bath stuff for presents. I have no idea.
    I'd likely love to get Metro Exodus pre-order. I know my BF doesn't pre-order games anymore because of some of the new pre-order issues with games with un-dedicated developers but it's a game I am excited for and hope to have come February when it comes out.

    Rhett
    A week in Hawaii, no phone, no computer, feet in the sand and a beer in my hand!  Is that too much to ask for Santa?  I've been good.

    Jim
    I'd say world peace but I think a 2019 Chevy Corvette ZR1 would be easier!

    Mark Wade
    A couple good bottles of wine, or I'd also quite like a new iPad Pro.

    Not relevant but made me laugh
    Matt
    Like others here at Invision Community, I've reached the grand old age where material possessions aren't what I long for. I'm happy watching my two children open their gifts on Christmas morning and then share a meal with family.

    Or maybe a new iPad Pro because if Mark is getting one, I want one too.
    Yet again Charles and Lindy declined to comment, so in the spirit of Christmas generosity, I've written their answers for them.

    Charles
    I would like a butler because it is what I deserve.
    Lindy
    I would like a panic room like in that Jodie Foster movie. I don't think for a second I'm going to be attacked in my own home. I just need a place to hide from the kids now and again. I'll kit it out with fresh kombucha, artisanal popcorn and poetry books. I'll be happy for hours.

    So, that is what we want for Christmas. What about you? Have you been naughty or nice?
     
  19. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Interview with Michael Rielly of ClausNet.com   
    Did you know that the most magical community in the world runs on Invision Community?
    For close to 12 years, Invision client @Michael R  has been spreading joy through the Santa Claus Network (ClausNet.com), the world’s largest community for Santa and his followers.
    He started building the site in November 2006 and went live in the beginning of 2007, using Invision Community as his platform of choice since the beginning. Michael also founded the James D. Rielly Foundation in honor of his grandfather – a non-profit organization that provides charitable and emotional support to military and first responder families.

     

    As a tribute to the holidays, Mike was gracious enough to be interviewed by Joel on behalf of Invision Community on how he uses Invision Community and engages with his unique community.  

    J:  This is such a wonderful community of passion.  How did you get started?
    Back in October 2005, I attended the world-famous Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School. It was a Christmas present I received from my wife. At that time, I had already been portraying Santa for 34 years but was a bit skeptical of what I would get out of attending a “Santa School.” 
     
    He’s already nailed the Santa look.

    At the school I got to meet Santas from all over the World!
    It was a wonderful experience and I am still friends with many of the folks, but what I enjoyed most of all was the camaraderie I felt with my fellow brothers and sisters in red. This was the catalyst in creating ClausNet – to recreate the same feeling of fellowship I felt at the school. 

    J:  Your membership must be very unique. 

    ClausNet is the world's largest online community dedicated to the faithful portrayal of Santa Claus.  Our membership also includes Mrs. Claus, Elves, Reindeer Handlers, and all others who devote their time to bringing the magic of Christmas to children and adults throughout the world!
    In comparison to other sites, 2,900 isn’t a lot of members. But based on some estimates it’s about two thirds of all the Santas and Mrs. Clauses on the planet!

    We are very selective who of we approve for membership. In addition to Invision’s validation process, I personally email each person who registers for an account. I do this to help eliminate trolls and other Grinchy people, but mostly to keep out the prying eyes of children to preserve the Secret of Santa and keep the magic alive for children of all ages!

    J:  What Invision apps do you use, and how do you use them?  
    We have all the Invision Community apps and rely upon them for many purposes.
      
    We don’t sell products on the site but we do use Commerce for donations. Members can purchase Supporter Level Memberships at varying prices. We use Pages and Blogs for posting short stories, opinion pieces, and even business advice. We use Downloads for sharing files such as example contracts and business card templates. The Calendar app is a great resource in notifying and scheduling regional get-togethers, workshops, schools, and training sessions. 
    Articles and short stories written in Pages.
    J: What are some of the most innovative features of Invision Community that your members have embraced?

    I believe Invision Community is the most robust platform for building online communities. Our members really like the new Clubs feature.  We use Clubs for regional and local groups as well as specific topics such as prop making and costuming.  


    From the Long Leaf Pines to the Northern Pacific, ClausNet uses regional clubs all over the world to foster closer relationship.
    J:  There must be seasonality with your niche. How do you keep your members engaged throughout the year and what are some special events that you host?

    Throughout the year we run several activities designed to keep up engagement.
    Member of the Month - Each month, I select a different member of our community to featured. We interview the candidate and post the interview on the site.  ClausNet Gazette Monthly Newsletter - We send out a monthly newsletter of content from the website. Surprisingly, it’s the first time many of the members see the content. It is a great way to keep members coming back to the site. Christmas Card and Ornament Exchange – These are two of the most anticipated events we hold.  Members sign up and are randomly paired with another, so they can exchange cards or ornaments.  It’s very exciting to receive Christmas ornaments from another part of the world! We also run several other programs such as an Annual Raffle, Countdown to Christmas, Picture Contests, and Latest News.

    J: As a longtime Invision client whose passion is the holidays, what are your holiday wishes to other Invision clients and clients-to-be?

    As many of you know, Christmas is my favorite holiday – a holiday that lives in my heart year-round! May this holiday season be one of health and happiness for you and your loved ones. Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Festive Festivas, Fröhliche Weihnachten, Nollaig Shona, Boas Festas, Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Merry Christmas!

    J:  Thank you Mike for graciously spending your time with me and other Invision clients to learn how you engage with members using Invision Community.  Hopefully this interview has helped inspire and motivate other clients with some extra cheer during the holiday season!
  20. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: What's your favourite movie?   
    This month, I thought I'd ask a trick question. "What is your favourite movie?"
    I fully expected to be told "but Matt, we work so hard on Invision Community, we don't have time to watch movies." just so I didn't have to complete this month's entry.
    But no. Apparently, most of our team have MULTIPLE favourites. Hmmm.

    And here they are.
    Jennifer
    Favorite movies are a pain to choose because there are so many great (and greatly terrible) movies out there. So I'm going to choose a few that I just really adore and explain why.
    So the first one is "Halo: Forward Unto Dawn". I have never played a Halo game in my entire life. I just find the movie intriguing and smooth. It has an amazing pace and of course there are aliens. It's also one of those movies that I can just put on when I don't feel like watching anything else but I want to watch something. The replay value for me is amazing.
    The Next one is a psychological thriller called "Pandorum" this movie is a thriller about a man that wakes up in a broken space ship that was on its way to another world. The way it's put together is amazing, the story is twisted and it's just an amazing watch. It's something that I can easily say was a quick favorite from the first time I saw it.
    I can never forget the lovely "Dredd" in this list of my favorite movies. Muricer for the win! It has all the elements of a great Sci-Fi plus Karl Urban and Lena Headey. I win all around on this movie. Plus, it's even better in 3D with the Slo-mo drug.
    While I can list more I'm going to round off my answer with 2 Series movies. "Tremors" and "Sharknado". What most of you don't know about me is that I'm a sucker for horribly trashy horror movies ("Zombeavers" is another favorite with the same reason as these two series). Scantly clad women, screaming, monsters, corrupt people and lots of blood. There is no better thing to watch. I love a good day of Monster Movies and beer. The trashier the better.

    When Mark Wade is challenged in a git review

    Marc
    I think I will go for 3 different points in time for favourite movies. One from growing up, one which is a classic IMO, and one more recent that I've enjoyed.
    Growing up, it has to be 'Labyrinth' staring David Bowie. It's the first movie I ever watched at the cinema with my parents, and one I can still watch to this day. I'm very much guilty of singing along to every song, and I'm actually banned from watching it anywhere near my wife as I say every single word in the script a split second before they say it. I think its safe to say I have seen it a few times.
    A classic for me would be 'Schindlers list'. To me this is one of the best movies ever made, and while I'm sure it will have been greatly adapted for a movie audience, it also shows what many went through during WW2 which are not so common knowledge. A great movie for children to sit there and watch who don't know about it, as it gets them asking questions that all children should ask and learn from.
    For a more recent movie, I quite enjoyed 'Sully: Micracle on the Hudson'. I generally like movies by Tom Hanks anyway, but I did particularly enjoy this one.
    Bonus recent movie - Baby Driver I really enjoyed. Great movie, and the star somehow looks familiar I'm sure 'ed' will find a suitable image to illustrate.

    Disapproving Wade
    Mark W
    Airplane. I must have seen it dozens of times, it never gets old, I quote it constantly... I just love it.

    When Wade is reviewing your branch

    Andy
    Zathura - Jumanji in space, no more words are required.

    When you're late reviewing Wade's branch
    Brandon
    This is a fairly challenging question to answer, as someone who watches a lot of movies. I own somewhere around 1500 DVDs/BluRays, though in recent years I've been buying fewer and renting more. A few of my top movies would include (in no particular order)...
    1. The Matrix Series - while I've overplayed the series at this point, the story was amazing at the time and it had so many allegories to real life that were fun to think about even when you were done watching.
    2. Doom - it was campy and silly overall, but a lot of fun. Karl Urban and The Rock together was a cool mix.
    3. The One - I have always been a fan of Jet Li, but when this came out I thought the cinematography was awesome. The way they did the slow-mo movements was neat, and the story was quite unique. Plus, Jason Statham is awesome, and he was a supporting role instead of a lead.

    When you challenge Wade in a review
    Jim Morrissey
    The Beatles’ “Help!” has got to be my favorite movie due to the special place it holds with my family. My sister growing up was a huge Beatles fan and being the younger sibling, it kind of got forced on me but grew to be a fan as well. This movie, in my opinion, was my great due to the music (great album) and very dry comedy that is hilarious.  Think I can recite each line of the movie as I’ve seen it too many times. It definitely isn't a movie set out to win any acting awards but if you haven’t seen it and like the Beatles, I would recommend it.

    When you get a list of 'recommendations' on your branch

    Daniel
    As Daniel Son I have to say Karate Kid 🥋
    Nah, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is just to sick and amazing and gets never boring!

    Daniel likes to commit on, then commit off

    Mark H
    Like the others, I can’t pick just one movie.
    For documentaries, that would be “The Longest Day”, the story of the Jun 6, 1944, allied invasion of Normandy, with perspectives from all sides of the conflict. The book by Cornelius Ryan on which it’s based is a very long read, but gripping and factual, and this movie is one of the few that actually did justice to the book from which it was derived. Anyone with a passion for history should both see the movie and read the book.
    The runner-up in this category would be “Saving Private Ryan”, although it did take liberties with historical fact.
    In the Sci-Fi category, the original “Blade Runner”. The city in which it is set was once described as “a cross between Hell and Hong Kong on a bad day”, and that’s disturbingly accurate. It’s a warning about the future of humanity if we do not curb our use of the planet’s natural resources, and do not carefully overwatch technology in the hands of corporations driven only by profit and without any societal morals.
    Two close runner-ups in this category would be the film “Soylent Green”, another cautionary tale that is similar to Blade Runner in its warning about the future of humanity, and “2001: A Space Odyssey”, a speculative tale about our own evolution and our future.
    For other general fiction it would be “The Silence Of The Lambs”. Few movies have creeped me out like this one did. Anthony Hopkins’ portrayal of Hannibal Lecter was truly chilling,
    Two runner-ups would be the mini-series “Lonesome Dove”, based on the books by Larry McMurtry, a fictional work about the frontier Wild West, but could easily be true, and “The Thorn Birds”, a similar genre set in Australia and based on the book by Colleen McCullough.


    When you run out of logical facts during a developer's meeting
    We'd love to hear which movies you love, or that have inspired you in some way.

    Let us know below!
  21. Thanks
    media reacted to Mark for a blog entry, 4.4: Increase visitor registrations with Post Before Registering   
    It's very easy to focus on a single metric to gauge the success of your community.
    It's very common for community owners to look at page hits and determine if their SEO and marketing efforts have paid off.
    Getting traffic to your site is only half the equation though. The most valuable metric is how many casual visitors you're converting to engaged members.
    Invision Community already makes it easy for guests to sign up using external services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.
    However, there has to be a conscious decision to click that sign-up button. For some, this may be a barrier too many.
    Invision Community 4.4 reduces this barrier by allowing guests to create a post to a topic they want to engage with.
    Once they have posted, they are asked to simply complete their registration. They are more likely to do this now they have invested in your community.
    This will be incredibly valuable when you consider how much traffic a forum receives from inbound Google searches. With Post Before Registering, you'll increase your chances of turning that inbound lead into a registered member contributing to your site.
    Let me take you through the feature and show you how it works.
    When browsing the community guests will see the ability to submit a post, with an explanation that they can post now and complete registration later. The only thing they have to provide in addition to their post is an email address.

    Posting as a guest
    This works in any application for new content (topics, Gallery images, etc.) as well as comments and reviews. It will only show when a newly registered member would be able to post in that area - for example, it will not show in a forum that only administrators can post in. 
    After submitting the post, the post will not be visible to any user, but the user will immediately be redirected to the registration form with an explanation to complete the registration. The email address they provided will already be filled in.

    Registration form after posting as a guest
    At this point, the user can either fill in the registration form, or use a social sign in method like Facebook or Twitter to create an account. After the account has been created, and validation has been completed if necessary, their post will automatically be made visible just as if they had registered and then posted.
    If the user abandons the registration after they've submitted their post, an email will be sent to them to remind them to complete the registration.

    Email reminding user to finish registering
     
    Some Notes
    Invision Community already has a feature that allows guests to post as guests without registration if granted permission. That feature has not been removed and so if you already allow guests to post, the behaviour will not change. This new feature is only available when a guest can't post in a given area, but a member would be able to. The entire feature can also be turned off if undesired. If the area the guest is posting in requires moderator approval, or newly registered members require approval of new posts, the post will enter the moderation queue as normal once their account has been created. Third party applications will require minor updates to support this feature. Once your casual visitor has invested time in your community by crafting a post, they are much more likely to finish the registration to get it posted. If you have set up external log in methods, then registration only takes a few more clicks.
    This blog is part of our series introducing new features for Invision Community 4.4.
  22. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Guest Blog: Discover Activity Streams   
    Once again, we hand over the reigns of our blog to client and friend to Invision Community Joel for another client view of our community suite.
    Today @Joel R tackles Activity Streams, and how to make them "your awesome".

    Activity Streams is one of the best new features of Invision Community 4 with more flexibility and options than ever before.  It can be an amazing and easy way to dive into interesting and new content, constantly feed new content to your users, and uncover different parts of your community. 
    Your community contains amazing content. Activity Streams empower your users to discover the awesome in your community!

    While earlier versions of the software contained New Content streams, they were pre-defined and shipped by default.  Now, everyone from users to community managers to admins can create their own unique Activity Streams, customized for the needs of the community or your own browsing interests.  These new options in Invision Community 4 give incredible power to both you and your users to discover new ways of looking at your content.  You can reference Invision’s Guide on Activity Streams.

    Let’s take a look at all the different ways to strategically use Activity Streams. 

    1.    Home Stream
    Make the Activity Stream your homepage!  It’s a beautiful, automated, chronological stream of recent content that constantly replenishes as new content is posted.  Rather than a blocky homepage that is literally stacked with blocks in a chunky mix-and-match, you can offer a blended homepage that unifies all of your content into one continuous stream.  It’s easy to browse, and you can still decorate the page with blocks in the sidebar and hot zones. 

    To make the Activity Stream your homepage, go to the ACP > Applications.  Set System as the default app by clicking on the ☆ star.   Then open up System, and make Content Discovery the default module by clicking on the ☆ star.  
     

    Bedlington.co.uk uses “All Activity” as its homepage.  Look who just moved into town!

    2.    Default Stream
    The default Activity Stream is always one the most significant links in your entire Invision community.  After the homepage, the default Activity Stream is usually the most popular page to which returning users will consistently use.  On some Enterprise boards, the default Activity Stream drives up to 20% of the initial clicks from repeat members.

    It’s no wonder why.  The default Activity Stream is the portal to the rest of the website and easily shows recent content.  But how many of us have customized or self-critiqued it?  Review your default stream and filter for the primary content you want to display.    
     

    Make your best stream the default stream.
    3.    Content Streams
    By default, Invision Community ships with a handful of global streams.  While those are appropriate for a new community, they aggregate all content in the community.  This can be problematic if your community emphasizes one content type over another since all content is mixed together and content types with high volume can overwhelm less popular types.  For example, a recent upload of IP.Gallery images can flood the Activity Stream with new images, pushing discussion and blog posts too far down. 

    One thing you can do is to create new Activity Streams per content type or exclude certain content types.  Make separate streams for Forum Topics, Gallery Albums, Blogs, and more depending upon your community.  This will delineate content and makes it easier to navigate exactly what you want.  And even within content types, you can filter down to specific boards or categories.  You can create special streams specifically for Introduction or New Member boards; Gallery images and albums, so they don’t clutter up your primary stream; or Club discussions open to all members.   
    4.    User Streams
    One of the most creative ways to use Activity Streams is to show content from specific users.  This can be strategically used to create streams for specific users or accounts: staff members, special contributors, or leadership accounts.  You can also stealth stalk your most favorite IPS staff members!

    Create an Activity Stream of all recent activity, then each user can customize the stream to follow the people most important to them.  Each user can track the members most important to them and survey a quick overview of those members’ most recent activity.  
     

    Follow the most interesting users in your community.
    5.    Mobile Streams
    There are a couple of options that can help your stream be optimized for mobile.  By default, the Activity Stream can be packed with information.  You can include every detail of when a member registers, changes their profile photo, reacts to an item, and more.  You can also show the Expanded view, which includes up to three lines of text.

    If your website receives a lot of mobile traffic, you should toggle on Condensed view.  This streamlines the Activity Stream and packs more content items onto the viewport.  In a typical smartphone, you may only see 2 – 3 items in Expanded View, but see 5 – 6 items in Condensed view.  That allows users to see twice as much content, even on a smaller device.

    Pack more into less with Condensed view
    6.    RSS Streams
    For community managers who run an IPS community in support of an enterprise or organization, you can activate an RSS feed per stream.  This allows you to push the content to your other digital properties.  Turn a feedback and testimonial board into a showcase of product reviews; turn Q&A boards into a live stream of ongoing customer support; turn a New Customer introduction board into profiles of actual customers; and tap into the best parts of your community-generated content to fit into other parts of your support channels, brand marketing, and sales outreach.  Leverage your passionate community elsewhere with Activity Streams, and its built-in feature of RSS feeds.   
    Like most advanced features, learning to ‘surf the Activity Stream can be tough.  The streams are usually tucked away into the menu or an icon.  And many users are unaware that it exists!
     
    What your users will say when you introduce Activity Streams.  That’s okay, just put on a life vest and hold on for dear life.

    Activity Streams are such an incredibly powerful and flexible tool, which is why I personally love it.  You can slice-and-dice your community in any number of ways, and you gain an instant overview of the parts of the website that are most important, most engaging, and most interesting to yourself.  Spend some time sharing a quick tutorial with your community.  Show them where to view streams.  Show them how to customize it.  And let them discover the awesome in your community!  
     
  23. Sad
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: What would you do with $1,000,000?   
    This month, we ask the team the age-old question: If you won a million dollars (or denomination of your choice), how would you spend it?
    The question was almost guaranteed to bring a raft of hilarious replies that showcase our amazing humour and wit.

    Once again, we fall short and instead worry about taxation and retirement.

    You can't give it away these days.
    Marc S
    I couldn't decide on whether to answer this with what I would 'like' to do with it, or what I would actually do with it, so figured I would answer both. [So you just upgraded to $2,000,000? geez - Editor]
    If it was just what I would like to do with it, then I would probably follow the F1 season around the globe for a few years until I got bored. I'm very much into the sport, and with the locations, it would make for some great destinations to visit in between the races.
    What I would actually do is pay off my mortgage, buy another 3 reasonably priced houses to rent out to others, and live off the investment. Given I would then have a constant income without doing much, I would then try my hand at starting a business. Not entirely sure what that business would be to be honest [How to understand people with strong accents? - Editor], but I'm not the kind of person who would be able to just retire, without it driving me to insanity.

    I know nothing of F1, so hopefully this is OK

    Jennifer
    Pay off all of my debts. Buy a house. Put away some in a nice savings account both for me and my kiddos. Buy a serious amount of shoes, and get a few cosmetic tweaks.

    Who doesn't love shoes?

    Brandon
    If I had a million dollars, I'd pay off debts, stash some money away for savings and to have a healthy cushion [You give your soft furnishings a health check? - Editor], and I'd probably use a good chunk of it for travel. There are a lot of places I'd like to see in the world still and travelling is expensive.

    I’d like to visit some of the top touristy spots in South America, like Rio, Galapagos islands, Peru, Machu Picchu, etc. I’d like to see Australia, Japan, China, Alaska, the northern lights in the Arctic, and I would like to make it back to Europe at some point, particularly to see more of Italy and visit Greece.

    It's where we first met.

    Daniel
    I’ll go with my sailing boat dream which is still is a thing for my retirement, but if I would get tomorrow $1,000,000 I would do it right now too. [How? You're not getting the money until tomorrow - Editor]
    Get a Katamaran and sail sail sail... depending on time and budget and people.. mediterran sea, caribbean sea, then around South America, US west costs , Hawaii, Philippines , India. Around Africa .. back to Mediterran Sea.

    Stuart
    If I had $1,000,000 tomorrow, I'd probably be fairly sensible [Boring- Editor] by paying off the mortgage and spending some cash on finishing renovating the house. Then I'd buy either a Mustang GT or a Tesla Model 3 Performance (I know, one is an eco-machine and one is a gas guzzler!). The remainder I'd split between savings and stock market investment.

    Mark H
    A million dollars….. well, the government takes about 1/3 of that first off, so after taxes you get ~ $650,000. With that I’d pay off the house and credit card, buy a reliable vehicle, then the rest goes in the bank. Would not have enough to retire, even at my age. [It wouldn't last 2 years? - Editor] But it would eventually make retirement easier.


    The fun answer.
    Jim
    I would pay off my mortgage, buy a 2019 Corvette ZR1 (plus pay off following speeding tickets) and probably go to Australia. Then save the rest for a rainy day or you know, retirement.

    Mark W
    I live in Sydney, so probably buy a small apartment and carry on as normal. [How small is your current apartment? - Editor]

    Good day.
    Matt
    I'm not a huge fan of travelling, but I'd like to see a little bit more of the USA. I've been to Los Angeles, Nevada, Las Vegas, New York and Virginia but I'd like to see more of the middle bit too. Definitely Miami and New Orleans. [Dude, you need to check a map to see which states are in the middle - Editor]

    I love my work too much to think about retiring but I'd put some away for when I do.

    I might give some to my family if they ask nicely and are reading this (hopefully they are not).

    Yes I can.

    Andy (Andy did not contribute this month, so this reply is 100% fictional)
    I'd be too depressed with the massive income drop to think about how to eek out such a pittance.

    Lindy (Lindy never contributes, despite being threatened with a fabricated answer)
    I'd probably invest in a gas-tech company, buy more cars I'll only drive 3 days a year and spend the rest in Vegas.

    Charles (Charles also never contributes, so this is also fabricated)
    Please do not say funny things about me.
    Charles also has edit permissions to this blog.

    So there you have it, that's how we'd choose to spend a cool $1,000,000.

    We'd love to hear how you'd spend your imaginary windfall.
  24. Like
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: What's on your bookshelf?   
    Benjamin Franklin once wrote "Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing." Fortunately for me, he'll never see this blog entry.
    The Invision Community team are a smart bunch. When they're not being support heroes, fixing code or writing cool new features, they occasionally like to pick up a book, although I guess download a book is more apt these days.
    Here's what's on the team's bookshelves now.
    Marc S
    I go through a lot of books, usually audiobooks rather than actual books (I read enough online to last anyone a lifetime). I tend to go through a lot of factual books, rather than fiction. In the past week I've listened to:
    What if? Serious Scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions - Randall Muroe A short history of nearly everything - Bill Bryson At home - Bill Bryson How to land an A330 Airbus - James May I haven't read any fiction for quite a while now, but if I was to pick any set of books as being my favourite, it would be Kelley Armstrongs Women of the otherworld series.

    Some books
    Audiobooks tend to be factual, whereas actual books tend to be fiction. I just feel there is more imagination involved when you actually read something that's fiction [Are you talking about support tickets here? - Editor].
    Mark W
    The last book I read probably won't interest many (if you're curious though, it was "Milarepa and the Art of Discipleship" - a commentary on some of the stories about an 11th century Tibetan yogi) [Yep, we are now less interested - Editor] but the last fiction book I read was 1984 which I'd actually never read before and found it really fascinating - still totally relevant today and absolutely something everyone should read, especially geeks like us.
    I read quite a lot of non-fiction, especially related to meditation and Buddhism - it's hard to pick a favourite but the book I probably refer to most and recommend most widely to anyone who might be interested is "Buddhist Meditation" by Kamalashila [How does it end? - Editor].

    iBooks
    One thing I really enjoy when travelling driving or on a plane is listening to audiobooks of books I enjoyed as a child - I find I want some kind of background noise but nothing I have to pay any effort towards. [Like the last feature you wrote? - Editor] The Harry Potter series and "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" work brilliantly.
    Jim
    Last actual "for fun" book and not technology or programming related is probably "Car Guys VS Bean Counters." Very interesting book as Bob Lutz is well, Bob [Good to know - Editor] and he goes through the car business getting squeezed for profitability and how that ruined the soul of the car. 

    Lindy will approve
    Brandon
    I don't know how you all have time to read (or listen to audio books), but then again I guess not everyone has 6 kids that keep them busy. I'm a Dean Koontz fan and in terms of reading (which I rarely do as I don't have time) I always read Dean Koontz (paperback novels). Currently I have "The Silent Corner" [This is also where we send the naughty developers - Editor].in my nightstand which I haven't read yet.

    Can't say I've ever met Jane Hawk
    Jen
    The real real is that my favorite book ever is, The Giver. I ❤️ the ignorance=discipline dystopia. I think my favorite series is The Wit'ch series by James Clemens. I own tons of books but those are the ones that I can go back and read.
    Andy
    I’m reading Italian children’s books mostly as part of my ongoing learning of Italian. On my bookshelf, there’s also a lot of travel books for places I’ve been and yet to see (this summer we’ll be visiting Romania for a couple of weeks). The Twilight audio set, “Princess, Dragons and Helicopter stories” and other gems in the photo are not mine (honest).

    Not using the Dewey Decimal Classification system
    I also have a DVD of “The Legend of Effin Eddie: The Amazing True Story of a Hilarious GAA Match Commentary which has Become Famous Worldwide” that I won at a Slovak Gaelic football quiz night [Wow, I have the same DVD! - Editor].
    The Snowball by Warren Buffett is probably the book that has had the biggest practical impact on my life and I keep going back to it… I also have many leather bound books that smell of rich mahogany.
    Daniel
    Right now, I'm reading three different books [And writing this answer? Amazing skills - Editor].
    On my iPad, I have my scriptum to prepare for the Boat Skipper B license which I'm going to make in 2 months.

    More books
    I have some old Poker Books, because I love to gamble [Like when you push a branch? - Editor]. I played a lot in the past and miss the funny times, so I wanted to refresh my knowledge about all the stuff.
    As you see, no fiction books, just educational books.
    Matt M
    I love to read. I'm old enough to remember the days when we made books from a material called paper. These books were quite thick and took up a lot of room. [lol slow down grandpa - Editor] These days I stick to the Kindle and Audible stores. I especially like Audible. It enables me to listen to books when I'm working around the house, or out and about dropping my son off at his clubs.
    My all time favourite book is probably "The Road" by Cormack McCarthy. It's a dsytopian novel, which is a genre I enjoy. I also enjoy Stephen King's work. "The Stand" is of course one of his best. I quite enjoyed the Mercedes Killer series too.
    I'm a huge fan of the Jack Reacher series of novels. The quality can vary a little, but Jack Reacher is a great creation and I admire Child's writing style. He tends to just sit down once a year and start working on a new novel. He doesn't often plan out plots and structures, he tends to write and see where it takes him [Bit like this blog - Editor]. 

    Even more books
    I tend to listen to a lot of psychology. and health and fitness books. I'm currently working my way through "12 Rules For Life" by Jordan B Peterson.
    If I wasn't a software developer, I think I'd happily be an author [Don't quit the day job - Editor].
    Mark H
    I don't have an all-time favorite "book" (singular), I read series of them. I'd say the first 6 Dune books are my favorite series.
    Dune (1965) Dune Messiah (1969) Children of Dune (1976) God Emperor of Dune (1981) Heretics of Dune (1984) Chapterhouse: Dune (1985) After that it would be series by Robert Jordan, "The Wheel of Time". There are 15 books in total, but I've only read the first 12 written entirely by Jordan, not the prequel or the 2 that had to be finished by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death.
    The Eye of the World    (1990) The Great Hunt        (1990) The Dragon Reborn    (1991) The Shadow Rising    (1992) The Fires of Heaven    (1993) Lord of Chaos        (1994) A Crown of Swords    (1996) The Path of Daggers    (1998) Winter's Heart        (2000)     Crossroads of Twilight    (2003) New Spring                (2004) Knife of Dreams        (2005) The Gathering Storm    (2009) Towers of Midnight    (2010) ** A Memory of Light    (2013) ** **finished by Sanderson
    After that it would be the original Foundation Trilogy by Isaac Asimov. I've not read the 3 related books Asimov added to the series after the original 3. That's on my "to do" list.
    Foundation Foundation and Empire Second Foundation I'm sure I'll think of more which I've forgotten [Happens to us all eventually - Editor], but I am not reading any book now, nor have I within the last several years. Have no time to do so.
    That's what is on our bookshelves. We'd love to know what your favourite book is, and what you're reading now. Let us know in the comments below.

     
  25. Haha
    media reacted to Matt for a blog entry, Team Talk: Who is your celebrity look-alike?   
    For most of us, at some point in our lives we've been told we look like someone famous. Maybe it's an actor from a favourite movie, or a member of a popular band.
    This has certainly come up a few times among the team in chat. We often joke about our more famous doppelgängers. We've often wondered who'd play us in the movie version of Invision Community. I'm holding out for Ryan Reynolds [Keep dreaming - Editor].
    More recently, friend to Invision Community @Joel R mentioned that it'd make a really fun blog entry. So please direct all constructive criticism to Joel if this is not as promised, a fun blog entry.
    Ok, lets get started.
    Andy is DJ Qualls
    You may recognise DJ Qualls from comedies such as Road Trip and Road Trip: Beer Pong [Great list there - Editor]. This comparison was straight from Andy. He gets compared to him by his friends quite often apparently [He needs new friends- Editor].
    Personally, I think it's just the fact that he also wears the exact same glasses.

    Andy is DJ Qualls
    Brandon is Adam Levine
    Brandon was incredibly quick to mention that his dentist routinely says that he looks like Adam Levine, which seems like an odd thing to mention at most appointments. You may have heard of Adam from the band Maroon 5 and a few movies that I've not bothered watching [Awesome research for this piece - Editor].

     
    Brandon is Adam Levine
    Daniel is Daniel Brühl
    Not only do they have the same first name, they also share a nose [Who has it today? - Editor]. You might have seen Daniel playing Nikki Lauder in the movie Rush, as well as that shady guy in Captain America: Civil War.

    Nose twins
    Jennifer is Charlize Theron
    Jennifer had several looks for this blog entry, and chose the one featured below, which is very reminiscent of Charlize's role in Mad Max. You may know Charlize from her many movies. Including Max Max [Again, great research - Editor].

    The eyes have it.
    Lindy is Tony Soprano
    This is a comparison I've been making for years. Lindy has a certain "aura" that reminds me a little of the the mafia boss with a conscience. There was a hotdog incident at his house which I don't want to go into right now [No, please do - Editor].
    Tony Soprano was played by the late James Gandolfini.

    Both know how to hide bodies
    Marc is Casey Affleck
    Honestly, this took a while to figure out because Marc looks like no other human being alive. We even tried those "Who is your celeb twin" apps and they threw errors and deleted themselves in a panic. This is the best we could do. Casey Affleck is of course Batman's younger brother [Have you ever read a comic? - Editor].

    Yeah, it's not great is it.
    Mark is Ansel Elgort
    So one night I sat down to watch Baby Driver, featuring Ansel. It was uncanny how much he reminded me of our resident developer Mark. Even down to the facial expressions. It's uncanny.

    I honestly have no idea which is which
    Mark H is Ben Folds
    Full disclosure, the photo Mark submitted could politely be described as "vintage" [Not sure that's polite - Editor]. However, as soon as I saw it, I was amazed at how much he looked like my favourite singer/songwriter Ben Folds. I'm not saying this photo of Mark his old, but lets say it cost us $10,000 to have an expert colour it from the black and white original.

    Classic Mark
    Matt is David Boreanez
    Over the course of my 20s and 30s [Clearly not now you're old - Editor], I was often compared to "Angel from Buffy" played by David Boreanez. I thought it was because of my cool but brooding demeanour [lol - Editor] but maybe it's just one of those chance genetic occurrences.

    Well, similar hair at least
    Rhett is Bruce Willis
    Rhett never lets our servers Die Hard [Jeez, you went there - Editor] but he does resemble Bruce Willis. It's not just that they visit the same hair dresser either.

    Twins!
    Ryan is Ethan Hawke
    We've saved the best to last, because this comparison caused actual goosebumps. Someone even said "wow" when they saw it. These two could be related. Ethan Hawke is a huge movie star, so Ryan was quite happy with this comparison.

    Uncle Ethan?
    So, there you have it.

    If there was a movie to be made featuring our lives, then this is the cast that would be our first choice.

    Who do you look like? We've love to see your pictures too. Let us know below!
     
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