Howdy, gang - hope the fog's lifting off wherever you are today (literally and metaphorically). Thought I'd pass along some results from the networking website survey for those of you curious to know what's been going on. Fifty fabulous folks took part in the survey (many thanks, guys!) and here's the skinny:
* 58% of respondents visit the site at least once or more per month although 88% say that they're doing it less than they have previously
* 91% find the site very easy or somewhat easy to use
* The most common uses for the site (in decreasing order) are:
i) to stay in touch with my Compass group (69%)
ii) to network for work purposes (40%)
ii) to check out members not from my Compass group (36%)
iv) to respond to requests made by other members (34%)
* 94% of respondents classify the opportunity to connect with other Compass participants as very important or somewhat important.
Some of the common responses to what people like about the site include:
1. It reminds me of what I learned at Compass
2. It helps me connect with people, known and new, to support my journey
3. Being able to meet people with like-minded goals, interests, or available skills
4. That people work together to help each other
Some of the suggestions to make the site better include:
1. Making sign-in/log-in easier
2. Encouraging more traffic by posting supplemental course material or by assigning people to post new info regularly
3. Create as RSS feed (if anyone knows how to do this, please contact me)
4. Classifying people's areas of interest to allow easier searching
Based on the feedback, here are a few reminder/hints to make sure the site is being used to maximum potential:
1. If you use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer as your web browser, it remembers usernames and passwords so you don't have to. You can download it free here: (http://www.firefoxdownload.com/)
2. You can have private conversations with other members by inviting them to be your "Friend" and then using the Message Center (click the envelope icon on any page).
3. You can set your email and privacy setting to send you an email when you have new mail, a comment on your personal page, or whenever someone makes a new post on the site (please ask me if you don't know how to do this).
4. You can search other members' profiles for relevant content by using the search bar on the Members page and search all content (ie. members, discussions, and postings) by using the search bar at the top right of any page.
I'll be looking into the feedback more closely and seeing what we can do to address any concerns - unfortunately, we're somewhat limited by the platform and by finances so please bear with us. As a start, I'll be creating some new interest groups that I hope you'll consider joining so we can get more conversations going between like-minded types. And I'm hoping to get a link put on our main website for easier site connection.
As always, please feel free to contact me if anything needs explaining or if you need another invite and many thanks again for helping make the site a useful place to visit.
All the best, y'all.
~B
