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At around noon today we pushed live ERE's brand spanking new community website. For those of you who had been using the old ERE Network for the last few years, it's a BIG change!
I certainly hope it's a change for the better, but obviously nothing is ever perfect. With that in mind, do you have any suggestions for how we could improve the community site, or new features you'd like to see?
If so post them below. If someone has already posted your suggestion, vote it up. We'll try to prioritize those suggestions that the community expresses the most interest in.
74 replies
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I meant "JIm" - I wish replies had edit capability! Is that beyond the system?
I feel like such a nebish asking some of the questions I ask.
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Replies do have editing capability, as a matter of fact. :)
It is curious to me that you don't see this. Beneath any comment you post on ERE you most certainly should see an "edit" link.
I know I've asked you this before, but remind me what browser you are using?
Also, do you have an alternate browser on your computer, e.g. Firefox? I'm curious to see whether if you visit the site using a different browser you see things like the edit links and are able to expand the comments.
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I use Exporer - do not have Firefox - I have - reply delete flag - as choices.
This string VERY sticky. I wonder if it's because it has so many responses in it?
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Languish is a wonderful word. Thanks Jom. For the record, I counted - this discussion thread - with 65+ commnets, took 18 secs to load on my laptop. I don't have load issues like this elsewhere.
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I still can't get to the comments on the ERE Feedback string that we were talking about a coupla' weeks.Can anyone help that group out?
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Sorry Maureen, I let that issue languish. (I believe you are referring to the problem you're having expanding those comment threads.)
I'll take a look and see if I can't fix that for you!
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There's hope.
Thanks for listening to your users and making changes.
A quick question. In the antique way of posting (prior to the new community site format), ERE automatically signed messages for us. Does that now exist?
Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
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It does exist in the discussion digest, if that's what you're referring to. At the end of every message in the discussion digest a signature block is appended that looks like this:
Name
Job Title
Company
[link to ERE community profile] -
I have been an ERE subscriber for more years than I care to count. I have waited several weeks since the new format change took place to make any comments.. I do not like the new format. I appreciated the brevity and ease of following topics in the original format. I feel that the new format is more time consuming to find topics that interest me having to wade through all the blog listings. If i was interested in commenting or discussing on a particular topic or group of topics I would not start my own blog I prefer participating in the old ERE format than entering the Bloviating world of BLOGS. I do not feel that personal and in many cases Immature rants so anything to advance the Recruiting profession . And after 35 years experience I know I still have much to learn and Hope that ERE will return to a format that continues to allow learning and growing opportunities in a time efficient format
Yours
Charlie Murray
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OK, you're not a big fan of blogs.
I posted this on this thread yesterday, but it bears repeating - if you want an email delivered to you each day with the full text of only the groups and conversations that you follow, you can now get one.
I think that this is exactly what you are asking for, and instructions for how to sign up are here.
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David,
I did make the change (signed up) last week but my ere email does not look any different. When you say "full text of only the groups and conversations that you follow" what do you mean?
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David,
I just received the daily ERE Discussion Digest email and yes, it looks to be on the right track. There are some formatting issues (photo) that need to be addressed but it looks promising. Now we need to get community participation back.
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There was a formatting issue with that post for sure, but its not actually in the email, it was in the original post, which it looks like Hans pasted from MS Word.
We had a definite drop in posting activity when we first made the change to the new site while people adjusted (and we still obviously have work to do there), but in the last couple of weeks I have seen the volume and quality of posts increase steadily.
Thanks for participating - posts like this help us stay on top of the tweaks and changes that we need to make and help make ERE a better place for recruiters!
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Got todays ERE Discussion Digest email and looks good. One question, why does the thread run in reverse order? You need to scroll from the bottom up to read the thread in chronological order.
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There's no good reason for it, in fact this was bugging me as well just yesterday.
We've fixed it so that messages in the digest are now in chronological order.
Thanks for bringing this up.
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For everyone who has been asking for a simple email with the full text of posts in the groups that you are following, I think you'll be happy with the new email format that we've put together!
Instructions on how to change your email settings to the new format are here.
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How hard is it to give us a choice of the old email setup or the new one? I don't like ERE Vista.
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All of you in this thread have been very clear with us on two things:
- We need to make the discussions on ERE.net easier to find.
- The new email format isn’t working for you.
We hear you, and just pushed a few changes to the server today that should help address the first issue. Details are here.
We are working on #2 also - the key to getting the email notifications/digests right is getting the site right!
This is the top priority right now for me, Jim and Hunter, and it will stay there until we’ve got it right.
Keep the feedback coming!
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Jeff, I think Coca Cola Corp dumped New Coke after they realized it wasn't what the market wanted - actually, I'm being nice. If I remember right, New Coke tanked like a recruiter on a post Red-Bull afternoon high, so they made the right decision - they dropped it like a bad habit and cut their losses before they got worse.
See, New Coke failed because Coca Cola Corp forgot who their customer base was -- who they were and what they wanted. Coca Cola Corp that they had to innovate when they really needed to renovate.
In a world dominated by social-media-as-marketing-panacea hype, it's easy to think the world needs more online communities. The truth is that we don't - we just need better execution of a company's core value proposition so we don't have any reason to leave for the greener pastures of the social network.
I go to Workforce.com, SHRM.org, ERE.net, etc. for super content, not an online flea-market (some networks have consistently great content; others are hit-and-miss), as well as the sharing of ideas with those open-minded enough to consider new ideas while resisting the ever-present beat of the marketing drums. I don't know about all of you, but the marching of the sheep starts getting old when you realize the emperor or sheep-herder isn't wearing any clothes (well, unless it's Mrs. April - just kidding) :) Frankly, social networks related to the Recruitosphere have fallen out of favor with me because the marketing white-noise becomes unbearable. In the words of Jeffery Gitomer, "I hate to be sold but I love to buy."
ERE, come back home. We don't need New ERE anymore than we needed New Coke. Bring regular ERE back along with the Polar Bear commercials :)
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Hey Josh!
Classic soft drinks may be loved by all, but web sites that don't evolve are soon left in the dust, so one thing is for sure. There won't be a return to "ERE Classic." We will listen to our community, innovate, make improvements and move forward.
ERE.net has always been a mix of the curated articles on our front page and the rough & tumble debates of our community.
Different people find different parts of the site to be valuable, and it's our job to make them all as accessible and user-friendly as we possibly can.
We clearly didn't nail it this time, but we're going to keep working on it until we do. Expect to see a lot more smaller, rapid-fire changes on the site in the future as we identify the pain points and work to make them better.
Speaking of Coke commercials... You're an Atlanta guy so you probably already know this, but I always found it interesting that Coke practically invented Santa Claus as we know him today.
Our bear commercials are in production as we speak, but I may use my panda pictures!
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David, I think Christie nailed it for me.
I am now reeiving individual emails from the one discussion I've responded to (this one) and the way to configure what I want is not intuitive or obvious. I am now receiving individual emails, rather than the digests I originally received (ERE configured that; I didn't), the digest arrives at midday, rather than beginning at 8 AM Eastern as it used to and that is a bad time for me and, hear is the most critical thing about the change . . . I used to look forward to receiving the daily digrests from the individual groups and now I don't. I liked Original Coke better.
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What was wrong with the OLD ERE format? It was working just fine for me and I assume from the recent correspondence, many others. It was clear, easy to read, and one could arrange focus on groups of interest.
CHANGE isn't always IMPROVEMENT, but unfortunately many in this world have this antsy compulsion to change everything often just because they need something to do.
I have been a daily ERE reader for years, but now I get, from ERE, maybe 10% of what I used to get, and am close to just giving up and stopping the daily combined newsletter from coming to me.
MIKE RABIN
THE RABIN GROUP
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Like most others, I like the new look of the site, but I hate the new email format. I liked being able to choose to receive daily digests about a particular group. With this new format I can't be bothered to hunt all the way down the page for the groups that interest me, and then look around further to follow the same conversation thread. I'm almost ready to block all ERE emails this new "community newsletter" is so unproductive. Please bring back the old forum specific emails.
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Personally, I'm not a fan. For those that live on ERE and other social networking sites, then it's probably fine. However, for those of us who participate when time allows or 'on occasion' (just like the passive participator below), its not good. There is a reason that participation is down... Its not that we don't necessarily have the time to learn, but why would I want to spend my time learning when I shouldn't have to.
Bottom line... it looks pretty, but this discussion is just about the only one I can find in less than 10 seconds.
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I no longer read most ERE emails because the new format is incredibly unproductive. People always complain about email. ignore them - they can opt out. But to change the format to try to coerce me into active participation is shortsighted and has driven away my passive participation.
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It is not as "clean" as the old site. Navigation is a challenge - have you had a useability professional look at it? And I'm not thrilled with the font or the sorting abilities. And I'm not getting the feed that made it so easy to decide when to join in.
Connie Hampton
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This new site and email system is not at all efficient. Previously it was much more simpler and informative. Now I am not able to find what I need and it is very very confusing.
Also the email is also too long and not informative. The previous one was Much much better
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Hi Jim,
I think it looks great.
Just a quick note, something is not quite right with the order of forum posts displayed. I see the first few posts from up to one day ago, followed by posts made more than a year ago, even if I choose showing by lateness. Could you please look into that?
Thanks!
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maybe I just am navigationally challenged, but all I can find of discussions is a few in the last few days and then many very old "forum" discussions that have not seen the light of day for a long time. How do I get to the discussions that have occurred more recently?
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You're not alone, Deborah.
We're working on making the conversations on the site easier to find, and I just posted about it here.
Let me know what you think!
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I've noticed that there are two separate issues being raised in this thread, and to a degree they are being muddled together. Let's try to separate them, because then it will be easier to identify what we can do to make each on better.
New email format. Many - perhaps most - ERE members read the conversation on ERE.net primarily through these emails, so the changes that we made there have definitely generated some heat. We are currently in brainstorming mode on this one for two reasons:
- In the past, we've received complaints about too many emails being generated, so we are trying to cut down on that volume.
- This is a community that grows richer when its members actively participate, and emails encourage a passive reading experience rather than active engagement.
We are trying to figure out how to effectively notify people that these great conversations are going on, while at the same time not overwhelming them with emails and still encouraging active participation. It's a tall order!
Web site usability. The main gripe about the new site seems to be the lack of visibility of the individual conversations happening within the groups. We're already working on this one and should have some improvements there shortly. What else needs work?
When you are letting us know what needs work, it helps us a lot, but try to be as specific as possible - saying that the old site was better doesn't really help us get better, but telling us specifically what is frustrating about it does.
Even better, let us know what changes we should make to solve the problem. I can't guarantee that we will act on every suggestion, but we are reading every one, and they help us a lot!
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I'm still not feeling very happy about the change in email structure. I keep looking at it every day...but still not feeling it. Perhaps its because I receive the email on my mobile (blackberry) device and the format of the emails on the mobile device is quite user un-friendly. Has anyone on the development team looked at how the email comes across on the mobile devices? I used to look forward to getting the email updates from my group...I could quickly scan them and even come back to them later if I found items of interest. Now I'm beginning to think that I'll have to just delete these off my phone and try to find time to read them later on in the evening once I get home and can sign on to my personal computer.
As to people getting too many emails in the old format? People like to get emails with information that they find interesting. If they don't like the information in the email, that would be a sign that they are a member of a group that they don't really find interesting. In the old format, they could un-subscribe from the groups that they felt had emails that were a waste of their time and limit their email to those from groups that they feel are interesting.
I'm not ready to say that I'm un-subscribing from the current format, but I sure do miss the easy to follow discussions that I had before.
Just my two-cents worth.
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I have to echo what Russ, Lori, etc. are saying. I am finding myself deleting, which I have never done before. I only have a couple of minutes a day for this personal development, and this makes it MUCH harder for me to find the exact discussion topics. It took me a while to figure out this new Reply...but that's a learning curve issue and will diminish. What will NOT go away is the fact that I have to scroll through eveyone else's topics to find mine--I liked the DAILY DIGEST--1 email a day for each subject/location I wish to monitor.
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I hear all of you - you're not loving the single email.
As Jim has already said, one of our goals was to cut down on the volume of emails that people were receiving from us, because we were getting feedback about that as well.
We are brainstorming on our end to see how we can make both groups of ERE members happy. One idea is a single email customized to your personal groups/conversations that you are following, but that may require more computing resources than is practical.
We are working on it, and will definitely take a closer look at how these emails display on the blackberry.
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I like the idea of letting us choose which groups/conversations include in an email that is sent to us. Perhaps then we can also see the complete comments in the email instead of needing to link back to the site to find out what is really being said.
...and thanks for listening!
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Thanks, David.
I hate change. this one isn't bad . . . just a change that I wasn't really anticipating. So it seems harder to follow threads because I'm not used to really looking for them which format seems to make me do only because it's different.
Again, I don't think it's bad; it;s an adjustment.
Jeff Altman
The Big Game Hunter
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I share the negative sentiments as the others I'm afraid. This new site is user-unfriendly. I, too, have been dumping emails in the trash. Your hope, I imagine, would be that we'll get accustomed to this. My fear is that by the time we do, it'll still be too much work....sorry guys...
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Can i just say - new way - horrible. This is incredibly more time consuming and inefficient. I belong to a couple of other network sites that look exactly the way the "new" ERE looks (0 points for orginality) and work the much the same way as well. The one reason I used ERE so much is because it was different, and easier to use it in a way that works for me. I could customize what I received. Now I"m getting one "newsletter" that I have to try to dig through to see if there's anything of value or that applies to me. I'm being fed blogs I don't care to follow, threads from groups that don't even apply to me, and lots of other miscellaneous useless information. As a result - they all now just get sent directly to my trash. ERE has been an invaluable tool in the past. The people I've met on here have been such a huge help to me. But the new format means that ERE will now fall down my list from a place a visit daily, to a place I rarely visit. I used ERE because it added value to my day. Sadly, now it simply eats up too much of my valuable time that will be better spent on revenue producing activity.
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I have to agree with Maureen's last response. I much prefer the OLD way - I spent the past week thinking I had a problem with my ISP and my email set-up. I was trying to figure out what happened to all my groups/discussions. Now I find out that you've changed the format. To say it is difficult to navigate the new design is an understatement. It now takes a lot longer to find the discussion and to interact with group members, IMHO.
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One thing I have always found is that many people don't know how to "do" things. Maybe allowing them to turn ON the emails rather than having to turn them OFF might return some of the vibrancy to the group discussions. But of course, that would be wholly dependent on people knowing HOW to turn the email functions to off, daily digest, or on. Maybe this instruction could be made more prominent on the site?
I think alot of people are having trouble navigating the new design. If you want them to come to the site, how about drawing them there with an email that details only the first few sentences of any post? A "...to read more click here" might help?
I liked the old way of showcasing the groups - this way makes it hard to find most of the groups except for the first few ones that happen to start with "A"...
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Thanks Maureen.
Yeah, actually everyone who was formerly subscribed to a group discussion is now subscribed to the community newsletter.
Funnily enough, your suggestion in the second paragraph is almost exactly what the community newsletter looks like. :) If you're still not getting it, let me know and we can look into what the problem might be.
I agree with you that we could do a better job of showcasing groups. We're putting some thought into that as we speak, actually.
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It seems to me that group activity (in groups I follow) has gone way down. Not sure if it's the result of the redesign of ERE Community, Twitter or both. Has some of the conversation moved to Twitter? I hope not, Twitter is NOT a good alternative to the group discussions that take place here at ERE. The daily email with group updates does not present well, not sure if it's just format and or content.
Maybe cross post group activity to an (ere.net) group on Friendfeed. Then people who spend more time on twitter/ff can more easily join in group conversations. Not sure if that can work, just a suggestion. I enjoy dialog that's not always limited to 140 characters, keep the groups alive!
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Some good points you bring up. I do think, by the way, that the reduction of activity in the groups can definitely be attributed to the redesign. The volume of postings etc. did indeed drop off last week when we launched it. Any impact (positive or negative) Twitter would have I would expect to be slow and more long term.
We are definitely keeping an eye on everything right now, and this has not escaped us. I think there are a few reasons for it:
The biggest is probably that we discontinued the group digest emails. This was a major source of complaints over the years, that people received too many emails from us. If you were a member of 13 groups (not that many really) you got 13 emails a day at minimum. Yikes!
On the other hand, as you can see by the other comments in this thread, many people liked getting these emails. In fact, I'd say that one of the weaknesses of the ERE Network is that it became *dependent* upon email, which the slump in new posts after the recent redesign shows.
Is that a good thing? I don't think so. I can't imagine websites like Facebook or Twitter being as popular today if all of the activity was driven by email.
At risk of going on too long in this response, I'll end by saying we're trying to think of how we can solve this in a way that allows people to stay connected but doesn't necessarily inundate everyone with more email volume than they can handle.
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Is there a way to search on past subject matter now in the groups?
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Right now you can search all of the discussions within a group from the discussions tab within that group. For instance, you can search all of the discussions withing the Ask Maureen group from this page.
I will talk to Jim about putting together a search that works across all of the group discussions this morning.
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I understand the need to cut down on the emails but I would prefer the emails of the discussions I'm following. With the new format, I can't find the discussions I am interested in and there is a lot stuff that I don't want to see. How about giving the everyone a choice to either receive the email digests or have everything sent in an email newletter?
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At the top of every discussion thread (including this one) you have the option to "follow this discussion" which will send you an email notification whenever a new post is up in that thread.
Also, whenever you post a message in a thread, you have the option to follow the thread (if you respond to this message, you will see a checkbox right next to the "post reply button."
I hope this helps!
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I am having trouble finding recent posts in any of my groups. Is Maureen's group (one of the more vocal that I'm in) really that quiet or is there a way to sort by most recent post? Help. I'm pretty web savvy but a tutorial might be helpful. <sigh>
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There is a way to sort by recent post Stephanie. If you're viewing the discussions in Maureen's group, there's a little drop down box on the top right.
By default it should say "hotness," but you can select "latest activity" to order the discussions by those that have recent replies.
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PLEASE bring back my emails! I like the high speed, read what I'd like, delete what I don't method. Clicking thru a website is not as user friendly, which is why I signed up for the email digests in the first place!
PS, brown is my favorite color, but some things are hard to read on my old eyes.
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I love that we have tools for posting now. Thanks!
Can you explain the point system? I prob'ly missed your earlier explanation.
There's a lot of talk on this string abt the email - I guess I'm missing that too - what is the new email protocol and if you set a pic or a link into a post will it arrive in their email boxes all HTML-gobble-dee-gooked?
The groups - are they still sorted by type? What kind of changes were made that affect the groups?
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Hi Maureen,
Sorry it took me a while to get back to you. So let me see if i can answer your questions:
- The point system is pretty straightforward: you can vote certain things like comments or discussion threads up or down, depending upon whether you think they are adding or detracting value from the conversation. Things with higher votes will appear first, whereas things with lower votes will appear last, or in some cases disappear from results entirely.
The idea here is that more power is placed in the hands of the community to determine which content is valuable and which is not. - For now we condensed all of the previous group digests etc. into a single email, the ERE community newsletter. If you click "manage" at the top right of the screen you should be able to ensure you are subscribed to receive it. You should not experience any issues with HTML garbage, but if you do let me know!
Groups are not grouped especially by "type" any longer. There were a fair number of changes to groups, but I'd say the major changes are:
- The group activity feed...which allows everyone to see all the group's activity in one place.
- Threaded discussions.
- Admin tools. Group leaders have admin tools to manage their group, and can assign other members as "admins" to help manage the group.
Let us know if you have suggestions Maureen. We're hoping to be able to do some more work in the coming weeks in response to what people are asking for, so speak up! :)
- The point system is pretty straightforward: you can vote certain things like comments or discussion threads up or down, depending upon whether you think they are adding or detracting value from the conversation. Things with higher votes will appear first, whereas things with lower votes will appear last, or in some cases disappear from results entirely.
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This is a good idea as it will help in reviewing the communication when we have time and reduce the email clutter. However as many members have suggested the formatting of the email may need to be reviewed.
Thanks
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I agree 100% with Brian Kennedy. This new format is REALLY disappointing. E-mail is so much faster to read and and far more convenient. Even if you change the colors (which were exceptionally hard to read as many others have mentioned) I still find the format cumbersome.
If we have a choice (on an individual level) I, like Brian, would prefer if you would continue to send me my subscribed group postings the way you have been. I'll may visit the new site very occassionally otherwise.
I really hope you listen to our suggestions as you had a great forum going, and I would not want to loose it. -
Love the idea of less e-mail and one quick read newsletter. Great job!
Kim Haynes
Recruiting Specialist
Kershner Trading Group
Austin TX
@kimhaynes on Twitter
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Jim:
I'm enjoying the new look & feel!
Craig
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Like the idea but you might want to think about changing the colors on the email as very hard to read (blue hyperlinks on brown)
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agreed.
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Does your copy of the email look totally different from the web version here: http://community.ere.net/digest/1/ ?
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Hello Jim,
Just had my first copy of the ERE Community newsletter ... .great concept, idea etc ....... but, please .... the 'blue writing on dark background' has got to go .... I cannot even start to attempt to read it .... yes, I have reading glasses (albeit weak) ..... but it is very, very difficult to read ......
Rob
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I think we've fixed the blue on brown problem since the first newsletter. Is it better now?
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Actually I'm really disappointed you're not sending emails anymore. E-mail is faster and far more convenient. There are so many websites begging for us to spend time on the every day it's becoming impossible to keep up. E-mail can be read in small bites, on a Blackberry while on the train, on the move, while at lunch, essentially whenever and wherever.
If we have a choice (on an individual level) I would prefer if you would continue to send me my subscribed group postings the way you have been. I'll visit the new site once in a while, but I doubt I'll get there every day. Sorry.
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I cannot read blue text on a black background.
Try a bright color (orange, red).
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Same as others - LOVE IT except I can't read blue print on a dark brown background. The Web version is easy to read, but it would be nice to have the email version the same way.
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The email version does look different than the web version; my message came through looking the same as Rob's and Chrystal's.
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Yes Jim the email is dark lettering on brown paper rather than the online version
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Cutting down the number of emails is great! Nice format, however having the brown background with blue/gray/white font is extremely hard to read. The font also appears to be smaller than normal however not sure if it's just my settings.
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Hi Jim,
I will have to spend some time here and certainly do not want to be negative but the blue is not easy reading on the eyes.
Anna
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Thanks Anna. I hope you enjoy it.
Out of curiosity, which blue are you referring to when you say it's hard to read?
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Hey Jim - nice job....no suggestions just yet. I've got to feel my way around the place a bit.
But I really like what I see. Look forward to spending more time here!
Dennis
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Just my opinion, but instead of someone having to click 'follow thread' or 'follow discussion', you're better off simply defaulting to that box being checked (as opposed to someone having to check it themselves).
On another network that ERE looks more like these days, Ning defaults you to following and you actually have to click 'UNfollow' (as opposed to 'follow'). As much of a nuisance as it can be (i.e. I linked my Ning profile to an email address I check once a month because of the white noise I started receiving as the other network grew in size), it seems like a more ideal option. Change management always (or 'extremely predictably') involves a 'valley of death', so as long as you can manage the dip of the initial unkown in the mind of the consumer/customer/reader/employee/etc., I think you'll be more than fine.
Hope this helps.
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Thanks Josh. I'm not sure why that checkbox was not checked for you by default. We set it up so that the checkbox is checked by default for the very reasons you describe.
Shoot me a note if it's still not appearing as checked for you when you reply to a message (just to the right of where it says "post reply / cancel".
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See who is already coming to #socialrecruiting summit in November!
