I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m out of here. I’m joining that Straight Poop site **drewbert ** linked. That’s the funniest thing I’ve seen in a month.
drewbert, that’s just awesome. I can’t wait to order my Straight Poop merchandise.
All it needs is a big Click Here button so the visitors can sign up in one easy step, and it’s gold!
Dexter is right. Alex’s suggestions aren’t good ideas. As I understand things, there is a warehouse full of these books that aren’t selling. New covers might or might not help, but the books already exist… so what, throw 'em out and invest more money?
So, Dex, how do we get these ideas to the decision-makers? They want money, we want to make them money…
Right, is there something we could put together as a show of good faith, nothing more, like some sort of Good Will Proposal that someone could consense all the stuff from these threads and say “We love you too and want to help, here’s what we came up with…” that could be shown to the decision makers?
Re-doing the books isn’t a good idea (or at least isn’t a practical one), but promoting the Straight Dope brand and putting a big ad button for the books like he suggests on the front page are excellent ideas IMO. People are focusing on the one bad idea and ignoring the two or three good ones.
Well, yes, because you’d probably say, “I don’t know what you’re all complaining about; this morning is as good as it’s ever going to get, and you’re damned lucky to have it so quit whining. As if you could do better.” If you honestly can’t see how your response to well-intentioned ideas proffered with no expectations is dismissive, then you really do have a tin ear.
Was it? You didn’t say that. You rubbished one specific idea, and then scoffed at the person’s marketing and web design skills. Excuse us if we don’t read the softly spoken Dex that apparently lies between the lines. No, obviously pulping the books to change the covers isn’t practical, but I don’t see why you couldn’t just say that. It wasn’t his only idea, either. It’s also rather telling that in a thread full of good ideas, you zeroed right in on the one that you could pour scorn on.
Who was complaining about that here? I think we’re all pretty resigned to it. Of course, it’s utterly bizarre that a company asserting that a community is one of its most valuable assets should pay absolutely no attention to it whatsoever, but that’s by the by. I worked at the BBC on their (vast) messageboards for a while, and you wouldn’t believe what a difference even the slightest bit of owner feedback makes in terms of user perception and contentment. Of course, the BBC being the BBC, we were largely forbidden from interacting with users, and the resentment this generated was palpable. When I got hacked off with this, I just went and interacted with the users anyway, and you know what? It really helped. Even if I didn’t have anything to offer in terms of bug fixes or definite answers, people appreciate being listened to, even if it’s only a little.
You don’t have to believe me, of course; just look at the broadly positive response in this thread to the simple act of taking away the screaming banner ads, and the sharing of a mere morsel of information about the boards’ status. If you can generate this sort of goodwill simply by ceasing to actively annoy people, just imagine the response if someone stopped by to actually listen for a while.
However, you are essentially right: it’s pretty unbelievable that people continue to come in here and share their ideas, and strange indeed that they persist in fondly thinking that they might be heard. It’s almost like they care about the place or something. What a bunch of idiots, eh? We should just toddle along to the shop, where all the mugs are.
First, we rationalize venue metrics and pump up the 20/80 ratio with custom synergistic user friendly focal feedback. A real-time data-sharing matrix, cross-channelled to target subcultures through multi-accessed databases organically evolved around a central core business flagship should do the trick. Next steps, minimize extraneous noise, max the hook and lock-in the value stream with a look and feel skin targeted to the vision committed.
Rollout benchmarking of mission critical assets, and get buy-in with exclusive money shot face time opportunites for the early adapters with the name partner.
Works for me.
That’s what I was going to say, but I don’t know Greek.
'S no Greek, silly. It’s Consultant. YMMV. Caveat emptor.
(wrong thread)
Outstanding.
BINGO!!!
What?? 
Would members of the Straight Poop Message Board be, informally, called Poopers?
If so, I want in.
Thanks all for the comments! The thing is, I hardly had to do all that much to the original site aside from organizing things a bit, and removing a few things that were redundant or could be just as well explained on a separate page. (e.g. instructions for joining the mailing list). I added a sneak preview of the latest column, just like in Tuba’s mailing list. I put the site’s “Welcome” message at the top, rather than where it was, a third of the way down. I gave a damn.
I know sometimes in the portion of my job devoted to web design, I have to await the blessing of the marketing folks before doing anything new. And sometimes clear answers never come and things don’t happen the way you personally want. But nobody is going to get fired for doing a bit of common-sense housecleaning on the SD home page.
You’ve put your finger on what’s been bugging me. The Creative Loafing people call this board a valuable asset, but make no effort whatsoever to engage the members that make it what it is, when to do so would be the easiest thing in the world? I don’t think I understand this at all, and what I do understand of it makes me very sad. I don’t think this board is going to have a very good future.
(I want to be a Pooper, too!)
Perhaps they feel this way because they hardly do anything and yet money comes in from it. They’re probably sitting around trying to figure out how they can do less with it and make more money from it. (IME, this tends to be the way business people think, rather than the way which makes sense.)
Thanks, now I’ve got, “I’m a Pooper, he’s a Pooper! She’s a Pooper, too! Be a Pooper! Act like a Pooper!” running through my head.
Wouldn’t you like to be a Pooper too?
You forgot to leverage your core competencies, proactively.
Regards,
Shodan, who has sat thru too )^^&#@* many of those meetings.
Brilliant my friend.
And I like the design too.