Biznik 2.0 call for ideas

I think people's ideas for changing the website are great. Changing the structure will probably change for the better what kind of interactions can happen within it. But I also wonder about the long term vision of Biznik. The manifesto says Biznik is "revolutionary." I find this an exciting idea that makes me want to be involved, but I would like this vision of revolution to be more defined. For example, to what extent is Biznik about community and to what extent about contributing to people's freedom in making a living? Of course it's important that we "do business" through the connections we make with each other, but are we also interested in making a contribution to transforming the culture of business? I know that for me, the desire to change my own circumstances and the desire to change the world cannot really be separated. I think that to the extent we are trying to change the world of business, we need to have a vision, maybe one that is open to periodic re-vision, of what we are trying to accomplish.

OK, it's a new topic: Changing the world of work.

I have an idea....

It's called "Show me the Money"!!!

Let me explain.

Since Biznik is all about growing our collective businesses, it would be cool if we could start tracking, via the site, the dollars we made through Biznik referrals. The bottom line, right? Right now we can track referrals, but why not track the dollar value?

So, hypothetically, anyone who gets a referral through Biznik, could report that dollar amount in their profile as a profile update, and then maybe Biznik could track everyone's dollar amounts in total, as proof in the pudding to the general public that Biznik is a good way to grow one's business. Imagine how big that number could be!!!

Does this make sense? Do you like the idea?

Or, to play devil's advocate, does my idea seem crass? Cold hard capitalist? Filthy and dirty?

I'm interested in other's thoughts...

-g

Elizabeth, did you know you can pretty much get what you want right now (a way to easily read the threads with unread posts). They don't exactly filter to the top, which I'd also like, but there's an RSS feed for BizTalk comments, which is a feed that contains all the latest comments to threads. You can also get to the latest comments by clicking on BizTalk Threads at the top of BizTalk. I've been doing that a lot lately to make sure I haven't missed a comment that's buried way down in the posts. Hope that helps!

Along those lines, I'd love a way to do the same thing with blog and event comments. I find myself slogging through the same blogs and events over and over to see if anyone's added a new comment ('cause they're all so darn interesting). Any way to get a feed for those?

~jan

Oh, and another thing. I'd like to be able to preview posts before sending them (in BizTalk as well as blog and event comments). That way I could make sure any links I include are working correctly, stuff like that. ~jan

Cool! (re: Jan, I just created that feed for you with event comments.) And thanks for letting me know there's already a feed for blog comments. Somehow I managed to overlook that one. ~jan

Dan, if the overview portion of the Blog and Biz Talk, where the time and date of the post is currently displayed, was changed to reflect the time and date of the most recent post, that would give us a simple way to see if anything's been added since our last viewing. Great for those of us who aren't near an RSS feed.

Some great ideas!

Not surprisingly, I would greatly appreciate social networking tools of some sort. Thanks, Phoenix, and everybody, for that suggestion.

I also don't think that Biz Talk is scalable as currently designed. The issue is not only that of having the most recent threads float to the top. The issue is finding the threads that we are interested in, without having to read through everything.

At the moment, this is not a huge issue since there are not hundreds of threads a day. But, on some systems there are thousands. And, Biznik is growing and will need to be able to adapt.

Personally, I like the idea of clubs or groups as a way to connect with people with shared interests. But, there would certainly be alternatives if you didn't want to go that route. For example, you could have some general topic headings for categorizing posts, and we could choose to look under the topics that were most useful to us at any point in time.

Dan, I must say I am a little jealous right now :(. You may not believe it but the concept of this site is exactly where I was heading with my website. Wierd, now I have a feeling you are not going to like me too much . But the truth is you are already up and running. Anyways, I do want to give you kudos for putting together this site in a neat manner, I do see it cluttering when there are quite a few memebers (like others have mentioned-- threads, referrals..).

I and a friend of mine have been experimenting with Ruby and AJAX. I always believe that if you cannot do it find someone who can. Sounds like people want to convert this site to a MATCH.COM :)

BTW, I liked the idea of tracking dollar value (sorry don't remember who mentioned that), but does sound cool if people really are interested to know how is biznik helpful. I not sure of your vision of biznik, but I am willing to actually help expand this to other cities (beyond Seattle--which btw, is my fav city and hope to visit one day). I will email you with my thoughts later, don't want to overwhelm things here.

It would be really helpful to be able to filter the Want to "Trade with Me?" entries, or all of the Biz Talk stuff for that matter, by region. Sometimes it's cool to see what people in Seattle are doing, but if I'm looking for an electrician to trade services then Seattle does me no good. Or to make it less mercenary, While it's all well and good to find out what people in Seattle are doing about sales tax collection, it's more helpful to know what people in DC are doing about sales tax collection.

i would love to have a search feature for our message inbox. hate digging through my pages of messages to find what i need.

See if you can integrate Gmail into Biznik! Mmmm sweet sweet google.

Ooooh, while you are at it, think you could get Adobe Photoshop to integrate their product into biznik? As well as Maya! I'd be set then!

Gmail has been integrated into Biznik. Go to your profile, and scroll down 1/2 way on the Left Side to see "Invite Your Friends" with a way to import friends from Gmail, Yahoo or MSN's Hotmail.

A number of features are under development like a site-wide search, a new messaging system that includes a search, displaying the threaded discussion, and Cc/Bc/Fwd links.

We've talked about geolocating the BizTalk forums too - stay tuned.

Thanks for the feedback - keep it coming!

I've been getting great use out of www.pingg.com for business events, an event invitation tool that feels more professional than evite. There's an email, a website and tracking tools. Rolling some of those features into Biznik would keep me here, especially if it included integrated with G-Cal.

Facility to chat directly with the fellow Biznik members in your contact list using Biznik if they are online the way it is provided in Gmail...

Ok, I have a little tweak I'd like to request. If we're to build communities, why do we have to specify how we already know people we want to invite to our network. Isn't the point of this to meet and explore new individuals? Just a thought.

Great question, DeBorah. Many people are protective of their social networks. They prefer to know the people in their network, some, like myself, go so far as to prefer that the people in my network are people I have made a connection with.

The "how do you know this person" feature was added in response to a large number of user requests from members asking essentially the same question: "What do I do/say in response to invitations to the networks of people I've never met?" We found that forcing the person making the invitation to specify how they know them, makes it easier for the person receiving the invitation to politely decline the invitation.

An invitation to your network is not always the best first point of contact. Try sending the person you're interested in a message first, or participate in a BizTalk discussion they're involved in by referencing a comment they made.

If inviting someone to your network really is your preferred method of initial contact, then simply select that you met them online.

Just as people are discerning when it comes to who they give their cell phone, personal email and work email too, I believe that as people become more familiar with social networking features, each person will become more clear on who they wish to include in their Biznik, Facebook and MySpace networks.

At least you're not as bad as on Linked In where you have to request an introduction and the fellow at the top gets to decide whether to pass it along or not. I think that's rude, especially when you've included a 3 paragraph note introducing yourself and stating why you want to get in touch with this person.

Any favorable comparison against LinkedIn will be taken as a compliment. ;)

Biznik is a community of indie business people. LinkedIn is a contact management tool for corporate almuni.

DeBorah (and others new to Biznik),

Another thought that might help is to distinguish between "networking" and "a network" in the Biznik context.

Using myself as an example...

Networking is a wide open affair. I'm open to networking with everyone (meeting and getting to know people) in hopes of finding connections. Those connections might or might not lead to friendships or business or a chance to help someone.

In contrast, my network, in and out of Biznik, is a limited group of people whom I've already met and have established connections based on personal friendship and/or business. There is an implication in my network connections that I am endorsing the group members. I can't do that with people I've never met.

This might seem a bit harsh and unfriendly; but, it isn't. The way around the problem is to participate online and/or in person at events.

For those of you who live in areas that don't have an active local Biznik community, engage online and recruit and set up a local group. Dan and Lara are always ready and willing to help.

There are 12 members in Walla Walla, including you; round them up and start having meetings.

After all that, if I haven't put you off, welcome to Biznik. I hope we have the opportunity to meet someday.

Rather than giving you 15 minutes to edit your post, add a feature that let's you view your post, as others would see it, before you publish.