How might we use Groups in creative, non-obvious ways?

Yes, you can certainly use your own business name in the title of your group. I'm not sure about the legality of using other business names, though. One thing I do ask: Don't use "biznik" in the name, because we reserve that for "official" biznik stuff.

Teleclasses are a perfect example of a good Biznik Group. People can sign up for the group if they are open to the idea of teleclasses (webinars, etc), so hosts have a self-selected audience, waiting for their content.

I would also like to see a "Fledgling Communities" Group. This is a place where the leaders from different communities could work together on best practices, etc, for building a Biznik community in their area.

Mr. Joe (Ideas) Shirley, I love the Rough Drafts group idea. Please start it. Thanks. PJ

I love the "Rough Draft" group idea. That's a consistent issue I find in discussions with people. So many have no confidence in their own writing skills, and feel very intimidated by writing for their blogs or posting articles. I think it would be very useful.

Joe,

As a devotee of digital dissemination of data to a diverse dichotomy (i.e. here and there) I am down with this departure from current policy (ran out of "D" words). In fact the eBiz Junkies group is founded on the principle that "one-to-many" is a good thing and leverages our ability to share ideas and information.

I also like the concept of sharing drafts to get feedback.

the rough draft idea is a great one.

Thumbs-up on rough draft group. Please send me an invite when you launch.

My only question about the Rough Drafts group is about data persistence...

Google watches us constantly, and changes to Biznik are quickly found in Google.

That means imperfect, incomplete versions of your writing will appear in Google, alongside the finished versions of the same work.

In fact, if you get a lot of feedback on a work in progress, I could see the unfinished work ranking higher in the Google results than the finished piece!

So the knee-jerk reaction is to NOT post unfinished work to Biznik.

However, the conversation around improving an article is of value to the larger Biznik community, not just to the author. One can learn valuable lessons by reading the critiques of other peoples' work.

So the critiques themselves have a value, too.

Where does that leave us?

Does having in-progress versions of your work visible to the world scare you?

Or do you feel your learning experience can help others to learn as well, so you are comfortable leaving that work in the open?

It is an interesting thing to think about.

And one final note: Why don't the existing writing-focused Groups fill the perceived need already?

I agree that the rough draft idea could be covered in the existing writing groups.

I also think that rough drafts posted to the site is not a good idea for authors. It would also get really bulky. And to tell you the truth, I think this would be a much cooler event series to host, Joe. You could start another kind of writing group or join an existing one...either way, I could see you hosting events at which people exchange their drafts and give each other feedback or you could project a draft on the wall and get feedback from the room.

I have done a lot of group writing professionally and I'll tell you what, as an author, you don't want 35 people emailing you with edits. I think getting the input verbally and being able to discuss the draft live is much more powerful and helpful to the authors. I could see you leading that!