Greetings from the UK

[Biz_Finder]

Just wanted to introduce myself and say hello to everyone. I'm currently involved with setting up a website which will allow entrepreneurs to post educational business resources in multimedia format - with the aim of attracting viewers and generating traffic for the poster. It's nearly ready to go live and I'm certain that everyone here could benefit from the added exposure. SBF.net is exactly the target poster market I'm looking for because you guys have the experience that others will be grateful to receive and you will also benefit most from increased traffic in exchange for the quality of your posting efforts. Everything will depend on the quantity and quality of the educational resources posted and a diligent spam prevention moderator policy (which is in place).

I will most definitely be about frequently and will give everyone a heads up when we go live.

Thanks for listening

Daniel

[ParaTed2k]

Sounds like exciting times for you and your business! I'm looking forward to checking out your site when you launch it. I wish you great success with it!

[Spider]

Welcome aboard, Daniel. What part of the UK are you?

[Biz_Finder]

Thanks guys :-) I'm from Bristol but grew up in the States. I sure miss the weather lol...

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Daniel. Sounds like an interesting site and I'll be looking forward to seeing it live when it's ready. What part of the States did you grow up in?

Thanks for joining the community.

[Biz_Finder]

I grew up in Vermont, did high school in Ohio, university in New Orleans and been in the UK ever since. Katrina was a bit of a tear jerker :(

[Spider]

I lived in Bristol for a year or so - in a little village called Easton-in-Gordano. I prefer Texas weather, though, but there's nothing like the sight of the greenery and wild flowers and the sound of all the birds on a Spring morning.

Let us know when your site goes live, Daniel.

[KristineS]

Welcome to the forum Daniel. I like your idea for a site. I'll be interested to see how it manifests itself when it goes live.

[cbscreative]

Well, if you grew up in VT and are now in the UK, you should be among those who don't have to ask me how to spell my last name. Welcome aboard.

[Biz_Finder]

That's right Steve. Chittenden Savings was my first bank account !

[Biz_Finder]

I lived in Bristol for a year or so - in a little village called Easton-in-Gordano. I prefer Texas weather, though, but there's nothing like the sight of the greenery and wild flowers and the sound of all the birds on a Spring morning.

Let us know when your site goes live, Daniel.

Easton-in Gordano. Famous for only one thing - a motorway service station lol! I will definitely let you know when it happens :-)

[cbscreative]

That's right Steve. Chittenden Savings was my first bank account !

Cool. I've often considered opening an online account with Chittenden Bank. I figure when I write checks people will wonder if it's a hoax since I'm in Michigan. In my home town about 30 miles from Grand Rapids where I live now, everyone knows at least a couple Chittenden's (there are a page or two of them in the local phone book). Here and everywhere else, except in VT and the UK, they ask how to spell it.

[Blessed]

Welcome to our corner of the internet Daniel and good luck with your new venture!

I lived in both Ohio and Southern Louisiana for a time - I know what you mean about Katrina being a tear-jerker, although I don't really miss the weather in that part of the country - it was a neat place to live.

[Business Attorney]

Welcome, Daniel. I look forward to hearing more about your website.

[Biz_Finder]

Well it took me a lot more time than I expected to get entreper.com off the ground. Delays became necessary due to functionality issues and what I refer to as the hydra effect - solving a problem and finding two more in its place. Went live last week, and the site only has 100 or so members at the moment - but what it really needs most I think is more quality business resources and a sound/practical knowledge/expert base. It's looking a lot like a cross between FB and Linkedin at the moment - but far more multimedia than either. I see it as an adjunct to other people's sites and efforts rather than a replacement for anything. My most fervent hope is that I will be able to moderate it well enough that it remains spam free, that it will draw people with knowledge as well as those seeking it, and that all parties concerned will benefit from the increased exposure. SBF.net so obviously contains the wealth of knowledge and experience I'm looking for and it would be an honor if some of you were willing to "moonlight" on Entreper and perhaps post some educational materials. You can always link back here or to your own personal business ventures. Please feel free to offer any criticisms or constructive feedback. I've made over 1000 corrections to the site but I'm sure I haven't found every bug unfortunately. Try to be kind if you do find one :-)

<please set up a signature>

[vangogh]

Delays or not, congrats on taking the site live. It's always an exciting time. 100 members in your first week isn't too bad. It takes time to grow a community. To help it grow you should be as active as you can for awhile. Post the things you want the community to post and if you can enlist one or two others to do the same it'll help get more people involved.

It looks like you're using WordPress of BuddyPress to power the site. Make sure you have Akismet or one of the other spam fighting plugins running. It'll help keep much of the automated spam out. The rest is up to you. You have to stay on top of it as best you can and enforce the policies you set.

[Spider]

Seems you still have plenty of work to do. I went to the site, signed up and I do appear to have an account now. However, I also signed up to be an expert and after filling in a whole bunch of information, the submit button took me to a page, addressed me as Ben, and seems to have lost all that I submitted.

I'll go back and see what has happened, but for the moment, I am a trifle underwhelmed. Let me know if I can help you.

[Reflo Ltd]

I grew up in Vermont, did high school in Ohio, university in New Orleans and been in the UK ever since. Katrina was a bit of a tear jerker :(

Whereabout in Ohio? I'm born and raised in Cleveland.... now live in the suburbs.

[Biz_Finder]

Vangogh I must be an even bigger noob than I thought because i wasn't aware of Akismet but i am about to do my homework. Yes spam or the threat of it causes me to lose sleep. I really apprciate the advice thank you :-)

[Biz_Finder]

Seems you still have plenty of work to do. I went to the site, signed up and I do appear to have an account now. However, I also signed up to be an expert and after filling in a whole bunch of information, the submit button took me to a page, addressed me as Ben, and seems to have lost all that I submitted.

I'll go back and see what has happened, but for the moment, I am a trifle underwhelmed. Let me know if I can help you.

Thanks spider. TBH i have no idea what happened so now i must try to test it in a different way. I regularly enroll and become an expert to test the process and it always works for me but you've obviously found a combination I havent tested and thank you for it. I've made over 1200 documented corrections so far so I'm a bit gutted I didnt find this one. Please have patience and I'll see what I can do. Ty again :-) yep totally stumped - just enrolled and became an expert no problem. I wonder if the vetting part needs to be explained better? I approve all experts after looking at their upload credentials and a frederick pearce is the last one I approved. If you uploaded no article, video or podcast to support your credentials I would not have approved your expert status but maybe this needs more of an explanation...

[Biz_Finder]

Whereabout in Ohio? I'm born and raised in Cleveland.... now live in the suburbs.

Fairborn - near Wright Patterson/Dayton. Bit of a s**t hole but near Yellow Springs which was nice :-)

[Spider]

...totally stumped - just enrolled and became an expert no problem. I wonder if the vetting part needs to be explained better? I approve all experts after looking at their upload credentials and a frederick pearce is the last one I approved. If you uploaded no article, video or podcast to support your credentials I would not have approved your expert status but maybe this needs more of an explanation...Yes, a better explanation would be desirable. The internet is still new enough for people to need being led by the hand. (When I bought my first car, it came with a starting handle and a hole in the front grille! Cars don't come with starting handles anymore) Besides, every application is different so clear step by step instructions are imperative.

I'll bet I'm not the only person that fills in only those items marked *Required and go back to fill out the rest once the account is open. But I can see it from your POV, too - if you don't require some validation of the claimed expertise, you'll soon have many "experts" in your database with nothing to support their claim. You do need to make that part clear, otherwise people who enter minimal info to open the account won't return when they see no account opened. Perhaps some of this can be dealt with by autorepond e-mail. Another method mught be to have an automatic, and instant, account opening, but leave those accounts in a "pending" category until expertise is submitted and approved.

[Biz_Finder]

Spider these are excellent suggestions and I'm looking into it right now. Your expert account is approved and you can go back and add to it by becoming an expert again. It should take you through the same pages and youu can choose to upload more content. Once again I thank you for the excellent feedback :-)

Daniel

[Spider]

Went back --

1. When entering a photo, your software make whatever I enter 100 x100, creating severe distortion. Needs some ability to crop whatever is submitted.

2. Visitors cannot see members profile unless they have registered and logged in - you need to tell people that, otherwise they will think that the scanty information displayed is all there is to see.

3. Segments on the profile - Work Experience, Education, etc. - appear as empty when nothing has been submitted. This makes your database appear incomplete, whereas it may just be irrelevant. My education for example was 50 years ago and is immaterial to what I do now. These segments should not appear on the profile when they are empty.

4. Work Experience will not accept input into the Description only. My employers in the past are irrelevant to what I do now. With your requirements of Employer, Position, Location and Time Period, it appears you want a full résumé, which is impractical. Description without all the other details should be acceptable.

5. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to provide all those personal details for public display. I certainly don't.

I hope these comments help.

[Reflo Ltd]

I've been to Yellow Springs. Very nice community.

[Biz_Finder]

Crickey Spider you have a way of looking at things from a fresh perspective I sorely needed. I've been looking at it all 12-18 hours a day until the point where I'm now afraid important functionalities like this have disappeared for me. All of your Profile advice is spot on now that I'm looking at it again. I soppose now I also need to alert people to the fact that there is a pretty well rounded privacy control centre in Account settings and they can be as open or secure as they like. I like the disappearing sections when not used part. Very good.

I just have to sit down again and figure out how to squish the explanations into a small enough space that they are effective but not intrusive. Sound of heavy thinking...

Can't thank you enough. Really. Greatly appreciated

daniel

[Biz_Finder]

It was like a lovely little time warp when i was there in the late 80's. Simpler times...

[Spider]

If you need help with copywriting, Dan Furman (who is a member here) has done work for me and I can recommend him. There are other copywriters here, too, who are also good, but Dan has a crisp, businesslike way of getting said what needs to be said in few words - just what you need in this case.

[jamesray50]

Hi Daniel, welcome. How do I find your website?