Folks,
Boo! Gave you a post-Halloween scare didn’t I? 🙂
Well, the Group is not literally being shut down, but it is very true that the Group as we know it will be gone forever on Monday, Nov. 23, replaced by a new, energized reincarnation. A phoenix rising from the ashes, as it were!
This results from the Member Survey, conversations with many of you over months, discussions with senior Group members, and my own observations of the Group’s activities and LinkedIn’s changes, plus my we need to make the Group great.
THE PROBLEM: WHAT DO THE MEMBERS WANT?
The overall consensus was that there should be a way to:
- Hone in on (that is, quickly find) discussions of most interest to us.
- Encourage deeper interaction between members. That is, a focus on *discussions* and *debate* with colleagues, as well as a way to get advice from one’s peers.
- Make this Group *the central place* where networking professionals go to get answers to tough problems in the Carrier Ethernet and related spaces, knowing that there is a community of avid practitioners eager to share their knowledge and help (we, of course, have that today, but, honestly we need much more of that).
- Tell news, events, opinions, and deeper discussions apart from one another easily.
- Eliminate all low-quality content, which does not all any value to the Group, to people’s knowledge, and does not advance the cause of the Group.
- Showcase one’s membership of this fine Group!
The issue was that, today, we do not have any of these capabilities!
THE SOLUTIONS: MODERATED CHANNELS + MEMBERSHIP CARD & CERTIFICATE + SPECIAL SIGNATURE
Moderated Channels
1. The solution was to create moderated channels on key subjects, assigning each a code to be prepended at the start of the subject line of any post intended for that channel.
For example, posts intended for the “Network Architecture & Design” channel, code-named ARCH, will be prepended with: [ARCH]:“Title of Post”. Thus, a post titled “Has Anyone Configured WFQ on an MX 960 Tri-Rate Enhanced DPC?” will need to be posted as “[ARCH]: Has Anyone Configured WFQ on an MX960 Tri-Rate Enhanced DPC?
2. This will enable members to find all posts on a given channel, by simply searching with that channel’s code.
3. Starting Nov. 11th 2015, we will have the following 6 channels, and members will have to prepend their posts with the code for the appropriate channel to which their post belongs.
4. The channels (explained fully at: http://bit.ly/1RtRna4) were picked based on the distribution of discussions we’re currently seeing, and will evolve over time.
i) [TECH]: Technical Queries/Solutions Channel – All technical queries related to Carrier Ethernet and allied technologies. (Moderator: Shaam Naragund)
ii) [ARCH]: Network Architecture & Design Channel – All network architecture & design issue discussions. (Moderator: Basil Najem)
iii) [SDX]: Cloud & Virtual Networking Channel – All discussions, news, articles, posts related to software-defined infrastructure & cloud, to include SDN, NFV, virtualization, and the cloud. (Modertator: Needed, Currently Vishal Sharma)
iv) [NEWS]: Industry News Channel – All announcements, industry developments, Carrier Ethernet news, etc. (Moderator: Needed)
v) [EVENTS]: Industry Events Channel – All conferences, webinars, hangouts, Tele-seminars, meetings, Meetups, and the like. (Moderator: Needed, Currently Vishal Sharma)
vi) [KNWLG]: Knowledge Channel – All discussions, posts designed to increase knowledge in packet networking, and that don’t fit in any of the other categories (Moderator: Needed, Currently:Vishal Sharma)
NOTE: For [TECH] and [ARCH] channels the subject of EVERY post MUST ONLY be in the form of a question and a new post CANNOT have a hyperlink in the subject line of the post. Instead it can ONLY be a question directed at one’s peers. The body of the post and subsequent responses, however, may point to other articles, resources, etc. as long as they are in the context of the discussion.
Membership Certificate
5. To enable each member to showcase their membership, we will now have a Membership Certificate that looks like the one shown here, which will be issued to every member of the Group!
Each Group member will now be able to proudly announce their membership of this exclusive Group! And, you’ll be able to share the Membership Certificate on your LinkedIn profile, your blogs/webpages, your social channels (FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pintrest), and other venues. This proclaims that you are a bonafide contributing member of one of the most active Groups in the industry devoted to discussions of modern packet networking!
Membership Card
6. Plus, we will now also have a Membership Card that shows that you are an active member of the Carrier Ethernet group (the year at the bottom left shows the year of active membership). The format of each member’s card will be as shown in the picture below. Cool, uh!
The Membership Card is a handy portable, business-card size card (the above image is much larger than actual size! :)), that you can carry in your wallet. This will, later, become your ticket to admissions and discounts that may be offered by our various industry partners exclusively to members of the Carrier Ethernet Group! And, it will be your ticket to live Carrier Ethernet Group events that one of the leading senior members of the Group may lead in your local area.
So, how do you get the Membership Certificate and the Membership Card?
You get them by letting me know where to send them!
So, please fill out a couple details on the following form http://bit.ly/1Hvgcge.
(So that we can email your Certificate and Membership Card to you; note that otherwise, I have no way of getting these to you – since LinkedIn restricts the number of messages a user can send out per month to just 15 and we have nearly 10,000 members in the Group. You do the math! :-)).
AGAIN PLEASE FILL-IN THE FORM HERE http://bit.ly/1Hvgcge.
We will collate all the responses once-a-week and issue the Certificates and the Cards, until every member of the Group has obtained their certificate and card. So, don’t be left behind, act on this now!
If you have any difficulty filling the form, please send an email to [email protected], with your name, title, company, and email, so that we may send you your certificate and card that way.
Special Signature
Finally, to enable the members to digitally share their membership of the Group in a professional setting, I’ve created a simple Word document that allows you to create your own custom signature with the logo of the Carrier Ethernet Group, and use it in your favorite email program, such as Outlook or others. The entire process of doing so, is explained in a separate blog. But the signature,when all is said and done, would look similar to my signature in the image below.
This will provide each of our members the ability to easily share their membership as part of their signature, as I have been doing for well over a year-and-a-half at this point. So, you will have a reusable signature format that you too can use!
To get the details of how to easily construct your own custom signature, please consult this companion blog post http://www.metanoia-inc.com/blog/?p=1298
So, as you can see, we have some exciting changes coming to the Group, which, we’re confident, will greatly enhance members’ experiences and member interactions, and help us build a truly unique, strong, technically competent, and vibrant worldwide community of Carrier Ethernet experts!
Until next time … take care!
Best,
-Vishal
PS: To watch a video primer that explains all of the Group’s features, the Channel structure, the resources for members, and Membership Certificate, Membership Card, and Email signature, go here http://bit.ly/1NVecVj.