New innovations require new presentation - and thus, we have one. Any feedback on the new look of Colleague Connect is appreciated. As we expand into the next phase of development, we felt it was necessary to update our image. Sign up for a conference today to see all that we can offer you. And of course, everything is still completely free.
You’re the planner of an upcoming conference about artificial intelligence or genetic programming. Would you benefit from the same exact Colleague Connect platform used by a conference on Asian digital libraries? Probably not, and we understand. You want to customize. You want the features you want without any you don’t. You want the interest matching icons your attendees care about and advanced communication tools. You want a simple, effective presentation. You want personalization, the power to customize your pages, and an environment where you can create a conference networking system different from everyone else’s.
All we can say is this: be patient, it’s coming. And if you have any input in the meantime, we encourage you to share with us.
As you surely have noticed, the entire look of Colleague Connect’s public pages has changed. This goes along with many new additions to the in-conference pages, such as file sharing capability, a session calendar and sponsor integration. A new area for posting advertisements has also consequently been created on this page of resources. Things are always growing here at Colleague Connect!
If you have any questions or comments about the new features or using them, please let us know!
New features are on their way:
As we keep growing, we will continue to improve our service and provide you with more features.
Something you’d like us to provide that we don’t? Let us know!
Just as I sat in that hotel room in San Antonio and dreamed up colleague-connect because I felt I was not connecting with anyone at the huge National Communication Association meeting last year, others must have had the same inkling towards an idea like this too. (Okay, irony noted, let’s move on now.) Mine, of course, was geared towards academics; people who naturally veer towards communicating via written words quite easily, and, I might add, thrive in collaboration. (for the most part - sorry about missing out on those great sparks of inspiration coming to those alone in their labs, garrets, closets or stairmasters) Thus, it was born…
Others are out there in a similar ’space’ in the marketplace. I found one through an article that had a link in a link, got the blog by the guy who founded the site, and now I can’t remember what is was!
Gopherveld?
Frownedviper?
Looked it up finally – http://crowdvine.com - memory is weird, eh?
Similar goals, different market, different business model…
As my only business training came from sitting at the feet of Norman Ross and reading the NYTimes business section everyday for 17 years before adding web based e-knowledge to my mind space, I think this is probably a good thing. (tried the WSJ for a while but it seemed too much like giving in to ‘the dark side‘.
So, it seems we have some good ideas. Our team, me, Jeff Saporito and Norman, (and an impressive coterie of others, Ezra the Bold, John the Dragon, Ian McHandsome, etc…) have a lot going for us: skills, flexibility, the willingness to evolve and change over time - maybe mgills are coming back soon!) We are trying to all of our websites right - get them geared towards a specific market, fit it to them right. Crowdvine may have a good idea and lots of people may want social networking sites for their own families and such, I am really looking forward to this: “Uncle Ed and I thought it would be peachy for the family to have their own on line social network, so we are looking forward to your joining and regularly chatting with us about the doings in your neighborhood as we tell you about who’s been eating the tiny shoots in our garden this spring..”
Just like Americans-Abroad, our sister site, has competition, Internations. These things are both signs that we are on track towards something that people want/need/will like ..and that there is competition and we have to constantly be aware of it, grow, evolve, react and change –(all the same thing, but teachers get used to finding ways to emphasize a point, over and over again, repeatedly.)
On to more later. As I expecting my new iPod touch any minute now (fed ex tracking says the truck is in the neighborhood but has 23 1/2 deliveries to make before getting to my door) I am thinking about how to add an iTouch friendly face to all of our sites - Americans Abroad, Freshman Camp, Broadside Magazine and Win-A-Bagel! (still in b-ate-uh)
As we had more conferences sign up in the last few weeks than ever before, with 13 new conferences represented in the last 9 days, we want to remind everyone we welcome your feedback. We’re always eager to improve and develop Colleague Connect in any way that will cater to our clients - so please, we’re all ears!
A note was sent out today to all CC clients about posting the URL to your Colleague Connect page on your conference’s website. To date, our most successful and busiest conferences have been the ones that linked to their CC page from their organizational website. While we recommend not posting the conference code there to prevent interlopers, putting a link will direct many of your attendees to the discussions taking place on Colleague Connect. Most of your attendees will visit your conference’s website at one time or another - so do them a favor and let them know you’ve partnered with us.
The past week has been a good one for Colleague Connect, having 5 new organizations sign up for 9 new conferences! Hopefully planners are seeing the benefits of our unique system and the power Colleague Connect can have on a conference community. Now serving dozens of conferences, we are proving to be a useful resource for the conference environment.