@aarthi - good evening! I tried to create a room for us on the personal prod chat side of things but it kept defaulting back to security... nvm

suppp -- hit me!

Quick summary after going through the personal prod stats etc:

the core is that we just aren't getting the through traffic - so most important is how to market this effectively

we aren't getting the same sort of high value individuals finding the site as say security did

now early on for security we did do a couple of high profile things - using events and individuals

I am hunting around for appropriate events / individuals to associate

eg - productivity conferences / effective working / even MBA meetings

and using twitter and other means to point attendees at relevant questions

or even to ask questions real time during such an event

at the moment the footfall seems to be a lot of standard IT types all wanting the 'app that will make me work better' and I think without a step change in the culture the site is going to continue drifting until shut down

one thing I don't know is what has been tried so far - I have seen the meta posts about raising profile etc., but not seeing anyhing major about going out to the community

I am trying to remember the core steps we had while trying to boost Sec.SE each time we felt it was flagging

but we got to our core community rapidly - I feel prod doesn't have this quite yet which is why my focus has been on trying to identify outside bodies that might bring in people who will ask / answer a slightly more useful set of questions

and answers

...thoughts @Aarthi? I feel I'm just monologuing here...

:-)

ha sorry, just a moment please @rory

muzak

LOL

@RoryAlsop this right here is pretty much my feeling too

there's no tight unit at the center of this site, alas

I think while Joanne has definitely been the obvious source of direction, you need a handful of keen individuals (mods and community) to drive that initial phase of growth (I know - you guys will probably have stats on all aspects here, so just ignore me if I'm teaching you to suck eggs) and in looking at the equivalent to what exists on other sites it will need to be people like life coaches, personal guides etc that we need to get involved.

I am reaching out to folks like that in my network to see whether they can be a part of trying to grow.

@RoryAlsop sweet!

/delayed because of TL sigh

I know - I'm watching that too. Was quite interested in the patents thing until I realised it is US only...

:-)

@RoryAlsop aww patpat

you could ask about converting UK to US patents

iirc, the US does recognize international patents to a degree

@Aarthi oooh good one...will be my only useful question, probably

@RoryAlsop hey, just do that mmyers does and skate by on old questions :P

hahahaha

(I think you have given me a challenging task - fun!)

-

on other topic, how did the stats look for last weeks Sec.SE competition? From my view it looks like not a whole heap of traffic, but the site stats are still heading upwards, so something is working

@RoryAlsop sweet.

@RoryAlsop uh rchern hasn't sent me the winners yet.

@Aarthi no worries. Erm - I'm taking this weekend off to go to a security conference in Germany, so may not be properly in touch until Monday. But I am taking next week off as leave so can work with numbers from rchern on normalisation for Level 2 prizes etc, and start to pull in announcement draft etc

@RoryAlsop Have fun! Do you have stickers?

@Aarthi I do still have quite a few, yes, and a few pens, 3 t-shirts and one torch that I am taking (I gave most of the last of my conf swag to Rory McCune who is heading to another security conf this weekend :-)

spreading the love :-)

whee!

@RoryAlsop excellent

right time for Pimms, and to think about packing - will keep you informed as to how things go:-)

@RoryAlsop cheers~