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Group Review is now O.P.E.N.! While this post will give you a lot of information, over at Group Review we have FAQs and technical support standing by (yes, they, too, read the book). Once you get into Group Review and poke around for five minutes you’ll be a pro....
Think of Group Review as a BIG party (sans the martinis and mushroom puffs). And what is a big party, really? Why it’s a bunch of little parties with crowds left, right and center discussing different subjects they find interesting, or that interest them at the moment. You might want to flow into different discussions or you may want to stick to one or two. It’s up to you. Like any party, give it some time to gather momentum. Consequently, this party rocks 24/7.
Group Review is held at a community forum within the MarketingProfs site called the "Know-How Exchange" (KHE). While KHE has many categories, for our purposes we’ll stick to the “Book Club” category.
As we said when we launched, the Book Club is about sharing knowledge and bringing marketers together to focus on an exchange of ideas.
While the book informs us and provides insights, the discussions in Group Review guide us in our strategic and tactical day-to-day work. So if you start a discussion thread, please tie a theme, key point or real-world case study from the book--or the real world--to a question that you have. That way everyone benefits!
Here’s a Quick-Start Guide:
Go to the Book Club Entry Page by clicking here.
Log-in with your email and PW: if you’re already a member of MarketingProfs, just sign-in with your email and password, if not you can register for free.
Start chattin’ with other bookworms: all the discussions start below the poll.
You can hop on over to Group Review now or you might want a little more information, like…
Fun things to do at Group Review:
Take a poll: Tell us in the click of a mouse what you thought of the book.
Load your profile: Everyone who is registered automatically gets a profile page. You can self-promote to your heart’s content in your profile. Or you can leave your profile blank.
Submit a book review: One of my discussion threads is asking for feedback on the book. Take two sentences or two paragraphs and give us “your take”.
Immerse yourself in a discussion…or two: Book Club is absolutely democratic in that anyone can start a discussion thread; but I encourage you first take some time to view the current discussions--you might find they’ve hit on a topic you want to chat.
Start a discussion of your own: Just click on “Ask A Question" and seconds later--you’re live! If you begin a discussion please do check back several times during the day to see what has evolved. After all, you started all that chatting!
Get to know other marketers: Every time you start a discussion or post a comment, your “community name” is visible. Your community name hyperlinks to your profile so you get to learn about the people you’re talking with and maybe even meet some new colleagues.
Catch some sun by the pool: Not really…but I’m working on it for next segment!
A few items to note:
It’s Point-less…for now: The KHE’s original intent is to be a Q&A more than a “free-flowing discussion” like we’re having. So they work on a point system that awards members. For our purposes--and for this segment--we will NOT be working with points…but we can’t hide them from view. So where you see “win points!” just ignore it. Sorry.
Tomato/Tuh-mah-toe: I call the individual discussions “threads,” but in KHE they’re labeled “questions.” Both are correct terminology, but I want to clarify. The point is that when you start a discussion thread the feature is labeled “Ask A Question.”
Um, is that an author in my discussion thread? Since we’ve just read their book Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell want to be able to address our questions. If a point hasn’t been hit upon they may launch a thread but they really want to focus on being responsive so you’ll see them commenting as part of the discussion, rather than asking us questions--we bookworms will be taking the lead this time ;-).
Group Review, like life, is but a mystery: we don’t know how long it will go and how long members will want to chat. Sure, I could declare a hard-stop date…but that would be un-democratic. It could span 3-10 days and we’ll monitor the comment frequency and discussion flow. So when the glitter fades we’ll close the threads.
We’re already chatting over there but the party isn't the same without you. C’mon over!
P.S. Big thanks to Ann Handley (Chief Content Officer) and Val Frazee (MarketingProfs Managing Editor, as well as Moderator & Host, KHE). I’ve always said if you want to do great things…enlist 3 great women (and they are indeed great!)
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Comments
You can't keep me out of this book club with a dodgy URL!
The URL for the book club entry page needs to change to http://www.marketingprofs.com/bookclub/login
Looking forward to it ... Ann, CK and Val -- you have all done a great job getting this off the ground!
Posted by: Gavin Heaton | 01.10.07
Hi Gavin. Good catch! Luckily both URLs work. The friendly one you noted is a redirect for the other one in CK's post above. We figured the friendly one would be easier to remember.
Posted by: Val Frazee | 01.10.07
Great intro and step by step directions, CK
Posted by: Bob Glaza | 01.10.07
Gav: Thanks for keeping me honest.
Val: Thanks for watching my back.
Bob: Enjoying chatting over "there" with you.
All else: Even if you haven't read the book...you might check out the different discussions. It's getting to be a busy scene over there.
Posted by: CK | 01.10.07