How about the person who recieves help then gives the helper a star.
It may help motivate people in some small way.

Bob

1. The process is relatively easy. I encountered some technical difficulties, but Michelle from Technical Support helped me resolve the issue within 24 hours!

2. Not really - the example provided by Dave is quite straightforward for me to follow.

3. My opinion is leaning towards no incentive system. I believe that most people will be willing to help others if they are able to. So the incentive may not be necessary. I like Bob's idea - it also has the thank-you-card- idea as in KDS speech.

4. If people can only post their challenges after they have helped five other people, who will be the people that post that first round of challenges? Sometimes, those who need to post their challenges, may not have the resources right at the moment to help others (it's not that they don't want to help - maybe they are just unable at the time). Just a thought...

5. I like the idea of examples, but not sure about the pop-up. Some people may disable the pop-up of their browsers these days. I also like the search function, or maybe we can have some basic categories (eg. job - healthcare, job - finance, etc). So, when people post their challenges, they can also choose the category.

Hoep this helps! :)

1. The experience was fairly easy. The only trouble I had was that once I had emailed someone with some advice, a "Thank you" screen came up and I wasn't sure how to get back to the community board. After a couple of clicks, however, I did find it.

2. The challenge I had with the problem I wanted to pose was to word it in such a way that I would not get obvious advice from others, but also would not write a book in my posting. I do not think I completely succeeded in doing this, but I am not sure what else I could have done.

3. Incentives are a great idea, however the purpose of the boards is for RHBs to help other RHBs, so I would hope that incentives would not be necessary.

4. As a metric, I love sites that allow you to rate how useful the posting was. This way you are recognizing those who give good advice without rewarding those who did not help at all.

5. It would be great if the problems could be categorized. I think that without this and after numerous postings, some challenges will just get lost in the jumble.

1. Very easy. First attempt was on Google's new browser, Chrome, where everything loaded fine except I could not see any challenges on the community challenge board even though I was logged in. Switched to IE7 and had no problems. Checked Firefox too - works fine there as well.

2. Thinking of a challenge that was likely to draw a response was hard, so I just put something every-day and more fun than "looking for a job" in some variation, even if it is.

3./4. - Metrics are good to reward good advice, but limitations for new users is a bit daunting and might discourage anyone from starting.

5. How are challenges curently organized? I can see them easily now - but what happens when there are more? Perhaps latest modified? I wonder how useful a search function for a challenge might be - if you have no idea what the questions might be, how do you know what you might be able to help with?

Registering and signing on was dead easy. My biggest challenge with this process was fitting my challenge in the small box!

At first I couldn't upload a profile image...followed the instructions but it kept saying “must selected a file to upload” (which I already had). Eventually I got it to work, but not with the photo I wanted. Oh well.

About the “counter” - it's tricky. How do you quantify the amount of advice/help some can give. Does 5 minimally helpful responses = 1 great lead? I think for this one you have to stuck to your philosophy about Real Human Beings – everyone helps one another. But let me think about this some more....it definitely needs to be easy and quick to use. I like the above suggestion about the person who receives the "help" being able to distrubute a gold star!

I just sent a response. It was simple – easy to use. Good job.
After “Your response was sent successfully!” have the communication board re-load automatically – this will encourage people to help another person. It's easy than back-clicking to get to the communication board.

Aaaand finally – just a question. Are all responses linked to the email address that you input into the profile? Now a days people have 3 email addresses, facebook, voice mail, etc....so many things to check. It would make it easier if people received responses via their email address – kind of like when you get an update to your email from facebook. Know what I mean?

Hope this helps. Looking forward to seeing how it takes off!

All the best,
Katie

I like it! I especially like that I was able to find a challenge I could respond to so early on, and I wish there were more that I could help with. Let's sign up more RHBs! Can you build a connection with FB or LinkedIn?

To be honest, without a reminder (like the FB or LinkedIn emails) I will have trouble remembering to check in. Is there a way to have a weekly email listing the newest challenges, or something?

I'd also like a large field in which to enter my challenge (it's tough to proof read in a tiny little box).

And finally, I don't need a 'gold star' kind of system, but I'd love to see if challenges are getting solved. It would be nice to have some kind of bean counter way to show the number that have been dealt with.

Thanks everyone for your input. With feedback like this, we can work towards a simple, elegant and intuitive model. I notice that some of the challenges arent business related...exactly what I wanted.

1. I had a bit of trouble logging into the site because I couldn't remember my password and was unable to get it reset myself (no email was ever sent with a new password). Michelle at Arrowsmith was very helpful though! She responded to me promptly and we were able to resolve the issue very easily.

2. I only just posted my problem today so we shall see if any replies come my way. I found it easy to think of a way to word my problem because it is such a specific one. I think for the bigger things (e.g. I need a job, I'm not sure what I want to do after graduation, etc.) there is value in narrowing down the specifics as you had in your example Dave. This would really help other RHBs to provide possible solutions.

3. RHBs in 3rd gear shouldn't need incentive, right? ;) I like the idea of having some kind of tally just to keep track of how many people I may have been able to help - perhaps only visible in your own personal profile info. Everyone likes to feel the warm fuzzies and having a number to put to it surely helps. Even more simply, to keep a copy of replies I have sent so that I know what I have said previously.

4. For metrics, a rating system like on Yahoo Answers might be useful - even just to confirm whether the help I am giving out actually did help or not. I sent an email to answer a problem today and I am wondering how I will know if it was useful for that person? Maybe a quick "thank you" button would be a nice way to acknowledge that someone read and appreciated my attempt to solve their problem...

5. I am not sure how this would work but I like the idea of being able to see what other solutions have been offered. I wouldn't want to give someone a suggestion that has already been suggested 10 times to them. The option to send a private message (email like there is now), or post a public answer would be handy - that way I might be able to reach out to more than one person at a time, or keep my answer just between two if needed. Oh, also an RSS feed of new problems being posted so that I know how often to log back into the RHB community. If I can think of any other ideas I'll be back to post them!

Thanks for letting me take part in the Beta testing. This is going to be so fantastic, Dave. I'm really excited.

Dave the whole process was very easy and enjoyable! I found that those with a more detailed description would be easier to reply to, just as you had suggested.
A great incentive to help others would be to then see how successful the advice was. Even a rating system, using starts for instance would be encouraging.
Prior to posting a challenge, examples of strong and weak challenges should be provided. I think the word search option would be a great tool, especially as the community grows, which it will and soon. I'm really excited about this, it has huge potential!

Thanks again for all your input todate! We have noticed that some emails to challenges are ending up in spam boxes. Has anyone found this? I like the idea of some kind of feedback system. Just got to avoid a second gear mindset (e.g. yee haa! Look how waves I got on the challenge board!) Maybe instead of a rating system, we show the suggestions underneath each challenge. (some challenges seem to be similiar) And perhaps a counter that simply shows how many solutions each person emailed out...just thinking out loud. I want to encourage people to get in and stay in third gear and trying to weed out the first gear folks (those who post a challenge and wait for a response without trying to help others). e.g. how do you teach online 3rd gear behaviour?

Re: phone convo

Hey so I believe that what I had said was that on the registration sheet it would be handy to mention that the first email field is the one which you will use to receive emails from other RHB, and that that email does not appear on the profile it just appears as a link to "send email"

let me know if that sounds right

Dave, this is a great idea. My only issue is that once I email someone I just get sent to a thank you page (which is good) with no quick way of getting back to the community board should I want to keep viewing posts and emailing others.

Hi Dave, since I was at of KDS in April and you highlighted me there as a Homeopathic Doctor who wanted to Lunch and Learns or coporate seminars, since then I have had a lot of interest and feedback. The interest in health awareness seminars in the corporate arena has generated a lot of leads and I have been booking presentations it's fantastic! Your method of a RHB and KDS is working. I would advise anyone who hasn't attended Dave's presentation to attend. Dave shows you how business is about opening up to the possibilities of connecting with each other and thinking out of the box something that we need in todays world. Thanks for being a Good guy Dave. Keep up the good work!!!

Victor Ness
Homeopathic Doctor
416-806-0162