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Beginning April 1st, and running through April 30th, there is a new 2024 BMW MOA Election discussion area within The Club section of the forum. Within this forum area is also a sticky post that provides the ground rules for participating in the Election forum area. Also, the candidates statements are provided. Please read before joining the conversation, because the rules are very specific to maintain civility.
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Open call for web site content suggestions
- Thread starter gregfeeler
- Start date
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Reading the ON online
The second option on the left-side navigation bar of the BMW MOA web site is "Membership." Just click on that to go the the join/renew/membership pages. They work with the same SSL security as does the Country Store. Let me know if you have trouble with that link.
threeflys said:
The second option on the left-side navigation bar of the BMW MOA web site is "Membership." Just click on that to go the the join/renew/membership pages. They work with the same SSL security as does the Country Store. Let me know if you have trouble with that link.
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Re: Re: Re: Chartered Club Web space
Yes, and we want to increase the links between the BMW MOA site and the clubs' own sites. Many of them have done some excellent work and are worth checking out.
JetDoc said:
Yes, and we want to increase the links between the BMW MOA site and the clubs' own sites. Many of them have done some excellent work and are worth checking out.
THREEFLYS
New member
Re: Re: Reading the ON online
Greg,
I can log in fine, but then what do I do? The owners news link on the left side will take me to the what's new page and will tell what is in the issue but I can't figure out how to get to the actual online magazine to read the articles.
Chris
Greg Feeler said:
Greg,
I can log in fine, but then what do I do? The owners news link on the left side will take me to the what's new page and will tell what is in the issue but I can't figure out how to get to the actual online magazine to read the articles.
Chris
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Re: Re: Reading the ON online
Oh, I see the problem! There isn't any on-line version of the Owners News. You get your subscription along with your membership to the BMW MOA.
Remember, you don't have to own a BMW to join the BMW MOA - all you have to do is be interested in the bikes.
threeflys said:
Oh, I see the problem! There isn't any on-line version of the Owners News. You get your subscription along with your membership to the BMW MOA.
Remember, you don't have to own a BMW to join the BMW MOA - all you have to do is be interested in the bikes.
Visian
look out!!!
Rally registration for chartered clubs
Yes, some process definition and process coordination would be required.
If the e-commerce code we bought does what was promised, this should not be overly complex. Honestly, the bulk of the work may be on the Chartered Club's plate.
I'm the outgoing President of the Georgia club, and will be a Director next year, so if there's an interest on the MOA's part I will bring it to our Board of Directors to see if we want to be a guinea pig.
Ian
Greg Feeler said:
Yes, some process definition and process coordination would be required.
If the e-commerce code we bought does what was promised, this should not be overly complex. Honestly, the bulk of the work may be on the Chartered Club's plate.
I'm the outgoing President of the Georgia club, and will be a Director next year, so if there's an interest on the MOA's part I will bring it to our Board of Directors to see if we want to be a guinea pig.
Ian
Visian
look out!!!
Re: Re: International Memberships
Re: International Memberships
Greg -- the operative phrase was "receive"... having the ability to view our magazine on-line, in conjunction with the open content-sharing policy envisioned, would pave the way to the BMW Motorcycle Owners Association... the first global independent club of BMW MC enthusiasts.
Ian
Re: International Memberships
Greg -- the operative phrase was "receive"... having the ability to view our magazine on-line, in conjunction with the open content-sharing policy envisioned, would pave the way to the BMW Motorcycle Owners Association... the first global independent club of BMW MC enthusiasts.
Ian
Visian
look out!!!
Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
The instant that the current policy of banning any content that appears on our website from appearing in our magazine is eliminated, I will volunteer for this function.
Consider the forum format as content in its purest form... contibuted randomly over time, with subject matter and overall quality determined by the contributor.
With effort, value can be added to that raw content by combining relevant pieces of information, sorting, slicing and dicing it into more cogent forms... making it more digestible by a wider audience. Which makes it of greater value to more members. IOW, greater ROI for the MOA. (enough TLA!)
Those forms could include summaries of links on a page in the Rally site that gave readers an overview of all the different road advice that is stored on the Rally Forum.
Add some links to sites with external information and the pictures posted here, and you have some great "ride to the rally" stories for the Rally web site.
Combine the information found in comments made in reference the contirbutor's original post and you've got the makings of a great article for the BMW ON. That exposes even more members to the knowledge captured here... which helps the original contributor and the rest of the members perceive greater value in their BMW MOA membership.
And hopefully, it persuades the members who are reading the magazine to come to the forum and participate... which adds to the overall richness of the membership experience.
These are just a few examples. All it takes is some time, and the willingness to eliminate artifical barriers to the flow of information.
Ian
The instant that the current policy of banning any content that appears on our website from appearing in our magazine is eliminated, I will volunteer for this function.
Consider the forum format as content in its purest form... contibuted randomly over time, with subject matter and overall quality determined by the contributor.
With effort, value can be added to that raw content by combining relevant pieces of information, sorting, slicing and dicing it into more cogent forms... making it more digestible by a wider audience. Which makes it of greater value to more members. IOW, greater ROI for the MOA. (enough TLA!)
Those forms could include summaries of links on a page in the Rally site that gave readers an overview of all the different road advice that is stored on the Rally Forum.
Add some links to sites with external information and the pictures posted here, and you have some great "ride to the rally" stories for the Rally web site.
Combine the information found in comments made in reference the contirbutor's original post and you've got the makings of a great article for the BMW ON. That exposes even more members to the knowledge captured here... which helps the original contributor and the rest of the members perceive greater value in their BMW MOA membership.
And hopefully, it persuades the members who are reading the magazine to come to the forum and participate... which adds to the overall richness of the membership experience.
These are just a few examples. All it takes is some time, and the willingness to eliminate artifical barriers to the flow of information.
Ian
Visian
look out!!!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
Michael -- thanks very much for the green light, however, my experience has been different.
I wholely disagree with the BMW ON's "first serial publication rights" policy because I feel that drawing distinctions between two media vehicles owned by the same organization is not in the best interest of our membership.
But... AFAIC, this is all water under the bridge, down the river and way into the ocean. I look forward to a clearly-defined communications policy statement on the matter from the leadership of our club.
Ian
M. Cohen said:
Michael -- thanks very much for the green light, however, my experience has been different.
I wholely disagree with the BMW ON's "first serial publication rights" policy because I feel that drawing distinctions between two media vehicles owned by the same organization is not in the best interest of our membership.
But... AFAIC, this is all water under the bridge, down the river and way into the ocean. I look forward to a clearly-defined communications policy statement on the matter from the leadership of our club.
Ian
JetDoc
New member
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
Check out the "Hall of Wisdom" on the K1200LT bulletin board... These guys have done a fantastic job!
http://www.bmwlt.net/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=wisdom
Rob Nye said:
Check out the "Hall of Wisdom" on the K1200LT bulletin board... These guys have done a fantastic job!
http://www.bmwlt.net/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=wisdom
mcohen
New member
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
I guess that means you're not going to volunteer after all? Perhaps your experience was different for other reasons.
And I don't think members would enjoy reading the exact same article twice. We draw distinctions between the web, magazine, Anonymous book, rally program, membership renewal letters, etc. to maximize their capabilities and bring additional value to members.
Michael
Visian said:
I guess that means you're not going to volunteer after all? Perhaps your experience was different for other reasons.
And I don't think members would enjoy reading the exact same article twice. We draw distinctions between the web, magazine, Anonymous book, rally program, membership renewal letters, etc. to maximize their capabilities and bring additional value to members.
Michael
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Rally registration for chartered clubs
Ian,
This is a good suggestion and related to the use of the BMW MOA web site for chartered club rally registration. We've got some bigger first to fry first, but consider it on the list.
Visian said:
Ian,
This is a good suggestion and related to the use of the BMW MOA web site for chartered club rally registration. We've got some bigger first to fry first, but consider it on the list.
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Re: Re: International Memberships
Ian, you know it's WAY beyond our mission or mandate to become a world-wide club. Right now we're trying to make it a much better club for our current and potential north american riders.
Visian said:
Ian, you know it's WAY beyond our mission or mandate to become a world-wide club. Right now we're trying to make it a much better club for our current and potential north american riders.
gregfeeler
Dances With Sheep
Re: Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
Ian,
Sounds like a good idea, but I don't seen the advantage of using a limitied resource (pages in the ON) to duplicate a virutally unlimited resource (web pages). If your point is to get people to come to the web site there are better ways, and ones that will promote interest in the whole site - not just one part.
This fall/winter we'll be promoting and discussing the resources available on-line in a series of articles in the ON. These won't be a reproduction of the web content - any more than the web site is going to re-publish the mag - rather a "ride report" of www.bmwmoa.org.
There's no content conflict with the ON and your offer to compile the forum posts. For any of these great ideas we're discussing here to happen we'll need more volunteers than we have now. Part of the point in starting this thread was to get both ideas AND people willing to help make them happen.
Visian said:
Ian,
Sounds like a good idea, but I don't seen the advantage of using a limitied resource (pages in the ON) to duplicate a virutally unlimited resource (web pages). If your point is to get people to come to the web site there are better ways, and ones that will promote interest in the whole site - not just one part.
This fall/winter we'll be promoting and discussing the resources available on-line in a series of articles in the ON. These won't be a reproduction of the web content - any more than the web site is going to re-publish the mag - rather a "ride report" of www.bmwmoa.org.
There's no content conflict with the ON and your offer to compile the forum posts. For any of these great ideas we're discussing here to happen we'll need more volunteers than we have now. Part of the point in starting this thread was to get both ideas AND people willing to help make them happen.
Visian
look out!!!
Re: Re: Re: Re: Method for re-purposing Forum contributions
First and foremost.... this is not about duplicating. It's about synergizing for the purpose of creating an enhanced perception of value received for investing $32 in a BMW MOA membership. And about getting the most return on what the BMW MOA invests in creating and delivering information.
Second, and equally important, it is essential that this conversation be viewed from the member's perspective and not from the committtee's.
Consider this: there is a thing called information, and there are dimensions to its value... namely: accuracy, relevance and timeliness (there are others, but let's keep this simple).
Some members prefer getting this information on the web, other members prefer it in print, but many use both. Therefore, there must be consistency and continuity between our media channels... and this does not mean duplication.
Key concept: members perceive greater value in this information when it is as accurate, timely, and relevant as possible to their current context.
Let me give you a specific example to illustrate this concept.
A member contributes a piece of information to the BMW MOA via our website facility called the Forum. Let's say the information is about a cool road that can be ridden on the way to our International Rally. 10% of our members see the information in that form. The rest don't.
That piece of information gets combined with 50 other cool roads that come in the form of additional posts made to the Forum. Some of that information is comments about the original road, some of it is about other roads, and some of it is about the cool places to camp, eat, see along the way. Unfortunately, it's all jumbled up into 50 different threads and posts to the Forum. So now members have to dig through it all... and most people don't want to work that hard.
However.... each piece of this information is of value to other individual members depending on a number of variables: where they're coming from, when they're heading out, what kind of bike they ride, how much time they have, their level of riding skill, the kind of riding they're interested in.
So.... how do you extract this value?
First, someone could go through all the posts and copy portions of the text from each of them, make a web page that lists the information in short, digestible chunks sorted by "riding from east of the Rally, from west of the Rally, etc." and dual-sport roads, twisties, fast and fun... whatever makes sense. If there were pictures in the posts, those are used to illustrate the web page so that it looks cool. The page is then linked from the Riding to the Rally section on the Rally Site's home page.
Each piece of information on this page is linked back to the original Forum post that contains all of the details.
But this is way too much information to print on paper in the BMW ON. So... portions of this information could be stitched together into one continuous ride to the rally and published as an article in the BMW ON, combining information from the forum with that found through other research.
Then... someone reading the BMW ON sees the article and says... "hey... I've ridden that road that there's this really cool campground that the writer didn't know about." So that person goes to the Forum and adds to the thread, which effectively enhances the value of the original information.
That, my friend is synergy.
Why do I know this works?
It's exactly what I've done as Rally Webmaster in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. I got a lot of the information from members of the IBMWR. And some came in various bits and pieces contributed via e-mail that came through our Rally Web site.
After the Rally, the Rally Site pages can be catalogued into a section of the site called "Great Roads".... organized by areas of the country, so that people visiting bmwmoa.org in the future can enjoy the benefits of the knowledge that's been created and captured in the past. (BTW, there are 6+ years of great road articles just waiting on the old rally web sites for someone to read... but the pages are no longer live.)
This same dynamic could work for Roger Wiles' new column called Touring Tips in the BMW ON, for Paul Glaves' Bench Wrenching column, and on and on.
See?
Ian
Greg Feeler said:
First and foremost.... this is not about duplicating. It's about synergizing for the purpose of creating an enhanced perception of value received for investing $32 in a BMW MOA membership. And about getting the most return on what the BMW MOA invests in creating and delivering information.
Second, and equally important, it is essential that this conversation be viewed from the member's perspective and not from the committtee's.
Consider this: there is a thing called information, and there are dimensions to its value... namely: accuracy, relevance and timeliness (there are others, but let's keep this simple).
Some members prefer getting this information on the web, other members prefer it in print, but many use both. Therefore, there must be consistency and continuity between our media channels... and this does not mean duplication.
Key concept: members perceive greater value in this information when it is as accurate, timely, and relevant as possible to their current context.
Let me give you a specific example to illustrate this concept.
A member contributes a piece of information to the BMW MOA via our website facility called the Forum. Let's say the information is about a cool road that can be ridden on the way to our International Rally. 10% of our members see the information in that form. The rest don't.
That piece of information gets combined with 50 other cool roads that come in the form of additional posts made to the Forum. Some of that information is comments about the original road, some of it is about other roads, and some of it is about the cool places to camp, eat, see along the way. Unfortunately, it's all jumbled up into 50 different threads and posts to the Forum. So now members have to dig through it all... and most people don't want to work that hard.
However.... each piece of this information is of value to other individual members depending on a number of variables: where they're coming from, when they're heading out, what kind of bike they ride, how much time they have, their level of riding skill, the kind of riding they're interested in.
So.... how do you extract this value?
First, someone could go through all the posts and copy portions of the text from each of them, make a web page that lists the information in short, digestible chunks sorted by "riding from east of the Rally, from west of the Rally, etc." and dual-sport roads, twisties, fast and fun... whatever makes sense. If there were pictures in the posts, those are used to illustrate the web page so that it looks cool. The page is then linked from the Riding to the Rally section on the Rally Site's home page.
Each piece of information on this page is linked back to the original Forum post that contains all of the details.
But this is way too much information to print on paper in the BMW ON. So... portions of this information could be stitched together into one continuous ride to the rally and published as an article in the BMW ON, combining information from the forum with that found through other research.
Then... someone reading the BMW ON sees the article and says... "hey... I've ridden that road that there's this really cool campground that the writer didn't know about." So that person goes to the Forum and adds to the thread, which effectively enhances the value of the original information.
That, my friend is synergy.
Why do I know this works?
It's exactly what I've done as Rally Webmaster in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. I got a lot of the information from members of the IBMWR. And some came in various bits and pieces contributed via e-mail that came through our Rally Web site.
After the Rally, the Rally Site pages can be catalogued into a section of the site called "Great Roads".... organized by areas of the country, so that people visiting bmwmoa.org in the future can enjoy the benefits of the knowledge that's been created and captured in the past. (BTW, there are 6+ years of great road articles just waiting on the old rally web sites for someone to read... but the pages are no longer live.)
This same dynamic could work for Roger Wiles' new column called Touring Tips in the BMW ON, for Paul Glaves' Bench Wrenching column, and on and on.
See?
Ian
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