A couple of thoughts after a week with the "groups" format.
1. In general I like the concept that people with common training goals (events, etc) have an organized way to affiliate with one another
2. That said, fragmentation of the "team" ought to be a concern
3. It may be worthwhile to have the coaches drive the group organization (with input from the team of course), rather than let anyone and everyone create groups. There is huge downside to "group proliferation "that results in lots of useless low-membership groups vs. robust and thriving higher-membership groups. For example, many 70.3 events will have a group set up. Heck, I just set up two of them. But it is unclear what they are for. Would it be better to have a larger "Summer 70.3 group" that is comprised of folks with fairly common training schedules, etc? They can always start threads with event-specific issues (e.g. the course, logistics, sharing rides/hotel, EN team meet-up, etc.). I'm not sure the event-specific stuff for non-IM will warrant a group unto itself, and if the group structure fragments some valuable training information into a small corner then it won't help others.
4. The team needs to ensure that really valuable training content generated in a specific group -- the sort of posts you want to have "stickied" or put on the wiki -- gets accessible to the whole team. Perhaps this is part of RnP monitoring the groups and ensuring that content that is useful to everyone gets to everyone. You'd hate to have far-flung corners generating awesome content but not having it become exposed to the whole team.
With respect to point (3), I am not advocating one particular approach. I am new to EN so I trust the veterans to know how the "in-season" plays out and organize accordingly. I guess my overarching point here is that if the logic for reorganization is "we have grown very large, and need a new structure to accommodate that", then an the accompanying logic "we are large enough that we may need some central organization of this new group structure".
My group was not just secret. It was super secret. Also did not contain any content at all. This morning I opened it up to everyone and then for whatever reason it was deleted in its entirety.
I can assure everyone that I am not hoarding knowledge about anything. Well nothing tri related anyhow...
Sounds eerily similar to things the Bilderbergs say.....
My group was not just secret. It was super secret. Also did not contain any content at all. This morning I opened it up to everyone and then for whatever reason it was deleted in its entirety.
I can assure everyone that I am not hoarding knowledge about anything. Well nothing tri related anyhow...
Sounds eerily similar to things the Bilderbergs say.....
True, but I would never have made the groups members identities available to the public
What if non-members of a group were able to read posts in that group, but not post anything? Sometimes I see something that might be interesting in the "not-read" or "active topics" listings, but I can't read them unless I join the group. But it does not seem right to join a race group or outseason group if I am not doing that race, or not doing that training plan. Just a thought.
Comments
1. In general I like the concept that people with common training goals (events, etc) have an organized way to affiliate with one another
2. That said, fragmentation of the "team" ought to be a concern
3. It may be worthwhile to have the coaches drive the group organization (with input from the team of course), rather than let anyone and everyone create groups. There is huge downside to "group proliferation "that results in lots of useless low-membership groups vs. robust and thriving higher-membership groups. For example, many 70.3 events will have a group set up. Heck, I just set up two of them. But it is unclear what they are for. Would it be better to have a larger "Summer 70.3 group" that is comprised of folks with fairly common training schedules, etc? They can always start threads with event-specific issues (e.g. the course, logistics, sharing rides/hotel, EN team meet-up, etc.). I'm not sure the event-specific stuff for non-IM will warrant a group unto itself, and if the group structure fragments some valuable training information into a small corner then it won't help others.
4. The team needs to ensure that really valuable training content generated in a specific group -- the sort of posts you want to have "stickied" or put on the wiki -- gets accessible to the whole team. Perhaps this is part of RnP monitoring the groups and ensuring that content that is useful to everyone gets to everyone. You'd hate to have far-flung corners generating awesome content but not having it become exposed to the whole team.
With respect to point (3), I am not advocating one particular approach. I am new to EN so I trust the veterans to know how the "in-season" plays out and organize accordingly. I guess my overarching point here is that if the logic for reorganization is "we have grown very large, and need a new structure to accommodate that", then an the accompanying logic "we are large enough that we may need some central organization of this new group structure".
Cheers,
Matt
All,
Thanks for the input! The elves are conferring to see what direction we're going to take, based on your feedback.
Sounds eerily similar to things the Bilderbergs say.....
True, but I would never have made the groups members identities available to the public
I told you, I only do evil when someone is paying my hourly...