I also came on the call very late yesterday due to family stuff. In addition my connection was very bad, freezing up so the discussion was hard to follow once I was there.
I'm also a technologically challenged in that I don't own a cell phone. As such I checked in to the groupme app for my tablet and it told me I needed a cell number to signup. Not sure there is a work around but I'll see what would happen if I put in a land line. I have a work cell but don't want/ should not have all the text coming to that phone.
Ok here are the notes I took...if I missed anything, please add it in...let the conversation continue!!!!
Mission: Make Our Forums Outstanding Again (aka Operation MOFO)
So, great call last night. Thank you to everyone who attended, attempted, or slept right through it.
The stated goal here is to improve participation in the forums, as it has dropped off. I am asking that WSMs help with this process...while I was initially focused on having you answer questions, it’s clear to me after this call that you all have a great deal more to contribute.
“What is the right use of the Forums in 2019? Other forums can be pretty specific…. WKO Forum or Steve Palladino’s Stryd Forum. Inside EN…the Race Plan and Race Reports are liikely most valuable. What are the best topics to drive interest and connection via the Forums.”
“Is the hierarchy of the forum structure part of the problem? Can we take some of the organization out of it? Can we see the top 20 most recent threads?”
Part One: Focusing the Forums
We have options here, ranging from simple to complex. This would be a combination of technology (CoachP) and attention (WSM) on specific areas.
On the simple side, we can prioritize activity and focus on a few key forums to get them going, with the goal of showing people the value of the community. Per the quote above, this could be Race Plan and Race Report forums, perhaps General Discussion as well?
On the complex side, we could re-imagine how the forums are structured in an attempt to remove the rigidity of categories, etc. This could include making the “forum homepage” into Recent Posts vs Categories, for example.
“How to create smaller community in bigger community? Is it local? Sleeper Cells? What is that?”
Part Two: Is Technology (and CoachP) to Blame?
As I mentioned on the call, technology has allowed me to connected to many users at the same time. So while the Roadmap used to be separate from the Forums, now the Roadmap is Placed in the “Official Coach Thread”; this means that folks spend most of their time talking to me in that thread vs the rest of the Team. A gravitational shift in attention. This change also means that most of the “coach forum time” is spent helping individuals vs generally connecting to the Team and what’s going on.
I’d like to place this part of the EN experience on your radar for your thoughts. Do we need to separate the season back out again (from the forums), using Signatures to communicate races and democratizing the questions and interactions?
As Tim noted, there could still be a “Coaching Advice” forum or space where it’s clear who is giving the advice. But at the same time I am not sure that would prevent the same “attentional” issue in the forums.
Part Three: Community thru Forums
Another way the forums can be successful is by connecting people within the Forum. We’ve never tried a geographic focus before, but no reason why we couldn’t (1) divide EN into regions, (2) appoint “head WSM” of a region, and (3) have part of the welcome process be connecting that person to that specific forum.
In my mind, the challenge is keeping folks engaged in this “space” once they have moved into the minutiae of Race Season or The power of the November OS forum. Maybe there is a regional “event” that is targeted? Or something else? Thoughts?
“Dashboard used to turn over every day…how to get things more active there?”
Part Four: Shared Community
Is it worth trying to get more activity on the homepage / aka Dashboard of EN?
If yes, it’s important to note that these are more status updates...so how can we re-energize it? Similar to the specificity of the forums, is there a “Monday Update” push, or a “Throwback Thursday” thing we do?
Side note: Final Surge also has a “dashboard” view that’s more of a workout stream. So when you complete a workout it would show there; and you can also post your own stuff as well. Maybe it’s better to push that due to the “strava” training effect?
++++ Other Random Notes ++++
The GroupMe is a Firehose.
Encouraging folks to put up their first post; race post, and how to create momentum.
the blast emails are almost too much…too many things. You are racing in 10 days, here are two race plans. Where’s yours? You owe us to help you get better…
Different use patterns between New and Veteran Members.
One problem is a lack of participation. Education…recruited originally to answer the question.
Post Race Calls == part of the problem? How about you can only schedule a post-race call to be scheduled after race report published?
How to get more people into the forums.
Manage profile as master account IN FS?
Is it just the OCT? Or elsewhere? Put that question into the general forum and answer it over there?
I seem to have lost two of my favorite features in the forum reply box: I can't make auto bullet points, and I can't quote a post and manually erase all but the parts I want to riff on. With those handicaps, here goes...
The mission seemed to evolve from "Help Coach P handle the traffic in the coach forum threads" to "How can we revive and enhance the community spirit which make EN so unique among 'Coaching Services'" I was thinking about the Blues Brothers (who were, after all, on a "Mission From God") getting the band back together:
My recommendations for immediate action:
• Follow through with the plan to have WSMs take on some of the Coach thread load, with the original thought of sign-up forms for days, and criteria for what to respond to and what to leave for Patrick. Use the GroupMe chat line to fine tune that.
• Jump on 1 or at most 2 ideas aimed at integrating more people into the community on an on-going basis.
• For sure, one would be to institute an immediate effort to get more race plans and race reports up. Possible prods: each upcoming IM gets a couple of WSMs assigned to goad racers in the forum to post a plan (noting how *their* success was aided by doing that); go back to a previous model, where a series of emails was sent out in the last few weeks from Brenda, which would say, This Week, you are supposed to be doing *this* - basically reiterating the Coach notes in the plans. Anything to raise awareness and underline that it is as important part of your race prep as the Race Rehearsals, part of the EN Way which you are paying $$$ for, so why not use it?
• The second immediate idea might be rigging up a Big Brother/Sister model for new members, expanded beyond WSMs as the Bigs
• Meanwhile, think a bit longer term on how to fine-tune the transition in the community from OS to IS, to maintain the mojo, and how to use the energy in GroupMe chats to strengthen community-ness.
• I agree with Withrow that the Forum has gotten unwieldy from a topics/headings perspective. Move the stickies, have fewer categories, something. But think that through, don't just jump on it willy-nilly.
(The coolest part of that gif above is Ray Charles groovin' at the piano in the background...)
1 – I’ve personally committed to a loose goal of chiming in on at least one forum post per day. Sometimes it’s the little things done with consistently that can make a big difference.
2 - Definitely clean up the dashboard. When there is a header that says “who’s racing this weekend” and it’s two weeks old that doesn’t really inspire confidence come back. The maintenance of that space has to be on point, IMO.
3 - Disengaged people will eventually atrit if my work life experience applies here. I’d be curious as to who leaves EN and why. I would recommend a follow up call to find out why. A poll for those folks would be super easy but then again you’re not going to get those that are already done to invest more. Sometimes it’s the hard truth where the most growth comes from. If you gave me a list of 10 members that left I’d volunteer to call them.
Didn't make the call, but in reading the notes above I'm in general agreement. I used to be much more active on the dashboards, forums, and GroupMe.
On the dashboard...it's a tough one. It used to turn over so quickly I would sometimes miss things. Now there are items many days old. It would be good to see more activity here, but more status updates, social posts, etc. The static sections on upcoming races, who is racing, etc do take up a lot of valuable real estate. Would be interesting to see the user engagement stats across the various areas.
Forums are still good, but you really have to take some time to navigate properly. I LOVE @John Withrow's comment to remove all those stickys.
GroupMe is simply impossible for me to keep up with. And the updates are so frequent I often find myself not looking as I know it will take too long to go back and read the context for what is being discussed. I basically only check it now when someone tags me in their comment.
Ultimately what would be helpful to serve as a north star in all of this is to understand what we are ultimately trying to drive. I don't think that more forum posts are the goal, but rather a more engaging and collaborative membership. Forum activity is certainly one way to measure that. I also think it's important to understand what EN athletes want to get out of their membership, recognizing that is different for everyone but can likely be segmented into a few groups. When I first joined 9 years ago it was all about the plans and learning how to train and race. Even then the amount of content was challenging to navigate and it's 10x worse now. The user experience must be clear and simple to ease folks in as it can be very intimidating. The next phase for me was moving beyond the core plan and tapping into other members, learning from their experiences, and optimizing my performance. As I built up more experience that also included a bit more support/guidance to other athletes. And finally, where I am now is much less value/focus on the plan and more on the engagement, particularly lending support to others and sharing my experience and perspectives. A majority of what I get from EN is now the ability to give back and help others. If EN were to end today all of the friendships, training, etc would carry on and my endurance sports life wouldn't change significantly, but it would limit the ability for someone else in my shoes from 9 years ago meeting so many great people and accomplishing so many goals that they didn't know were possible.
Perhaps individuals are overwhelmed or just don't have the time to navigate the EN world that has grown over the year. Beyond Jeremy's idea of understanding the what we are trying to drive, a Coach P vision which perhaps was discussed on the call.
If we initially focus on WSM taking some of the load off then we can focus on a few of the forums that we see as key.
- Not sure if we need to pick a specific technology but after the OS member disperse to other forums which are much less active. How do we get some of that mojo throughout the forums.
-Posting race reports, follow up 5 minute debriefs of the power files, members posting power files were all common occurrences. The race reports seem to be the only one hanging around.
Technology
- Group me has taken some of the activity from the forum particularly when we have pushed the weekly threads from the 140.6 forums to Groupme. In following the LP thread a little this year is was fairly quite on the group me 26 days out.
Community Through Forums
-I believe back in the day we had some Geographic forums, with the US broken in to 4 geographic regions and then a Canada forum. There was some activity but given the number of forums people gravitated to others. We would need to think about the structure how we were going to use the forums?
Shared community.
-When the dashboard was active and I got busy I would miss stuff, but it's a good way to keep people engaged with quick updates. In the past we would push a few of the posters to actually create a thread for further discussion.
Okay, all many thanks for the continued input, and your time...here's my "additional detail" post. I am trying to balance what I am asking of you in the short term (your time) vs long term (your mind share)...hopefully you are okay will me taking both in some shape or form!
++++ Begin Message ++++
True North is re-engagement in parts of the EN Community where users (new and old) can see direct value of their membership beyond "just" training. Whether they want to engage or not, seeing the "buzzing vibe" of EN let's them know they are in the right place.
Right now folks are 80/20 split on plans (80) vs team (20)...I'd like to get that back to at least a 50/50 split. In a way, GroupMe is great for the energy because folks can see/feel the instant team vibe. But as you've all noted, it's not very deep. Which brings us back to the Forums.
Short Term Stuff
1. Race Plans and Race Report forums. We all SHOULD do race plans...as we are all racing SOMETHING and there is individual value and community opportunity in then. A total no-brainer. By urging people to do these and commenting on these, you are reinforcing the value here.
Related Actions: urge others to do them, do them yourself for WHATEVER race you are doing, and comment when you can.
2. Onboarding "help" as a resource for new members. This would be an "@" mention in their forum thread and you can follow up with them there, or give your phone number, or find them on Strava, whatever. You are making EN more than just "Coach" and showing that EN is awesome. This is what I meant by dividing up "EN into regions" more so than literally chopping us all up. Or at least, this should be the first step.
Related Actions: be on lookout for the "@" forum mention and drop into these new folks' threads when it happens to say hi.
Long Term Stuff to Consider
How to restructure the forum categories / layout?
How to better sustain the community vibe from the OS to In-Season?
What other engaging tasks / assignments can we have for members?
What Not To Do
Do not go on GroupMe more. Just do what's right for you. If there's more mojo in the forums, folks will gravitate there more. There's plenty of mojo in groupme for the folks who are already there.
Admin / Staff Actions
We will keep dashboard notification area cleaner and up-to-date. Note, in the past we did a little "what's new" icon, but tons of people missed it. But there are other options. We could....
use the "site pop up" message functionality For "what's new stuff"
Have a This Weekend forum where we create threads for the races that are happening and just point people there directly vs from the dash (make it a dash update vs a fixed announcement)
What Else?
Other (Random) Notes
Jenn...I do a cancel survey. There are three categories. (1) Never got into EN. Just doesn't work for them, doesn't resonate, don't want to pay for it. (2) Done with their season. Folks are one-and-done-ers or they don't train for periods of their year as they do in Race Season, so they turn it off. (3) Injured or Life Changes. Not their choice; they just need downtime.
Do we want to bring back the power file analysis piece (bike and run)? I could do this 1x monthly for a few users (not all). Thoughts? This could also be something that members do for one another? I am trying to focus on content for the whole community, not just one or two folks...thoughts?
Looks like what we want is to make EN "stick-ier". Riffing on the exit interview categories, opportunities are to convert people from one-and-done to tri lifestyle, and move from only needed In-Season to a year round part of their lives. Reflecting on my own experience, the reason I got into EN was help with racing; the reason I stayed was the people I met.
To me, it revolves around racing, that's my bias. And it was meeting people in person at the IM races, as well as the unreal,support I got when I was seriously injured, that made EN sticky for me.
So my bias is build as much hype around IM racing as possible...prep, plans, venue activity, online spectating, reports, and *other* follow-up, like power file review, as @Gordon Cherwoniak notes. The push for reports before WI reflects this (thanks, @John Withrow ).
emphasizing the value of EN when it comes to race execution is the first and most obvious point of differentiation we have. Somehow, that has to be brought more front and center.
Coach doesn't have to lead all this. What I can see myself doing RIGHT NOW is upping my game on the AZ GroupMe, to try and increase interaction among those going, followed by encouragement for race plans, doing and responding to reports after, along with posting my own power file and ask for others rs to comment and share.
What I can't do is organize venue activities (race week, my head is around me first). I can attend, not lead. And, of course, I can't be much of a cheerleader online race-day.
@Coach Patrick Sorry if I missed this but are the WSM to be covering the micro forum? I see that you were in yesterday an did a bunch on what was listed as KMF's day in the spreadsheet. I don't want to go off and do something that I'm not supposed to be doing.
Anyway let me know and I can follow up in the forums tomorrow if needed. Also further apologies for the late post
@Gordon Cherwoniak Sorry for the confusion...I forgot that doc was out there. I think (unless you want to make you own individual contribution by manning that forum) that I am looking for some bigger picture help.
You are MORE THAN WELCOME to answer the questions there you want (easy ones) but it's not where this thread is headed right now...
I must admit I did not realize the technology issue you mentioned about the road map being part of the coaching thread. Actually going in to the micro made it click in. I think removing this might be a good thing as right now you are forcing a lot of the interaction to you.
I did like the 5 minute analysis you had of power files and I thought it was very useful. My intention was not to push all the work towards you. I just recall back in the day when I started, of course power was new also, that people were posting files and there was lots of discussion. It lead to some cool pieces
This also lead to cool things like the heat effect on IM pacing with Matt Samojeden I believe started which lead to a spreadsheet. I think there is some opportunities with the stryd and run power should we get a collective together. The catch is getting someone with some desire and time to commit to lead a group.
Short Term Stuff
Will try to up my game in the forums.
I like the onboarding help. I know in the past I would try to pop in to the trial members thread on occasion when I had time but it was hit and miss. I think actually dropping in to their thread would be a much nicer touch.
Long Term Stuff
I'll have to think more about the forum structure and sustaining the vibe from OS to in season. As for other engaging tasks this is a tough one as I believe things like the challenges may force the new athletes to not participate.
For new initiates maybe this is reporting on milestones, first 10 workouts, 25, 50, 100 (whether you got them done or not). Could be numbers, such as totals, watts, TSS etc but also other things like how the workout felt, challenges with workouts, scheduling etc.
How about badges for consistency, self reported for OS, GFP, in season, 100+ day run challenge (all or nothing on this one). Bronze 88% Silver 92 Gold 95 ENXtreme 99+. Have a weekly check in.
The Christmas run challenge can see some big numbers. Maybe we can have everyone sign up, pair the new athletes with someone who's been kicking around for awhile. Go in pairs or even larger groups of 4, 8 ,10 whatever. One year Dave Tallo had the US vs the World OS FTP increase spreadsheet.
A virtual Ragnar relay of sorts say over 2 weeks you need your team to have someone run every day, log miles and each team member has to give X days to the cause. Could have lots of ways to cut this total distance, time.
Cycling could we put up some type of zwift type challenges (distance/time/ climbing)that would keep people coming back to check in. Again this might be intimidating to new athletes.
Admin/Staff Action
Will have to think more on this one, that and I have to get to bed as I've been sick all week and it's now past 10.
I did my part by trolling the forum with 'questions' about whether the Ventum and Cervelo P5 were slow!
(Do you not think that I know that EVERY WSM rides one of these two bikes?)
Seems like an effective way to reinvigorate the forum would be to acknowledge that lots of the new members would benefit from discussions that longer-serving members might have long ago covered and considered settled. I might innocently (re)start some of the convos that had good traction and try to engage newbies.
@DaveTallo - actually I ride a BMC TM01 ... or did. The airlines lost it coming back from South Africa. If they can't find it, I'll be using my other bikes for the rest of this year and next while I consider whether I want something new or will buy an old TM01 frame and rebuild it to what I had. But I doubt I will be getting a Ventum (too fugly) or a Cervelo (too mainstream). :)
@Jeremy Behler - ha, ha! On the scale of uglies, the Ventum could be worse. It would go Ugly, Bugly, Fugly and SMUGLY. Regardless, I'm sure you are aware that Ventum was the slowest in the INDEPENDENT aero test, although still a very fast bike. I just don't care for the integrated top tube hydration.
@Al Truscott - Years ago I had a QR Lucero then a QR CD01. I think the PR6 is a very nice bike (less the disc brakes). But I would like to see another independent aero test, but this time using the QR PR6, the BMC TM-01, plus a Shiv and a few others.
@Al Truscott - I think the depth of a relationship is directly proportional to the amount of suffering endured throughout that relationship... Bikes are probably a person's second greatest source of suffering! 😂
Hi WSM's just wanted you all to know how much of a great resource you are to our team. Steve and I always mention how much knowledge we have in this house. Thats all. 😍
Comments
I also came on the call very late yesterday due to family stuff. In addition my connection was very bad, freezing up so the discussion was hard to follow once I was there.
I'm also a technologically challenged in that I don't own a cell phone. As such I checked in to the groupme app for my tablet and it told me I needed a cell number to signup. Not sure there is a work around but I'll see what would happen if I put in a land line. I have a work cell but don't want/ should not have all the text coming to that phone.
Ok here are the notes I took...if I missed anything, please add it in...let the conversation continue!!!!
Mission: Make Our Forums Outstanding Again (aka Operation MOFO)
So, great call last night. Thank you to everyone who attended, attempted, or slept right through it.
The stated goal here is to improve participation in the forums, as it has dropped off. I am asking that WSMs help with this process...while I was initially focused on having you answer questions, it’s clear to me after this call that you all have a great deal more to contribute.
“What is the right use of the Forums in 2019? Other forums can be pretty specific…. WKO Forum or Steve Palladino’s Stryd Forum. Inside EN…the Race Plan and Race Reports are liikely most valuable. What are the best topics to drive interest and connection via the Forums.”
“Is the hierarchy of the forum structure part of the problem? Can we take some of the organization out of it? Can we see the top 20 most recent threads?”
Part One: Focusing the Forums
We have options here, ranging from simple to complex. This would be a combination of technology (CoachP) and attention (WSM) on specific areas.
On the simple side, we can prioritize activity and focus on a few key forums to get them going, with the goal of showing people the value of the community. Per the quote above, this could be Race Plan and Race Report forums, perhaps General Discussion as well?
On the complex side, we could re-imagine how the forums are structured in an attempt to remove the rigidity of categories, etc. This could include making the “forum homepage” into Recent Posts vs Categories, for example.
“How to create smaller community in bigger community? Is it local? Sleeper Cells? What is that?”
Part Two: Is Technology (and CoachP) to Blame?
As I mentioned on the call, technology has allowed me to connected to many users at the same time. So while the Roadmap used to be separate from the Forums, now the Roadmap is Placed in the “Official Coach Thread”; this means that folks spend most of their time talking to me in that thread vs the rest of the Team. A gravitational shift in attention. This change also means that most of the “coach forum time” is spent helping individuals vs generally connecting to the Team and what’s going on.
I’d like to place this part of the EN experience on your radar for your thoughts. Do we need to separate the season back out again (from the forums), using Signatures to communicate races and democratizing the questions and interactions?
As Tim noted, there could still be a “Coaching Advice” forum or space where it’s clear who is giving the advice. But at the same time I am not sure that would prevent the same “attentional” issue in the forums.
Part Three: Community thru Forums
Another way the forums can be successful is by connecting people within the Forum. We’ve never tried a geographic focus before, but no reason why we couldn’t (1) divide EN into regions, (2) appoint “head WSM” of a region, and (3) have part of the welcome process be connecting that person to that specific forum.
In my mind, the challenge is keeping folks engaged in this “space” once they have moved into the minutiae of Race Season or The power of the November OS forum. Maybe there is a regional “event” that is targeted? Or something else? Thoughts?
“Dashboard used to turn over every day…how to get things more active there?”
Part Four: Shared Community
Is it worth trying to get more activity on the homepage / aka Dashboard of EN?
If yes, it’s important to note that these are more status updates...so how can we re-energize it? Similar to the specificity of the forums, is there a “Monday Update” push, or a “Throwback Thursday” thing we do?
Side note: Final Surge also has a “dashboard” view that’s more of a workout stream. So when you complete a workout it would show there; and you can also post your own stuff as well. Maybe it’s better to push that due to the “strava” training effect?
++++ Other Random Notes ++++
I seem to have lost two of my favorite features in the forum reply box: I can't make auto bullet points, and I can't quote a post and manually erase all but the parts I want to riff on. With those handicaps, here goes...
The mission seemed to evolve from "Help Coach P handle the traffic in the coach forum threads" to "How can we revive and enhance the community spirit which make EN so unique among 'Coaching Services'" I was thinking about the Blues Brothers (who were, after all, on a "Mission From God") getting the band back together:
My recommendations for immediate action:
• Follow through with the plan to have WSMs take on some of the Coach thread load, with the original thought of sign-up forms for days, and criteria for what to respond to and what to leave for Patrick. Use the GroupMe chat line to fine tune that.
• Jump on 1 or at most 2 ideas aimed at integrating more people into the community on an on-going basis.
• For sure, one would be to institute an immediate effort to get more race plans and race reports up. Possible prods: each upcoming IM gets a couple of WSMs assigned to goad racers in the forum to post a plan (noting how *their* success was aided by doing that); go back to a previous model, where a series of emails was sent out in the last few weeks from Brenda, which would say, This Week, you are supposed to be doing *this* - basically reiterating the Coach notes in the plans. Anything to raise awareness and underline that it is as important part of your race prep as the Race Rehearsals, part of the EN Way which you are paying $$$ for, so why not use it?
• The second immediate idea might be rigging up a Big Brother/Sister model for new members, expanded beyond WSMs as the Bigs
• Meanwhile, think a bit longer term on how to fine-tune the transition in the community from OS to IS, to maintain the mojo, and how to use the energy in GroupMe chats to strengthen community-ness.
• I agree with Withrow that the Forum has gotten unwieldy from a topics/headings perspective. Move the stickies, have fewer categories, something. But think that through, don't just jump on it willy-nilly.
(The coolest part of that gif above is Ray Charles groovin' at the piano in the background...)
@Al Truscott winning at gifs!
Couple random thoughts from my end.
1 – I’ve personally committed to a loose goal of chiming in on at least one forum post per day. Sometimes it’s the little things done with consistently that can make a big difference.
2 - Definitely clean up the dashboard. When there is a header that says “who’s racing this weekend” and it’s two weeks old that doesn’t really inspire confidence come back. The maintenance of that space has to be on point, IMO.
3 - Disengaged people will eventually atrit if my work life experience applies here. I’d be curious as to who leaves EN and why. I would recommend a follow up call to find out why. A poll for those folks would be super easy but then again you’re not going to get those that are already done to invest more. Sometimes it’s the hard truth where the most growth comes from. If you gave me a list of 10 members that left I’d volunteer to call them.
/Random Rumination
#NoFunGifSoSad!!!
Didn't make the call, but in reading the notes above I'm in general agreement. I used to be much more active on the dashboards, forums, and GroupMe.
On the dashboard...it's a tough one. It used to turn over so quickly I would sometimes miss things. Now there are items many days old. It would be good to see more activity here, but more status updates, social posts, etc. The static sections on upcoming races, who is racing, etc do take up a lot of valuable real estate. Would be interesting to see the user engagement stats across the various areas.
Forums are still good, but you really have to take some time to navigate properly. I LOVE @John Withrow's comment to remove all those stickys.
GroupMe is simply impossible for me to keep up with. And the updates are so frequent I often find myself not looking as I know it will take too long to go back and read the context for what is being discussed. I basically only check it now when someone tags me in their comment.
Ultimately what would be helpful to serve as a north star in all of this is to understand what we are ultimately trying to drive. I don't think that more forum posts are the goal, but rather a more engaging and collaborative membership. Forum activity is certainly one way to measure that. I also think it's important to understand what EN athletes want to get out of their membership, recognizing that is different for everyone but can likely be segmented into a few groups. When I first joined 9 years ago it was all about the plans and learning how to train and race. Even then the amount of content was challenging to navigate and it's 10x worse now. The user experience must be clear and simple to ease folks in as it can be very intimidating. The next phase for me was moving beyond the core plan and tapping into other members, learning from their experiences, and optimizing my performance. As I built up more experience that also included a bit more support/guidance to other athletes. And finally, where I am now is much less value/focus on the plan and more on the engagement, particularly lending support to others and sharing my experience and perspectives. A majority of what I get from EN is now the ability to give back and help others. If EN were to end today all of the friendships, training, etc would carry on and my endurance sports life wouldn't change significantly, but it would limit the ability for someone else in my shoes from 9 years ago meeting so many great people and accomplishing so many goals that they didn't know were possible.
@Coach Patrick
Perhaps individuals are overwhelmed or just don't have the time to navigate the EN world that has grown over the year. Beyond Jeremy's idea of understanding the what we are trying to drive, a Coach P vision which perhaps was discussed on the call.
If we initially focus on WSM taking some of the load off then we can focus on a few of the forums that we see as key.
- Not sure if we need to pick a specific technology but after the OS member disperse to other forums which are much less active. How do we get some of that mojo throughout the forums.
-Posting race reports, follow up 5 minute debriefs of the power files, members posting power files were all common occurrences. The race reports seem to be the only one hanging around.
Technology
- Group me has taken some of the activity from the forum particularly when we have pushed the weekly threads from the 140.6 forums to Groupme. In following the LP thread a little this year is was fairly quite on the group me 26 days out.
Community Through Forums
-I believe back in the day we had some Geographic forums, with the US broken in to 4 geographic regions and then a Canada forum. There was some activity but given the number of forums people gravitated to others. We would need to think about the structure how we were going to use the forums?
Shared community.
-When the dashboard was active and I got busy I would miss stuff, but it's a good way to keep people engaged with quick updates. In the past we would push a few of the posters to actually create a thread for further discussion.
-
Okay, all many thanks for the continued input, and your time...here's my "additional detail" post. I am trying to balance what I am asking of you in the short term (your time) vs long term (your mind share)...hopefully you are okay will me taking both in some shape or form!
++++ Begin Message ++++
True North is re-engagement in parts of the EN Community where users (new and old) can see direct value of their membership beyond "just" training. Whether they want to engage or not, seeing the "buzzing vibe" of EN let's them know they are in the right place.
Right now folks are 80/20 split on plans (80) vs team (20)...I'd like to get that back to at least a 50/50 split. In a way, GroupMe is great for the energy because folks can see/feel the instant team vibe. But as you've all noted, it's not very deep. Which brings us back to the Forums.
Short Term Stuff
1. Race Plans and Race Report forums. We all SHOULD do race plans...as we are all racing SOMETHING and there is individual value and community opportunity in then. A total no-brainer. By urging people to do these and commenting on these, you are reinforcing the value here.
Related Actions: urge others to do them, do them yourself for WHATEVER race you are doing, and comment when you can.
2. Onboarding "help" as a resource for new members. This would be an "@" mention in their forum thread and you can follow up with them there, or give your phone number, or find them on Strava, whatever. You are making EN more than just "Coach" and showing that EN is awesome. This is what I meant by dividing up "EN into regions" more so than literally chopping us all up. Or at least, this should be the first step.
Related Actions: be on lookout for the "@" forum mention and drop into these new folks' threads when it happens to say hi.
Long Term Stuff to Consider
What Not To Do
Do not go on GroupMe more. Just do what's right for you. If there's more mojo in the forums, folks will gravitate there more. There's plenty of mojo in groupme for the folks who are already there.
Admin / Staff Actions
We will keep dashboard notification area cleaner and up-to-date. Note, in the past we did a little "what's new" icon, but tons of people missed it. But there are other options. We could....
Other (Random) Notes
@Jenn Edwards @Al Truscott @Jeremy Behler @Mike Roberts @John Withrow @Gordon Cherwoniak @Dave Tallo @Rich Stanbaugh
Looks like what we want is to make EN "stick-ier". Riffing on the exit interview categories, opportunities are to convert people from one-and-done to tri lifestyle, and move from only needed In-Season to a year round part of their lives. Reflecting on my own experience, the reason I got into EN was help with racing; the reason I stayed was the people I met.
To me, it revolves around racing, that's my bias. And it was meeting people in person at the IM races, as well as the unreal,support I got when I was seriously injured, that made EN sticky for me.
So my bias is build as much hype around IM racing as possible...prep, plans, venue activity, online spectating, reports, and *other* follow-up, like power file review, as @Gordon Cherwoniak notes. The push for reports before WI reflects this (thanks, @John Withrow ).
emphasizing the value of EN when it comes to race execution is the first and most obvious point of differentiation we have. Somehow, that has to be brought more front and center.
Coach doesn't have to lead all this. What I can see myself doing RIGHT NOW is upping my game on the AZ GroupMe, to try and increase interaction among those going, followed by encouragement for race plans, doing and responding to reports after, along with posting my own power file and ask for others rs to comment and share.
What I can't do is organize venue activities (race week, my head is around me first). I can attend, not lead. And, of course, I can't be much of a cheerleader online race-day.
@Coach Patrick Sorry if I missed this but are the WSM to be covering the micro forum? I see that you were in yesterday an did a bunch on what was listed as KMF's day in the spreadsheet. I don't want to go off and do something that I'm not supposed to be doing.
Anyway let me know and I can follow up in the forums tomorrow if needed. Also further apologies for the late post
@Gordon Cherwoniak Sorry for the confusion...I forgot that doc was out there. I think (unless you want to make you own individual contribution by manning that forum) that I am looking for some bigger picture help.
You are MORE THAN WELCOME to answer the questions there you want (easy ones) but it's not where this thread is headed right now...
I'm back from South Africa and caught up on this thread. Operation MOFO - check!!! And Keep Moving Forward - with high energy. That's the ticket.
@Coach Patrick
Some random thoughts.
Short Term Stuff
Will try to up my game in the forums.
I like the onboarding help. I know in the past I would try to pop in to the trial members thread on occasion when I had time but it was hit and miss. I think actually dropping in to their thread would be a much nicer touch.
Long Term Stuff
I'll have to think more about the forum structure and sustaining the vibe from OS to in season. As for other engaging tasks this is a tough one as I believe things like the challenges may force the new athletes to not participate.
Admin/Staff Action
Will have to think more on this one, that and I have to get to bed as I've been sick all week and it's now past 10.
I did my part by trolling the forum with 'questions' about whether the Ventum and Cervelo P5 were slow!
(Do you not think that I know that EVERY WSM rides one of these two bikes?)
Seems like an effective way to reinvigorate the forum would be to acknowledge that lots of the new members would benefit from discussions that longer-serving members might have long ago covered and considered settled. I might innocently (re)start some of the convos that had good traction and try to engage newbies.
@DaveTallo - actually I ride a BMC TM01 ... or did. The airlines lost it coming back from South Africa. If they can't find it, I'll be using my other bikes for the rest of this year and next while I consider whether I want something new or will buy an old TM01 frame and rebuild it to what I had. But I doubt I will be getting a Ventum (too fugly) or a Cervelo (too mainstream). :)
Qunitana Roo PRSix here - which is just like the Cervelo P5, but better...
S-Works Shiv here... loving it!
Fugly? Is that a combination of "Fast" and "Ugly"? You should hold one in your hand and appreciate the curves and quality....you'd be seduced.
attention to any of you!
This shows many of us have deep, personal relationships with our bikes, and want the world to know it....
@Jeremy Behler - ha, ha! On the scale of uglies, the Ventum could be worse. It would go Ugly, Bugly, Fugly and SMUGLY. Regardless, I'm sure you are aware that Ventum was the slowest in the INDEPENDENT aero test, although still a very fast bike. I just don't care for the integrated top tube hydration.
@Al Truscott - Years ago I had a QR Lucero then a QR CD01. I think the PR6 is a very nice bike (less the disc brakes). But I would like to see another independent aero test, but this time using the QR PR6, the BMC TM-01, plus a Shiv and a few others.
@Al Truscott - I think the depth of a relationship is directly proportional to the amount of suffering endured throughout that relationship... Bikes are probably a person's second greatest source of suffering! 😂
some relationship tips...
Shout out to @Paul Hough For answering a few questions in the Coach Thread...thanks man! Others can feel free to do so...even one or two helps!
Hi WSM's just wanted you all to know how much of a great resource you are to our team. Steve and I always mention how much knowledge we have in this house. Thats all. 😍