New badge announcement- the Joiner Badge (testing phase)
Hello, 7 Cups!
As you know, I am tasked with managing subcommunities on 7 Cups. One thing that is very clear to me is we need to help new members get better acquainted with their subcommunities. They need a tour of what the community is for, how to join in and where to find different elements (ie resources, leaders..etc).
Today, I am excited to share a new trial program I am launching to help solve this problem. This is an experiment, well be learning as we go! So please share your ideas and feedback!! Lets make our subcommunities even stronger! Go team!
How it works:
When a member joins a new sub-community they have the opportunity to earn the Joiner Badge. Like a forum hunt, they must complete 5 specific activities in the sub-community to be awarded the badge. Each task will introduce them to different parts of the sub-community and help them to get comfortable posting and being an active member.
They will get notification of the Joiner Badge opportunity via a welcome PM from a team member in the sub-community. Then they will fill out a google form with links to their 5 activities, which will be checked by the team. Those who have completed the tasks will be sent to me for their badge.
Tasks:
1.Post an introduction in the sub-community welcome section
2.Post in a daily check-in
3.Post in an icebreaker
4.Reply to a different icebreaker post
5.Start a new forum post in the sub-community
How we are unrolling this:
Right now, we will test this badge in two test communities: Healthy Living and Family Support (which is about to launch). We will test it for a couple weeks to see what kind of impact it makes, and if we think it is valuable and worth the effort of sending the PMs and tracking responses, we'll launch it site-wide. Thanks to @politeocean and @mistymagic for helping test it out!
We will add a discussion component in the near future, for simplicities sake I want to work the kinks out. Ultimately the goal is for them to experience both forums and discussions but I need to figure out the best way to accomplish that and I want to keep it simple for your team to manage this.
Example:
Hi ____,
Thanks for joining (sub-community)! We are so glad to have you, please come say hello in the forums!
Did you know you can earn a shiny new Joiner Badge by doing these 5 (6 if room) things in the (sub-community)? Open this google form so you can post the links as you go, then submit it when youre done.
1. Go to our welcome section (linked) and add a comment introducing yourself, we cant wait to learn more about you!
2. Go to our check-in section (linked) and check-in on the most recent one! This is a great way to get out there and meet more people in our community.
3. Head over to this ice-breaker (linked) and comment, these are fun!
4. Now find someone elses comment on the ice-breaker and post a reply!
5. Youre a seasoned pro, so create a new forum post about something you want to talk about, we cant wait to see what it is!
Fill out this google form (linked) with links to all your posts and then viola! You will get a Joiner badge added to your profile, showing everyone you are an active member of our community!
Please reach out with any questions, I hope to see your posts in the community soon!
-jill7cups
p.s. while you are waiting for your badge, be sure to see what discussions we have coming up by clicking here.
We will test this out over the next few weeks in Healthy Living and Family Support, in the meantime you can prep your other sub-communities by ensuring you have a welcome/introductions section of the forum, regular check ins (they don't need to be daily but need to be at least weekly), and an icebreaker section.
Thanks! Questions, comments, concerns? Post below! -Jill
@Jill7cups
Hey Jill wonderful idea to get our SC areas more active. So my only things/concerns are
1. In mindfulness we do not have an "ice breaker" area.
2. Is it possible every SC area can come up with their own 5 things "newbies" can hunt for? As the CML of Mindfulness I already do these wonderful hunts to get folks active and learning of our areas.
I do know you have your areas now to test this on, but it be great this goes well and we can all have it going in each area. I know I'm in
@RumpleSteeleSkin
excellent thoughts- the goal is to get new subscriber participation so I think we'll be flexible with the actual posts, but every SC should have a welcome area. We are still figuring it all out!
@Jill7cups
@Jill7cups
Hi Jill,
This just looks like a lot of extra work for us to track when some of us are recruiting for current things and goals that we are already working on. Not sure if this can be automated somehow to help us out.
@DanaMH
Doesn't look like you'll have to do a lot of tracking if they member is the one who fills out the form after they've completed the tasks.
Other than tracking new members which won't be hard either since their names appear in a list and you send them a message.
@Jenna
Hey JennaBean good to see you
When you say it simple like that-yes I agree. My brain has not been intacked since like Monday morning lol
@DanaMH
HI Dana-hmm the more I think on this, yes you are right. If its automatic then great you know. But also I believe Jill shared they do the work and fill the form out and she does the badge given. I just shared the idea of the areas coming up with a few things. But yes thinking more on it-more work
@DanaMH we are looking at making it as easy as possible, but yeah automated would be ideal! stay tuned
@Jill7cups
In other words someone sends the orginal message, they fill out the form and it goes straight to you. I am all over that idea. Me doing more work at the moment I am not a fan of. This would just mean me starting to dump things in other groups I am helping with.
I wish the Sub Comunities would open a progress path bassed dirrectly for the comunities of their choices. Then Suporters and team leaders could develope questions and engauging topicobjestives for the Member to answer for their progress path :)
@MicroscopicMuse what a great idea! scribbles notes
I feel as if it would be Just a bit more personal. Then could say something like Sub comunity long term engaugments suported by (Listener Name). this would alow us to have just a little more One on One and personal atention.@Jill7cups
@MicroscopicMuse
HI Muse I really love this idea. One thing we do through out the year, but not all areas tho is we send out a survey of what the community like to do in this area over the next 6 months. Then we write or do activites based on that. Do you consider this to be kinda like "growth"
"Do you consider this to be kinda like "growth" (@RumpleSteeleSkin)"
What is "this" in reference to (your statment or mine)?
@MicroscopicMuse
Hi Muse-well I am more trying to understand what you like in SC. Also please if you like go into mindfulness area and share on your idea. Let's see if the community/team can come up with some things that can meet what you are wanting. I'm very open to new things that will empower the team/community
oh yeah i get it! I love The Sub Comunity :)@RumpleSteeleSkin these individual places are amazing. I love the ability for self help and all the people i have met are freaking awesome!! all ya'll rock so hard like Astronauts and Physicists!
-In reflection to an anouncment Ihave recently ready into about long term listeners- @RumpleSteeleSkin I would Love to be able to be active in the "My growth" home page, with the Member i have "taken under my wing" for Long term support. Creating reminders for them and activly pushing individuals twords posting in the sub comunities .:)
This sounds awesome, looking forward to seeing the impact.
Tagging @River as our subcommunity welcomer expect.
@fluffyUnicorns84 also tagging @river but for hugs :D
@bunnypants Yaaay hugs!!
@fluffyUnicorns84I love this idea!!! :o
@Jill7cups actual picture of the Badger Join :o
@Jill7cups Excited to see how this works!
For the next phase of the trial, thinking @summertimesamness and TSEBI may be interested.
@Kate
Yup Yup sounds awesome! let's try it in TSEBI!!!!!!
@Jill7cups oh wow, that's such a nice idea!!! I am already excited to see it going live
@Jill7cups great idea til theirs a group support element this is the CMLs job if it goes site wide
I am excited about this trial! We have a lot to learn!
@Laura @Jill7cups @Monbon @Racat
I am excited too and have been talking to Jill about this but I have a few reservations being one of the communities picked to run the trial.
Let me explain why, and then maybe others will join with their thoughts?
In the day since the Family launch we have had 33 new people, so that would in theory be me or someone else sending out 33 pm's. A lot of them are members and when we as listeners approach a member via pm they assume we can chat 1-1 which is almost certainly not going to be the case.
Sending 33 pm's is time consuming and we may get 33 replies, even if they are just "thank-you".
I am a member of the Welcoming Team and I get a lot of my mentees that way when people reply to the automated welcome message with a question or problem.
At the moment lots of Teams are strugglling with activity, participation, enthusiasm and work overload!
Sometimes in the rooms or on the forums it is just 'us' talking to 'us', it can feel very demanding sometimes, and also many people get disillusioned by the falseness of icebreakers and check-ins so I understand and empathise with the idea to stimulate activity and help people become participants.
For a while now I have used the monthly cohort welcome thread to welcome each member individually. It isnt that much extra work, but then my two sub-communities Caregivers and Family are small and starting out compared to other bigger communities that might not be able to catch all the new members on the sidebar list before they scroll off. This makes each person feel welcomed and starts them responding to the thread nwhich has links to other areas of the community?
Maybe others should follow suit with that simple and easy idea?
We might then post a link to the Joiners Form challenge there?
I haven't yet seen the form or been told how the responses will work?
@MistyMagic yos, having to reply to people sounds terrifying *hides in your bucket* :o
@MistyMagic all valid points, we will figure out the best way to do this through trial and error for sure. Having just launched is certainly more of a special case as I think normally 33 new members a day is not typical for any SC. As many of us have discussed, it might make sense to have the info attached to a welcome post and tag newcomers there instead of a PM.
@Jill7cups
Yes thanks, it's good to be working on this with you!
It's all coming together nicely 
I like this idea? Is it open to listeners, or just members? If it is, I'd love to participate!
@Emily619 I think it should be open to anyone who wants to do the 5 actions!
