Last week we mentioned that we’re working with a visual designer to refine the Guild’s look and feel, beginning with logos. Round 1 was here (thanks for the comments & offline feedback!)
Todd has since iterated on a narrower set (click to see larger):
Again, your thoughts and feedback welcome!
Happy to say we’re working on an aesthetic refresh of the Parents Guild site, blog and logo. We selected Todd Linkner to lead the daunting effort, and we’re happy we did, he’s amazing. We have no plans to change key functionality but lots of plans to refresh and “upgrade” the look and feel. And we want to take you along with us, invite your feedback, on the redesign progress.
We began with logo and brand definition. Here are some considerations:
• reflects the brand attributes
• is appropriate to the audience and subject matter
• communicates the Parents Guild’s persona
• differentiates the Parents Guild from its competitors
• is immediately recognizable, unique, and memorable
• provides a clear and consistent image of the company
• is legally protectable
• has enduring value
• works well across media and scale
Todd presented us with the following logos to consider (all in black & white, color to be added later). Click to make large:
Your thoughts and feedback are welcome!
Congratulations to simplymerry in Cheyenne, WY!
With an inspired burst in the waning hours of the contest, producing 14 “Likes” and 11 tweets for her question “Cloth diapering, is it worth it?” seemingly out of thin air (aka the magic of social media), simplymerry is the proud new recipient of a $100 gift card for home essentials, courtesy of Alice.com.
Simplymerry, all our best to you! Hope this helps you scratch household shopping off the to-do list, at least for the time being.
Thanks everyone for playing in our first ever Parents Guild contest! We enjoyed it immensely and hope you did too!
Categories: Site
It’s the little things that make your day, right?
A smile first thing in the morning from someone you love. A nice little exchange with the first person you see out of the house. Or getting the kids packed off for the day and realizing today’s Forum hour (on KQED 88.5, our local NPR station) is something you’re totally interested in.
Today’s episode of Forum was on the self-employed – why rates of self-employment seem to be ticking up in the midst of the recession, how you might determine if it’s a good idea, what the benefits are, etc.
Lots of good discussion. And wouldn’t you know it, Parents Guild got a mention right at the end of the broadcast!
Audio: Forum on KQED talks about Parents Guild (26 seconds)
The host, Dave Iverson, says:
Here’s an interesting idea… this person saw an opportunity in parenting. Andrea writes, “I felt as a parent there was a lot that was sorely missing [on the internet], and so starting something called Parents Guild. I took this plunge because I saw that there was a need, Parenting is HARD, and the opportunity to help others was something I wanted to pursue.”
I’m so amazed that something that was just an idea without a name 9 months ago is something that has now had its first mention on radio. Is any of this real?!
Happy 4th of July everyone! And, don’t forget, only 2 days left to participate in our contest and win $100!
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Categories: Site
This is our new world, according to Google Analytics.
After months of getting traffic (people coming to our site) from people we had some relationship with – either users of the site clicking through an email or punching us up directly in their browser (Orange in the pie chart), or fans coming through a Facebook or Twitter link (Blue) – this month we’re seeing something new. Almost a third of our traffic is now unknown people, strangers, coming to us via search engine queries (Green). Welcome. Stay awhile. :)
Categories: Site
Tonight’s minor launch update – you can now sort all us Guildmembers by score. (That is, if you’re logged in.) Score is now the default ordering for the People > Everyone page, but you can also choose to view Guildmembers sorted by our display names.
The rationale: We’re trying to give everyone a chance to meet and get to know each other – that’s the purpose of the Everyone page. And we’d also like to give our members every chance to find people who they might like or respect so that they can see more of what they’ve been posting. Ordering by score means roughly that the most active, long-term and appreciated members of the site land at the top.
As always, let us know what you think!
We’d heard from a number of you that you’d like to be alerted about new activity on particularly juicy or relevant threads, even if you haven’t asked or answered on that particular thread. Included in this recent launch is a way to do this…
You’ll see “Follow this thread” just under the body of the question. Click it and never miss an update. Click it again – it will have changed to “Stop following” – and never be bothered about that topic again (particularly useful if you started a thread 6 months ago about your then 6 month old and don’t particularly care to read more answers now that your child is one ;)
Enjoy! (we hope!)
We know what you were thinking… sure, the site is great and there’s some useful answers and all, but what it really needs is more numbers(!), more metrics and a little bit of friendly competition.
Well, maybe you weren’t thinking that exactly. But we think we hope it’s a really good idea and we’d like you to take it around the block a few times and let us know what you think.
Since we launched last fall, it’s been possible to vote great questions and answers up. The rationale for this was that voting would let great questions rise to the top of the question list (“most appreciated“) and it would let great answers rise to the top of any given question page; so that folks coming to the page after you would benefit from your and everyone’s collective wisdom about what’s most worth reading, and thus make the site more helpful for everyone.
Voting also has the nice side benefit of letting someone else know that you appreciated their post.
Now, we’re formalizing that appreciation a bit. When guildmembers vote up your question or answer, we’ll add points to your score. You’ll also get points for creating a tagline, a first question or answer, or other things that we believe make the site or community better.
Let us know what you think!
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By the way, note that a side-effect of scores for guildmembers is that posts that are made in your name impact your total score while anonymous posts do not. This is for two reasons:
Have you posted a question and not gotten the pristine, unblemished, oracle-of-an-answer you hoped for? If so, this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for!
Send that sucker-of-a-thread to one, two or even three parents who you respect and admire, parents who could answer that question in their sleep with one hand blocking out the late afternoon rays, and the other effortlessly managing one, two, or three kids dancing, pounding, multitasking on their keyboard at the same time. Which hand is typing you ask? That’s a good question right there. Send it along too :)
Categories: Site
Today is quite the milestone. We decided to greet March with our first experiment in advertising. We’re giving Google Adsense a test drive first, though we also opened an account with Amazon Associates.
So far, we’ve learned:
In any case, as always, let us know what you think! Notice them? Bad, good, other?
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