This week has been an interesting one for me as it marks the beginning of my tenure as ‘the voice of Quirky’. In the seven months I’ve been with Quirky as a community ambassador I’ve been able to get incredible insight into both sides of the Quirky equation and I’m excited to take on this new role.
Without a doubt, one of the biggest issues we have to address is communication between Quirky staff and the Quirky community. We dropped the ball and the absence of reliable communication has created tension and trust issues. You guys are what make Quirky special, and without you we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are right now. I know that. Ben knows that. Everyone at Quirky knows that. In order to keep this relationship healthy, both sides are going to have to work on how we communicate with each other.
Here’s what you can expect from us.
We’re going to continue to hold quarterly town meetings. The last one took place in January (Q1). The meeting that was originally scheduled for May 17th will take place at some point in June, which, although slightly delayed, is still on track for taking place in Q2. The remaining two meetings for 2011 will likely take place towards the end of Q3 and Q4, meaning September and December respectively.
In addition to town meetings, we’re going to start providing you with monthly updates from different departments within Quirky. As part of this initiative we’re going to be bringing back production reports as well as introducing sales reports from Chad, change logs from our tech team, and a monthly Q&A with Ben.
On a day to day basis, Shirley is going to continue to rock Get Satisfaction, our support forum, which we will be discussing in further detail in another blog post as there seems to be a good deal of confusion within the community as to why it exists. As always, any questions, complaints, concerns, compliments or other nouns that start with C (preferably cake) can be sent to questions@quirky.com.
One thing that we won’t be doing is replying to service related questions in the forum. The forum is a venue for community chatter, talking about Quirky behind its back and general irreverence. While we might occasionally partake in the aforementioned irreverence, that’s as far as our involvement with the forum will get.
Now, here’s the fun part… well, for me at least.
As I mentioned, this change has to come from both sides. Here’s what needs to change in the community.
Moving forward, all information from within Quirky is going to be provided to, and disseminated by the community team. The same has to go for information coming from the community. We’re called ‘community ambassadors’ for a reason. It’s our responsibility to represent you and your interests to the rest of Quirky. Regardless of whether you have a sales question, a design question, a manufacturing question, etc. it has to go through us. When you send an email to another member of the staff, all they do is forward it to questions@quirky.com and then we handle it as we would with any other request. Just email questions@quirky.com directly and it will make all our lives easier.
Finally, there’s been a lot of abject negativity and nastiness going around lately, not only toward Quirky, but toward each other. This site is open to the public. Anyone on Earth (over the age of 18) is welcome to join this community, and when newbies come in and see these ugly interactions, whether it be on the forum, or even worse, on idea submissions, it doesn’t make them want to stick around and it makes everyone involved look bad. This needs to stop. There are an infinite number of places on the internet where you can be an asshole. Starting today, this isn’t one of them.
That all being said, believe it or not, I actually do love you guys. The things that we’ve done together so far are disruptive and amazing and there’s no end in sight.
Now let’s get to work.
22 Comments
bikr | 05/26/2011 7:13 PM
Love it! +7281
Ken Somerby | 05/26/2011 7:28 PM
Ouch!
MichelleB | 05/26/2011 7:30 PM
But Bikr now you will have to send all your tweets to Rob instead of Ben? Or are you special?
Daniel | 05/26/2011 7:53 PM
Sounds good. I don’t really see how any policy has changed regarding the community and the ambassador’s roles-except that now it seems more defined, which is good. We have been told that there would be regular “meetings” before and some things like town halls abruptly dropped off. Hopefully, it’s not another cyclical “campaign promise”. Hopefully, the way consistency is handled has been changed internally. One question I have that remains is about the forums: why not eliminate most of the topics and direct that traffic to Get Satisfaction? Free For All and a few others seem more “chatter” oriented. I see no reason to chatter if it isn’t being read and digested by Quirky. How will we know that we’ve been heard in the forums w/o the occasional interjection or affirmation-some kind of clue that the subjects we hash out are valued by Quirky. I think the “silent minority” in the change thread don’t just chatter for shits and giggles. We are trying to affect change on a daily basis.
rob | 05/26/2011 8:31 PM
@Daniel To an extent you’re right. This post was meant to set expectations and to introduce you to the new ‘voice of Quirky’. This isn’t the end, this is a jumping off point.
Yes, you’ve been told a lot of things and promises have been broken. Like I said, we dropped the ball, but now I’m picking it up and it’s my responsibility to keep it in play. There’s a change for you… accountability.
As far as the forum goes, that’s a conversation that Shirley and I are more than willing to have with the community as a whole.
We know you guys want change, we wan’t it too, and a lot of the time we all want the same change. The goal here is to work together to make that change happen.
Daniel | 05/26/2011 8:52 PM
Rob, it all sounds good. More so than accountability, I think you know that communication and direction needs better service. Best of luck heading up this challenge. Personally, I hope more of Ben’s personal vision for Quirky surfaces and doesn’t get washed out by status quo business pressures.
Fred | 05/26/2011 8:53 PM
Thanks, Rob. Love that you’re pushing back against all the negativity that has been going on. Not as happy that we can’t reach out to other Q staff with department-specific q’s. Folks were doing that so as not to inundate Jess and Shirley and slow communication down further. But, I’m certainly willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.
MichelleB | 05/26/2011 8:57 PM
Rob I am afraid I find this all very disappointing, it is the same shit different email address to me when we really desperately need some actual change and real communication.
But in the spirit of moving things forward here is what I want.
Can you provide us with a weekly planner so we know what to expect in advance of the week?
For example, we know that the eval meetings happen on Friday afternoon we want to know who the winners are that night or a message to say what the delay is and when we will know. Please give a commitment and stick to it.
By Monday afternoon we want your report, and I would prefer it to be video (and text) from you or Shirley so that there are no misunderstandings about jokes, sarcasm does not transfer in text very well.
We want you to commit to things and stick to them, if you say a time stick to it or don’t say it. There has been way too much of that.
rob | 05/26/2011 9:23 PM
@Michelle
Weekly planner – reasonable request. Will be addressed in a forthcoming blog post.
Eval Recap Videos – not coming back. The compromise we reached between videos and nothing was to have Gaz write up a detailed blog post. I’ll see what we can do about the tone/objectivity to make sure there aren’t any serious misunderstandings.
You’re contradicting yourself on the last bit. You want real communication but you only want 100% accurate information or no information at all… that’s not real communication. What I can do is provide you with the information when I have it, update you if it changes, and provide you with an actual explanation as to why it changed. That way it’s less of a mandate and more of a conversation.
MichelleB | 05/26/2011 9:27 PM
I am fine with ‘as you know it’ news so long as you state it as such. If you are not sure something is going to happen (like anything that has a Ben component to it) then say so. I will be fine with the truth.
Claire Davis | 05/26/2011 10:08 PM
Thanks Rob! I’m on board – and looking forward to moving forward. I see all of this as normal growing pains – for both hq and the community- when a company starts taking on more and making changes. I’m excited that you are stepping in/up to move things forward. Personally I’d rather change be purposeful and on target instead of on such a fast track that it ends up not meeting the needs of everyone involved so I’ve not been bothered that it took 4 days for you to get settled at your new desk and pass along an update. Good luck in your new role!
amp | 05/26/2011 10:58 PM
It’s a little less country and a little more rock and roll around here. (hehehe…Think Rob knows I just called him Donny Osmond?)
Popeye | 05/27/2011 12:06 AM
Me thinks i will wait and see what happens…KaKUKUKUKUKK!
Emmet | 05/27/2011 1:21 AM
I am disappointed that video is not coming back. I think for a global company that text blog is very ineffective communications. How about a podcast can speak faster than type it. I comes down to after reading 124 ideas it was refreshing to watch the out come. Isn’t there an intern or lackey of some sort who could give the blow by blow of the outcome. The heels are really dug in on this topic, is there something we don’t know about?
I do appreciate the end to flaming. I was never a victim of it but it did make me uncomfortable to read it to someone else.
The reason I first got involved was because I thought I was part of something exciting the CEO and righthand talk to you every week it was great I’ll say it again it is sorely missed. I feel like laborer in the mines working for less than minimum wages. There are few and few opportunities to earn influence other than ideation, naming, and color chosen. The fun is draining fast get the buckets. My participation has slid a lot in the last month I hope to find a reason to stick around.
Clinton | 05/27/2011 2:11 AM
I want to point out that zero (0) newbies leave because of the community, the forums, or how nasty we are to each other in our posts. (At most, they stay away the forum.)
I believe every newbie who leaves, does so because of dissapointment with Quirky.
They come to a Quirky presented as the paradise of “we make invention accessible”…only to discover a community voting system so broken, “dirty”, and unfair it’s a semi-scam.
So, the one year drop of active quirksters from approx. 12% to approx 3% of accounts rests squarely on the shoulders of the QS, particularly those involved with designing and maintaining the community evaluation system.
Rob, don’t stick the QS’ failures on us…and dropping the ratio of activity by 75% in one year is definitely a failure.
Daniel | 05/27/2011 2:28 AM
I second Emmet and Clinton’s remarks. audio recaps seems like a reasonable substitute. I agree that the recaps were more of a payoff for our time than something vital. It was vital in that we were gaining insights about the current thinking.
Vincent | 05/27/2011 7:19 AM
Rob,
When I signed up to Quirky, 6 months ago, That looked perfect. there was more communication, Production reports, product evaluations videos, staff presentations, dreams of earning lot of money.
After 6 months I feel like Quirky runs his business alone and do not communicate with community… so don’t be surprised that spirits stirs…
Brandon Craven | 05/27/2011 8:37 AM
Rob,
Where does my Birthday Cake Launcher fall into place with all of these plans?
Thanks
Brandon
Jon Corral | 05/27/2011 8:55 AM
Do what you guys have to do. The more efficient your staff can run, the faster the community projects can go into fruition. As for negative people, well… It’s the web. There’s bound to be some incidentals. Perhaps some guidelines might define what’s helping people and what’s not.
Joshua Roehrig | 05/27/2011 9:04 AM
Leave a set of guidelines to define what is negative. Let the community know in details what can be said and what shouldn’t be said. Constructive criticism is the only way to learn to improve.
Doug | 05/27/2011 5:51 PM
“18 or older” – I’ve seen some young chaps on this site..
JJ14 | 06/02/2011 11:25 AM
About 6 months ago, when I became a member I was so excited. All I was talking was Quirky, I loved Ben’s “good faith” concept. Incredible opportunity for us, plus, we have a chance to be involved other people’s ideas, plus making even money from that? I loved “good faith “”most popular” sort. Because I was keep looking where my and my favorite ideas were. I saw it as 2nd job, so I was spending serious time here. Looking each idea very detailed, writing comments, even pretty long ones.
My heart was broken the first time when I heard a rumor saying , Quirky doesn’t look at each idea. Nobody ever should even think about such a possibility. Then weeks and months past, eventually, forum got very restless, full of info about whats going on, what is the next trend, from email begging to promote ideas on the forum, fake membership, etc etc. If an idea gets anormous number of comments in the first few hours, that is the end of the game. Then I guess people focus on them, if ideas have not so perfect pictures and few comments, are totally dead. I think top 5 shold be based on Quirky’s selection top 5, not highest voted community top 5. Unfortunnally Ben’s good faith great voting system was abused by few and followers. Otherwise, I’ll always miss “most popular” sort. I think it was giving excitement and courage. It’s not always about winning, but also being a part of the big excitement. Then more and more problems occured, we all know. These are the first level problems that we are losing the people who became members months ago and had really great ideas. Any member has a potential to have the next wow product that can bring Quirky to yahoo, google, facebook level. That much famous, not necessarily with that many members. So any upset member is a big lose for us. Next level problem is happening time to time, it’s another serious issue. Sometimes, just a coincidence, especially when the subject is very narrow. But there are occasions, that bad faith is involved, getting idea from somewhere else and submitting here or opposite. Since this is very new concept so we don’t have legal protection, this is very upseting another issue that all the websites like this should do something to keep members comfortable.
I’m hoping that Quikry really read every single word of forum, makes a list of issues, think about them, seriously and do something to bring the excitement back. I think showing every member that every idea is valuable for us message bring a lot of confidence. Currently community votes are very unreliable, so that’ll be great if Quirky selects their own top 5, then focus wil be to discover those great ideas not “me, me, me”.
After “serious” “fair” repairs, who can stop Quirky?