Beta period, goals?

Just curious when beta will be dropped from this site?

Also, how is the site doing on the goals set earlier this year for membership, usage, etc?

kgthunder wrote:Just curious when beta will be dropped from this site?

see http://tech.lds.org/forum/showpost.php?p=4699&postcount=13

kgthunder wrote:Also, how is the site doing on the goals set earlier this year for membership, usage, etc?

We are below our goals for membership BUT the great news is some of the participation that we are receiving from other departments. I'm very encouraged by their participation and support.

Tom

Personally I think that the involvement from the inside of the church is more of an indicator of success then the general membership. Once other departments start asking for opinions then the external involvement will increase.

Are there any estimates of the size of the "tech subculture" in the church? Otherwise it would seem to be hard to estimate how big this could get. There's a lot of people who use tech, but how many actually "live and breath" it?

In any case, quality is more important then quantity in my book.

Growth is not linear. The important thing is to reach "critical mass" for the next step.

Depends, I think a large portion of the 18-40 age group is actually tech savvy and would participate on the boards if they knew there was more church involvement. As for living and breathing tech I see that start going down as BYU's tech field enrollment is currently falling fast. (And that is pretty close to the national average as our professors keep telling us)

thedqs wrote:Depends, I think a large portion of the 18-40 age group is actually tech savvy

Tech savvy and interested are two different things.

thedqs wrote:As for living and breathing tech I see that start going down as BYU's tech field enrollment is currently falling fast. (And that is pretty close to the national average as our professors keep telling us)

I wonder what's going on. Has tech lost it's sizzle? Are computers headed the way of the electronics hobby?

No the book "The World is Flat" has convinced parents that all the tech jobs will be outsourced and that the USA will just have managers, lawyers and teachers.

So now it's just the students who like tech and those just chasing a paycheck are going somewhere else?

thedqs wrote:Personally I think that the involvement from the inside of the church is more of an indicator of success then the general membership. Once other departments start asking for opinions then the external involvement will increase.

Correct! The purpose we have this web site is not only to share with you what we are doing, but it is to leverage your talents and experiences (read: we need internal departments asking for feedback).

Tom

RussellHltn wrote:So now it's just the students who like tech and those just chasing a paycheck are going somewhere else?

Basically and those that really know that outsourcing will never be a threat since too many companies are homegrown and new tech jobs are opening all the time. More then any country can supply on its own. But since there is a great reduction in employee pool that means us techies will be in high demand.

thedqs wrote:But since there is a great reduction in employee pool that means us techies will be in high demand.

As someone once told me, there's always room for the best.

kgthunder wrote:Just curious when beta will be dropped from this site?

Also, how is the site doing on the goals set earlier this year for membership, usage, etc?

I never did see any new stats for the tech site as a response for this question. Just wondering if we can see a graph of membership growth and active member growth over the last "quarter" or so, just to get an idea.

The more important part is the active membership as that is a indicator of who keeps on returning and hopefully contributing.

thedqs wrote:I never did see any new stats for the tech site as a response for this question. Just wondering if we can see a graph of membership growth and active member growth over the last "quarter" or so, just to get an idea.

The more important part is the active membership as that is a indicator of who keeps on returning and hopefully contributing.

We are well short of what I had hoped for when we launched the site. I tend to be a very optimistic person and underestimated how long it would take for the Church (as an organizational unit) to embrace the site which I've always felt was key to it's success. However we are starting to turn the corner. With the addition of the STS and Clerks web site, and with some recent discussions with other departments, we are seeing a growing trend. Since the July we have been growing at about 25% each month. This reversed a decline for the 1st 6 months of 2007.

These numbers do not tell the whole store, however. We have a lot more users who never log in or register that visit the site. Our traffic has grown substantially.

Tom

Just wondering how people get notified these sites/forums exist? I have been a Stake Clerk or Assistant for a very long time, and generally have stumbled on these sites.

Maybe links to the sites on the Training Page of lds.org would help? Our Stake references the training pages regularly, and I have been referencing tech.lds.org on every communication that goes out to local units.

It has been increasing in notification through lds.org and from the tech talks. Though for starting in January of this year (at least the public release) I have to say it has come a long way.