One of the most important aspects of launching a new technology initiative is to consider how easy it is to get started. This is especially important for software platforms that involve many people. We understand that your decision to adopt an organization wide communication tool like MemberHub will affect you, your staff, group leaders and members. It’s important to have a plan and we are here to help you get started.

We are now holding weekly “Getting Started with MemberHub” webinars. These 30 minutes overviews are designed for organizations that have recently started a trial or for those that are considering the advantages of using a group communication tool and would like to learn more about our product.

It may be FREE, but it will be well worth your time. Signup for one now!

A huge spiritual leader in my life once said that “Gratitude always bring you back.” At the time I remember thinking “wow, that’s deep, but not really deep”. I sort of dismissed it and didn’t spend much time thinking about it. But today I found out exactly what he meant.

Today I dropped my car off a local mechanic, here in Raleigh. I’ve been to these guys three times before as we’ve gotten our Subaru Outback serviced there. Each time I’ve been impressed with their genuine kindness, timely service and what appeared to be, very honest work on my car. When I arrived today, to walk in I was greeted by this sign.

I was blown away. It’s so simple, so humble, so typical…but SO amazing. It was gratitude. And I’ll be coming back to get my car serviced with great excitement and loyalty.

In the same spirit that this simple sign was made, we want to say thank you to our readers, users community. Thanks for helping MemberHub be what it has become today!

By the way have you done this for your members, customers, or patrons? It doesn’t have to be expensive, timely or difficult. Maybe just a pen a big piece of paper will do!

The winner of our Who Wants $390 for Their Member Organization contest is @PMBoulevard. We have reached out to that organization have learned about a really special nonprofit organization in our nation’s capital called Capitol Letters Writing Center.

There are more details coming soon, but we wanted to give all those that followed along an update.

Thanks to all that participated in our promotion and thank you most of all to Southern Capitol Ventures and Tech Journal South for choosing MemberHub as a one of the Demo Showcase companies for this year’s Internet Summit. It was a real honor and a very beneficial 2 days for our company.

We had a very positive response to a recent change that was made to the hub Discussions feature a few weeks back. You can now send a copy to yourself when you create a new message in your hubs. Likewise, sending an email to the hub mailing list will also send you an “echo” email or a copy of the message.

This is nice because the sender is assured that their message was successfully delivered. In response to the positive feedback we’ve received, we took this concept a step further.

Now when you create a new hub Announcement,  you can choose to send a copy to yourself. This is especially important for those urgent announcement that you want to be 100% sure get delivered. Now, hub admins can test our SMS feature and see for yourself that text messages are being sent!

In addition to the hub Announcements changes, the originator of a new calendar event, existing calendar event, file upload, photo upload or Whiteboard creation will be included in the notification email that is sent out to the hub.

Event the smallest changes can go a long way towards enhancing your group communications.

As always we encourage you to leave a comment and use our Feedback & Support widget when logged into MemberHub.com to engage the MemberHub team.

Thanks!

We’ve been listening to you and have made some important improvements at MemberHub.com. We do appreciate everyone’s feedback. It only helps us improve MemberHub.com for all users.

• When you create a new hub under an organization form the Hubs tab, you will now be given the option of simultaneously making yourself a member of the hub or an administrator for the hub.
• There was a little confusion over links at the top of each screen. The ‘Calendar’ link is now labeled ‘Your Calendar’ and the ‘Family’ link is now labeled ‘Your Family’.
• In the Hub Settings tabs, we discovered that after making edits, users could inadvertently navigate away from the page without clicking the [Save Changes] button. MemberHub.com will now prompt you with a popup when you navigate away from the page after making any changes.
• The Five Day Calendar on Your Dashboard calendar now uses the Calendar Preferences set on Your Calendar.
• We have made it easier for you to get the help you need and provide feedback. There is now a link on the far right near the top of every page in the MemberHub.com application that reads “Help & Support”. Clicking on that button will launch this form:
• We have administrators that want members be able to see each other’s email address in member profiles. There is now a checkbox on the “Profiles” tab in “Hub Settings” that is labeled “E-mail Address”. By checking this box, when your members view the profiles of other members in your organization, they will see the members email address. This box is checked by default.
• If one of your members has an email address that is undeliverable all discussions and announcements that are sent to that member ‘bounce’ back to MemberHub.com. We now forward those emails on to administrators so that you may take action to contact your member and have them enter a proper email address in their profile.

Thanks again and please, we encourage you to use the new Help & Support button on the right-hand side. As the button suggests, you can get help and share with us suggestions or how much you think we rock!

Scott Blitstein from Web Worker Daily posted an excellent review of MemberHub back in April. It was a generous write-up and one that really helped bring some exposure to our product. Just yesterday Scott posted a follow up article in response to our new features (Photo Albums and Whiteboards) and subscription model.

In his post, Scott mentions the speed at which web applications are able to develop and launch new features. This is true. In response, I’d like to bring attention to how fast Web Worker Daily is! Within a week of contacting Scott to point him to our new new features, this follow-up post was launched. That’s a fast turn around that only a digital publication such as Web Worker Daily could accomplish.

I’ve grown to really appreciate Web Worker Daily and the content they put out. Yes, because they covered MemberHub, but mainly becuase day in, day out, they pump out reviews and thoughts on new technology and announcments that I would otherwise let slip right by me.

So thanks to all the folks Web Worker Daily…you guys rock!

Many of you know @milleemassey. For those of you that follow her on Twitter, you’re already well aware of her knack for sorting through 100’s of  tweets and finding those nuggets of goodness that deserve to be passed on and retweeted. For MemberHub customers you may just know her as the friendly account representative that answers all your questions.

1. “Tinker will show you relevant real-time convos. from social media sources like Facebook and Twitter” Heard of it? http://www.tinker.com/11:23 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
2. ‘As Seen on TV’: Marketing Ideas Gleaned from Infomercials – http://bit.ly/cRImL11:19 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
3. The Next Generation and Changing Suburban Schools: http://bit.ly/10gl2q11:17 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
4. RT @brandonacox: Why Content and Social Media are a Powerful Match http://ff.im/-2Vk3S10:45 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
5. Speaking and Presenting- Your Next Actions: http://bit.ly/WXJBo // you presenting any time soon? great advice here!8:25 AM May 15th from TweetDeck
6. “… churches are beginning to feel the recession’s squeeze on the offering dollars that people place in the plate.” http://bit.ly/UP34o1:01 PM May 14th from TweetDeck
7. DOG sized or GOD sized Faith? http://bit.ly/144C6t – Love it!!11:53 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
8. Patience and Prayer: “What are you struggling to “take one step at a time” …?” So true…can be applied to life! http://bit.ly/F6AkS8:52 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
9. RT @human3rror: Just Read : Keep it Simple Stupid (and Obvious) : http://churchcrunch.com/?p=… // 8:41 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
10. Churches, Nonprofits & Associations – How many communication tools are you using? http://blog.memberhub.com/7:01 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
11. What Not to Do in Connection Card Ministry: http://bit.ly/18rbj45:59 AM May 14th from TweetDeck
12. Two halves of the value fraction // http://bit.ly/38vbw2:04 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
13. “how often do you repeat your vision to people within your organization?” http://bit.ly/LgLFF1:58 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
14. Is Voicemail Dead? http://bit.ly/18O7gB // Do you agree?1:26 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
15. A29 Bootcamp Sessions: Influence: Multiplying Leaders on Mission for the Gospel // http://bit.ly/Jn2Fw1:24 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
16. Interesting: Coast Guard Commandant Hearts Social Media // http://bit.ly/RfDzG1:05 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
17. “Cool is No Longer Cool” – http://bit.ly/jeUtE – “The American Church is not lacking for “cool” pastors”….12:56 PM May 13th from TweetDeck
18. RT @ifeelgod: Influence: Connecting with People | GiANT Impact http://ff.im/-2OVKk11:46 AM May 12th from TweetDeck
19. “Life is too short to waste. Dreams are fulfilled only through action, not through endless planning to take action.” (via@mikehanes)12:07 PM May 11th from TweetDeck
20. RT @human3rror: Just Read : The ‘Pastor’ Effect in Social Media : http://churchcrunch.com/?p=… // 7:48 AM May 11th from TweetDeck
21. My Church Manifesto … cultural shift in the church? http://bit.ly/J9MUi – good stuff, thoughts?12:43 PM May 8th from TweetDeck

Marketing is still new to me. It’s more challenging than I imagined. At least it’s challenging for us as we’re building a tool that’s valuable to several different markets. There are so many marketing options for a Software as a Service startup to choose from and it’s hard to know if your real message is getting out there. The question that has kept coming up lately for me is: “How are we doing telling people who we are and why we’re unique.” Are we telling our story?

Here’s a hodgepodge of facts about our product and people:

1. We’re passionate about creating really, easy-to-use, un-bloated software; that actually works.
2. We want to help churches, associations and non-profits (any member-driven organization) enhance communication and community among the members of their organizations
3. We want our software to be affordable.
4. We really do believe that software can enhance communication and help people feel more connected.
5. We don’t believe that MemberHub is a social networking site. It’s s private groups communication tool.
6. We really like to serve our customers; we’re social people.
7. We’re a father-n-son start-up.
8. We’re honest, hard-working, good-to-know people who follow Jesus.

We’ll be sharing more with you about who we are. And if you know us or currently use MemberHub, please leave a comment and help the rest of the world learn more about us.

Thanks!

The executives who ignited the transformations from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there. No, they first got the right people on the bus and then figured out where to drive it. They said, in essence, “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus. But I know this much: If we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it some place great.”

Jim Collins – Good to Great

At your church, non-profit or association, how many tools do you use to communicate with your members? We’ve learned that in some cases people are using 3 different tools. For example, a Director of Youth Ministries at church here in Raleigh, is currently using Facebook to connect with the kids, an email marketing program to reach the adults and he combines this with the occasional personal email and phone call. Throw in Twitter and text messaging capabilities and you can find yourself spending half the day trying reach everyone, just to remind them to return their (enter random weekly form name here) form.

Does this sound like you? Sure, effective communication needs multiple mediums to make sure everyone is reached, but how many tools do you have to use to accomplish this? How much time and effort are you spending on simply “organizing the procedures in which your communicate”?

Please share with us how you deal with this challenge. What’s working for you? What’s not working?

Many of you know @milleemassey. For those of you that follow her on Twitter, you’re already well aware of her knack for sorting through 100’s of  tweets and finding those nuggets of goodness that deserve to be passed on and retweeted. For MemberHub customers you may just know her as the friendly account representative that answers all your questions.