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Every new customer is invited to join the Ideas Genie Community Forum. The forum is exclusively for users of software developed by ideasforgardens.com.
Theres no ads, so a pleasant place to visit and talk gardening. In addition to general discussion, you’ll find a board for each Software item. Members are encouraged to comment on the
software, and suggest enhancements. Thats how the software has evolved. You’ll find a “Whats New” item on each software item. I use that to announce new developments, and of course, to
invite members to add their feedback.
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Heres a recent posting on the forum, which summarises the advantages precisely.
Well, the title of the Forum says it all George - "Ideas Genie Community".
The community spirit here is the common interest we
all have for growing plants and/or vegetables, learning new gardening skills and sharing our knowledge with other gardeners, be they novices or experts.
We can all learn something new or different to try.
As with any community, either on the Internet or out in the 'real' world, there will be active participants and those who just
'drop in' from time to time, wherever the meeting place happens to be. Many people have a heavy work schedule with limited free time, work away from home, share their computer with
other family members and have other personal commitments. All sorts of things can conspire against you, no matter how willing the spirit is to do other things.
However, the
success of any community venture are the 'regular' visitors who give their input, no matter how big or small that may be.
We think some people can feel slightly inhibited putting
their thoughts into a Forum environment for everyone to see, and are afraid that their comments will be thought of as trivial, stupid or boring.
But if you don't participate then you never really get to 'know' other people, and the more you get involved then obviously you will get to know each other better. The inhibitions will then go away. A bit of jovial banter is a good way of lightening up people's moods, so there's nothing wrong with that either.
As you have said previously, you can't force people to participate in the Forum, so it's really encouraging when more and more people log in and get chatting.
We can only
really speak for ourselves here.
Our enjoyment comes with having the time to be regular Forum members, and posting new topics or replying to existing ones. Our input may not always be filled with groundbreaking facts, but we like to acknowledge other contributors' thoughts, comments and photographs they submit. It's human nature to be liked and we, just as anyone else does, appreciate acknowledgment of what we have to offer.
There are many categories on this Forum to chip in some personal 'stuff' as well, other than gardening, so there are plenty of opportunities to share our other interests to help
'break the ice.'
Kathy & Laurie, Middlesbrough, England
My reply? I couldn’t have expressed this better!
George - ideasforgardens.com
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