Community Awareness

[Tony Gravagno]

There are many people in the world who use the MVDBMS every day. Many people are newly on temporary leave or now unemployed. They are not aware of the forums or the mvTalk Slack team or the Facebook group. They don't know about PickWiki.com or community blogs or Github projects and resources. They don't know the MVDBMS providers have product documentation. They don't get Spectrum Magazine. These people are alone now in a time when many people need to work from home, isolated from office resources, maybe from colleagues.

Take a look at the short list of resources I've provided below. Are any of them new to you? Make use of them! Ask questions, and get answers!

It amazes me that none of the MVDBMS companies tell their userbase about the community that exists to support them. That makes people ask "who uses this?" "where can we get help?". It makes people leave the platform, believing they can't get solutions, that are truly readily available.

I strongly encourage you to invite people to this forum and tell them about other resources that they have available.

VARs and application providers - talk to your end-users. You will not lose them by providing them information about the platform. They rely on you to maintain their business software. You benefit when people get new ideas, when they learn what's possible, and ask you for new solutions. There is no "you against us". We will help you to provide new solutions to your clients so that you and your clients can look forward to ongoing relationships.

End-users - tell your providers about these resources and ask them to spread the word. If you have your own application groups, tell your fellow users about these resources.

If you invite people, tell us here.

If you have been newly invited, say Hi!

If you don't want to invite people, tell us why. If you fear competition, get over it. We know that just leads to a shrinking market and more lost business.

Invite Marketing people from the MVDBMS providers to see the community in the industry they server - many of them are completely unaware!

End-users do not want to feel like they are the only people using a system. They see community for all other platforms, free information everywhere, and lots of addons to help with modern business needs. They leave for these things. We have these things in the MV industry but people just don't know about it.

My goal here is to ensure that more people know that resources are available to help with their daily efforts. There is free information, free code, and consultation, products, and services when things get tough. You can start with some of the resources below. Many of them lead to others.

Feel free to ask about how you can spread the word to individuals and other businesses.

Thanks.

Tony Gravagno, Nebula Research and Development   

https://mvtalk.slack.com/    (contact me for assistance if required)   
http://PickWiki.com      (see Community and Employment pages)   
http://groups.google.com/group/mvdbms     

https://www.linkedin.com/groups/Pick-Users-Group-64935   

https://www.facebook.com/multivaluegroup

https://bitbucket.org/foss4mv     

http://Nebula-RnD.com/blog     
http://Twitter.com/TonyGravagno  
https://github.com/TonyGravagno/