Business applications cooperative for Dolphin 7 ?

I'm playing around with the idea of starting an "online cooperative" for people building business applications in Dolphin 7.   The idea would be for a few of us to share a private forum, independent of Boonex, where we could help test each other's sites, share best practices and non-commercial mods,  and in general just help each other out.  Sometimes I get stuck on small issues here where another pair of eyes would be useful, but I have not been successful in finding someone here in San Diego to work with.  Dolphin is being used for other applications of course - dating, community sites, etc - but I think people trying to use this software to develop business sites face special challenges.  Not trying to preempt any of the good work being done here - just feeling the need for a different approach.  Contact me or comment here if interested.

I like your site, idea and approach. Let's share.

I would think that one of the biggest challenges for a business site would be to constantly provide fresh content to its members.  Figuring out where that content  is going to come from is no easy chore.  It's certainly too much for any one person, and it's not that easy to get members to contribute content that benefits others.   I've built several websites for businesses that I've owned, and I'd be the first to say that they were practically useless, and amounted to nothing more than a dog and pony show.  I've always been in a niche market, and I already personally knew most of my potential customers.  I doubt that any of them actually ever visited my sites, which were incidentally nowhere near as complex as Dolphin.  If I had something like D7 at my disposal back then, it certainly would have opened up a lot of possibilities.   The trick would have been to get people to share what they know.  Some people don't like to share their knowledge, others just can't shut up about it. 

In case you're wondering, many of my years were spent developing high temperature, high reliability electronic instruments for oil well logging, where the electronics had to operate reliably at temperatures of up to 400 degrees F, and hold together at constant vibration levels of 25Gs, and survive a 2000G shock.  Developing electronics like this, is almost an art form.  It's not something you can go learn in a school somewhere.  It's something you learn from those before you, then build on.  It's more about experience than anything else.   There's a lot of trial and error.  Over time, you build up a database of information in your head about how to design oil well electronics.  Every downhole electronics engineer has their own database in their head, and for the most part, they share it sparingly....not even within their own company. 

Anyway, I've occasionally had thoughts of developing an engineering site on the topic of well logging and MWD (Measurement While Drilling) electronics.  I think it could develop into a good resource for newcomers to high reliability electronics, and seasoned veterans as well.  I worry that it would consume every bit of time that I had though, and that I wouldn't have time for anything else.  After 30 years in that business, a person develops a pretty sizable database of information that is uniquely their own.  The trick would be to get all the downhole engineers to 'dump' their database on your site.   To the best of my knowledge, there is no site like this.  There's a lot of things engineers from different companies could share without disclosing any company secrets. 

It's a type of site, that if you had sufficient content with frequent updates, you could easily charge a few hundred bucks for a yearly membership.  If it was a valuable enough resource, the company would pay the dues for the member... dues would at least be tax deductable.  I may kick around the idea with a few guys I know, because there's no way I'd be able to pull something like this off by myself.

Exactly HL - what I am thinking of is something akin to a low level "accelerator"  where people could help each other test these sites, share mods, etc. - especially on those higher risk sites like the one you described.   A couple things inspired this.  One I have noticed that even people who have worked with this software for years often don't know some of its basic capabilities - you recently posted that you didn't know there could be a join form of more than two pages, I used this software for years before I knew you could log in with your email address.   Second, I have noticed that people seldom reveal their website url here - there may be good reason for this but it does slow down advice and development.  Third, I have noticed that sites seem to get stuck at around 200 members, and - though it may not be a technical issue, we need to look at why sites are not growing the way they should.  Basically, I think we need a "best practices" site.

I had planned on using Google Groups for this - but they just eliminated their file upload section where I had planned to post the mods.   I'm still thinking about the best place to host this - I don't really want to build a Dolphin site for this, I just want something simple: http://goo.gl/d54ub.   I set up a Google Code site for this, but they don't have a forum.   Still thinking about this, and will post more later.

Invision Board might be a good choice.  http://www.invisionpower.com/

Thanks - I keep hearing good things about Invision - I'll take a look, $10 a month is reasonable, but I am a little cheap these days.

I've already gotten started with a combination of Google Groups and Google code - not perfect,  Code requires a gmail address, though groups does not, and they are only partly integrated but I am leaning towards using it anyway.   I'm going to start by uploading some of the free mods I use so I am starting by contributing something.   I'll probably send out invitation links tomorrow or this weekend.

I too have been in situations where an extra set of eyes would be very helpful. Great Idea Caltrade. I would be willing to help out when and where ever I can. Anyone is welcome to contact me when they are in need of some assistance.

Hi Cal,

I'm new to Dolphin - due to go live in a couple of weeks, so cant give you much tech experience - but certainly happy to offer user testing feedback, and my teething problems as we turn on.

I settled on Dolphin after 3-4 months of research - a few years ago I spent 2 years building a clubbing community site on Joomla - it worked fairly well but the code was so hacked around by the end, that you couldn't even think about an upgrade without having a full time developer on board - I'm hoping that Dolphin is enough years ahead, and has enough users that most of the functionality I need is available from the core, or basic mods.

I agree with you that a small, group of trusted people can accomplish far more at the beginning - then later open it up to a wider audience and all of associated 'noise' that comes with more people.

Good luck with your community site - please PM if you'd like to Skype sometime

JM

Thanks guys - I am working on this - still haven't settled on what site I am going to use yet -looking at Posterious right now.   I didn't mean to imply that only business sites will be able to join.   What I am going to try to set up is a simple "business cooperative" - where we can share ideas, mods and even volunteer to work on each other's sites - and these could be business, community, dating, and even adult sites.   What I am going to ask though is that people use their real names, and promise to keep the things they learn their confidential.   I have been getting more dissatisfied with this forum and want to do something different.   I also hope people will be much more willing to post their sites - even at early stages,  and if enough trust can be established even exchange FTP passwords and the like.  I'm at work now and will update interested parties later.