Need a new category in the forum?

[mindfullsilence]

May 29th, 2009, 11:03 am

I've been talking with BigWeb and ATNO about a new section for tutorials. We don't currently have a tutorial section on the business aspect of web design/development. Of course, if there's anything bigweb is leery about, it's creating a new area of the forum and only having 1 or 2 things to put in it. Bigweb suggested giving it this title:

Quote:

Developer Business Tutorials
A tutorial section focussed on the business aspects of designers and developers.

But before he adds it, he asked for a few suggestion on what tutorials would be added to it. ATNO came up with a few suggestions:

Quote:

Developer vs Designer (intro)
Developer vs Designer (which hat to wear and when)
Contracts and obligations
Farming out to freelancers (or something similar)
Development teams and how to manage them

Just wondering if anyone else had some ideas on tutorials that could go in this section?

[graphixboy]

May 29th, 2009, 12:12 pm

This doesn't really seem like a "tutorial" section. Discussion about running a business be it freelance, agency, in-house group etc is more than welcome, however I see a lot of confusion with that label.

Typically a tutorial produces a repeatable solution as long as the steps are followed. But in business no two projects, businesses, client interactions, etc are the same. Therefore for they don't fall into the repeatable solution bucket.

In addition a tutorial usually signifies a specific template (usually teaching and learning) for writing and interaction style. Even very seasoned business owners would have difficulty creating a step by step how to for any daily business need.

I see a huge benefit from a business category as long as its a discussion and people understand that they can post to get advise about "what should I charge?", "how do I deal with someone stealing my work?" etc.

[mindfullsilence]

May 29th, 2009, 12:26 pm

I've already created a reusable tutorial that is waiting on this section to be created, and have one in the works. There are plenty of things to write tutorials about that correlate with the business aspect of web development/design.

Though I agree that this section should not be exclusive to tutorials, and should in fact incorporate casual posting of threads; I still believe including a tutorial section would give benefit to our users.

[ATNO/TW]

May 30th, 2009, 7:13 am

Well,gb, keep in mind that the tutorial posts also allow for discussion. Some things, even the example you gave - what should I charge, would make for a good tutorial in this section. Designers/Developers might be talented with what they do, but not necessarily business savvy.

Many OZZU members barely know how to get started designing, let alone the ins and outs of it. But they want to do it. I remember starting out like that. I wanted to make websites. But I didn't know the first thing about it.

I think this type of tutorial section would be a great addition. Other ideas I can think of (that are also frequent topics)

W3C Standards - What are they and why are they important?
Why should I code to Standards
I know HTML and CSS - what should I learn next?
What is Web 2.0 and how can I make it work for me.
How to write a contract that will hold up in court.
How to write a proposal.
Arranging payments in stages - how not to get screwed.

[graphixboy]

June 1st, 2009, 9:33 am

I guess I just view tutorials as a "step by step how to" and that doesn't seem to fit a "Why should I code to Standards" type article.

Either way I think a business forum would be extremely helpful. If "tutorials" are a sub forum just like in other cases I think that's cool.

Maybe we should consider revamping all sections to have an "Experts" section similar to the tutorials where people write approved articles on a specific topic.

[ATNO/TW]

June 1st, 2009, 9:41 am

graphixboy wrote:

Maybe we should consider revamping all sections to have an "Experts" section similar to the tutorials where people write approved articles on a specific topic.

I sort of like that idea. I agree with your point. There is a difference between Tutorials and Articles.

[Bigwebmaster]

June 1st, 2009, 3:02 pm

That is an interested idea that I kind of like. If we were to have an "Experts" section or something similiar to that we could have that area reserved for both approved tutorials and articles. Then in other forums that are "related" there could always be links to tutorial or article sections from there. Besides categories, forums, and subforums, phpBB3 does also support links (not links in posts) that could goto these areas.

[graphixboy]

June 1st, 2009, 3:23 pm

I would like to raise my hand and agree with mindfullsilence that we really should have a business forum. I'm sure we could find plenty of preexisting threads to move into a business forum as seed content as well as some articles/tutorials that could be written for the category.

Here's a list to get us started.

general-discussion/web-design-contract-who-got-one-t93756.html
website-design-forum/contract-thing-t88858.html
general-discussion/contracts-question-need-help-t27016.html
general-discussion/using-contracts-for-your-services-t30123.html
general-discussion/advice-website-pricing-t80958.html
website-design-forum/how-much-charge-for-creating-web-site-t60120.html
website-design-forum/web-designers-how-much-charge-t21921.html
website-design-forum/how-much-would-you-charge-for-this-t58446.html
general-discussion/what-freelance-site-you-use-t85510.html
programming-forum/where-find-good-client-management-tool-t94406.html
general-discussion/work-schedule-software-t85951.html

June 2nd, 2009, 6:22 am

I am newbie here but execially this subforum got to be here for sure, thats why I came here, one of my friend told that this is one of the best forums... Seems like everything is not that perfect ((

[Bigwebmaster]

June 2nd, 2009, 9:45 am

If we were to create a new forum called Business Development (or something similiar), where do you think this would fit under? If it doesn't fit anywhere and we create a new category we would need two forums to put under it.

[graphixboy]

June 2nd, 2009, 9:49 am

My gut instinct would be that it's under general but I believe its more similar to the content under Website design & dev

[ATNO/TW]

June 2nd, 2009, 1:08 pm

I was just brainstorming a little and considering "articles" would this be a good opportunity to consider extending OZZU from being a forum only to adding an entire blog section? Blogs can be so versatile up to and including video blogs which would be ideal for the addition of video tutorials.

[Bigwebmaster]

June 2nd, 2009, 3:39 pm

How would the blog be integrated into ozzu for the purposes of articles though? Would anybody be able to write to the blog? or how would that area be managed? Should it be interegrated with phpbb?

[ATNO/TW]

June 2nd, 2009, 6:12 pm

Well b2evolution has link capabilities, just like the phpbb3 categories do so there could be link blogs, image blogs, article blogs, video blogs, etc. User privelges are available. Skinning could be a challenge, but it's template based just like everything else. If you want to take a look at the documentation and ponder the possibilities

http://b2evolution.net/

seriously, I am totally supportive of this blog software and I am not a blogger. The backend even has stats logging. It has huge potential and could take OZZU the step beyond and give it that Web2.0 feel. Pings are immediate every time you post an article (those can be adjusted) and indexed within minutes of posting articles.

In respect to integrating it with the phpbb member database, I don't know. It's open source so you can mod it at will.

Read the documentation and look at the code and see what your thoughts are. Takes about 5 minutes to install.

[mindfullsilence]

June 2nd, 2009, 7:30 pm

wow atno, that's a really cool resource