I came across a new social network called projectstars, yet another killer startup. The site touts “blog for stock in the largest enterprise business blogging network” as if to suggest the potential payoff for participation might be worth the mind-numbing prospect of having to fill out yet another blessed profile first.
How ironic. In an attempt to free me from the walled gardens of the Web 1.0 internet I find that I am now trapped in the particulars of my online ID, technographic profile, group identity and now with projectstars, my “net worth” too.
projectstars claims to be an online business community for enterprise professionals. I don’t want to appear to be dim-witted but what is an enterprise professional exactly and do they/we really need another business community? And if the site’s purpose is indeed to “share expertise, build relationships, and find projects” one wonders if there have been problems with existing networks liked LinkedIn.
As to the boast that the projectstars network consists of over 300 communities covering enterprise departments, topics and issues, a casual glance suggests that that claim is in anticipation of what the network could possibly become rather than reflecting what it is today.
To projectstars’ admirable dedication to improving the careers of corporate professionals that begs the question: “Aren’t we all?” They say:
Professionals on projectstars have the opportunity to get their expertise discovered and propel their career forward. By participating in the community, their knowledge and experience is noticed by recruiters, executives, and business partners…
And goes on:
…With over 300 communities, projectstars is the most comprehensive network of business topics. If you are looking for advice on enterprise products and services, you have an entire community willing to help you.
Well, I hope so, that would be nice.
One thing did catch my attention and as being an interesting spin. Promoting a “blog for stock” teaser projectstars promises that every quarter they’ll reward the top contributors with shares in the company suggesting that those who participate in the community own it. While that might present some challenges down the road if the product is ever worth something for now it sure sounds like the stuff a network economy is made of, doesn’t it?
Of course — and ahead of his time perhaps — the maverick Michael Kelemen had the exact same deal when he invited a few of us to participate on RecruitingBloggers.com, survived now by the real stalwarts who keep the lights on. With Jason Davis perfecting his alternate model of “community” on RecruitingBlogs.com I imagine if the two approaches could be reconciled — blended in the way projectstars seems to want to — then the Recruitosphere might have a center of gravity as was the case when the two Canadians collaborated in bringing RecruitingBlogs.com to fore.
So, setting aside projectstars’ “oh-we’re-in-beta-so-everything-is-impossibly-clunky-and-slow” mode — freezing up my machine with every other click — I would like to think that there might be something here worth coming back for.
For all its primitive ugliness I think there is an underlying sophistication to the projectstars’ model that is being missed in the recruiting space. More, having just noticed that members can login using OpenID, it really can’t be all bad can it? I just have to find someone willing to invite me to join.
Hmmm…I shall have to check my own network and see who I can get to usher me in,
Hi Amitai,
Thanks for taking the time to have a look over mine and Michael’s new site and to write about it. You’ve brought up a few interesting points:
* Filling out yet another blessed profile
I totally agree, and that’s why you only need to enter your name and email to join, and why we enabled OpenID on the site. Sites such as LinkedIn provide perfect places to store your professional profile and we don’t see the point in duplicating this process. It’s not our aim to be another online CV site, but to provide a better networking platform than others. I have put a number of fields into the biography section of members accounts so you can enter links to your other online profiles, blogs, micro-blogs, etc. and in time you’ll be able to stream content in from those.
* Blog for stock as the tagline
Actually, I just changed this back to ’share expertise, network, and find work in the largest enterprise consultants network’. Blogging for Stock is indeed one of the benefits projectstars provides, but it is not projectstars itself. We’re providing a platform where enterprise consultants can do all the above, and as an added benefit, as you say, we give away stock to those who contribute the most. The reasoning behind this is both Michael and I have spent many years as consultants getting really involved in online business networks in one way or another, and the companies who run them have benefitted greatly from the content we’ve provided. In return, all they seem to have done is want to restrict us more and charge us more for the privilege. We realise that the community makes the site, and they should be duly rewarded. After all, the more you contribute to a community’s growth, the more it’s worth, thus the more your shares will be worth - when you look at valuations of sites like Facebook, there could be major benefits to joining in. I think it’s a fantastic business model, and I hope many more sites follow our lead.
* What is an Enterprise Professional?
An Enterprise Professional is someone who provides services to enterprises - someone you contact when you need a project to be done and you work in an enterprise. Maybe I’m being dim-witted, but I don’t see what the problem is!
* Why would they need another business community?
As you mention LinkedIn, I will focus on that. LinkedIn is a great place to find people. Projectstars is a great place to discover talent. LinkedIn provides a limited set of features (some of which you have to pay for) which enable searching. Anyone can write anything in a profile, but only experts can prove they know what they’re talking about when they blog about it. The more people who blog about their work on projectstars, the more their expertise will be seen. For those who don’t blog we can only keep encouraging them to do so - markets are conversations.
* Our 300+ communities
Along with the discussion on LinkedIn above, our choice of starting with 300+ communities is, IMHO, one of the key benefits of projectstars. Having watched the stats, many members have signed up to the site, and straight away joined those communities of interest to them. They know that what they will be getting in their inbox will be relevant to them. The trouble with other networks who don’t provide this structure and allow people to create their own groups is you don’t know which ones to get involved with, and you can often miss the ones you should be joining. Also, on places like Facebook, there’s so much non-business related stuff, the important stuff can get hidden. We wanted to build a network for business, where business is talked about and done. That’s it, keep it simple. If we want to go and ‘poke’ people, or send them virtual flowers then we’ll go elsewhere.
The point of starting with over 300 communities is because everyone has their specialization, and if you want to find someone fast, this makes it easier. A quick look at the subscriber count on the List all Communities option shows this approach is working great - some of what I thought previously would’ve been more obscure groups are actually getting more than ones which I thought would get more. By looking at what communities a member is subscribed to also gives you a good quick overview of where their skills and interests lie. Forward thinking indeed, but that can often be a Good Thing!
* ‘oh-we’re-in-beta-so-everything-is-impossibly-clunky-and-slow’
Actually, it’s more like ‘oh-we’re-so-self-funded-and-giving-postings-away-for-free-at-the-moment’
Apologies for the speed, we hope that once next month comes we will have more members, the site will be working more smoothly, and money will be coming in so we can upgrade the hardware and hosting. We’re also actively seeking seed/angel investment so if that comes along then we can upgrade sooner. Unfortunately, as with all startups, sourcing funding is not easy or quick, and investors like to see figures and real sales before signing on the line. We have our fingers crossed though, as we’ve already had some interest from some very interesting VCs.
* Being missed in the recruiter space
I’d be interested to hear if you have any suggestions on this front. Partly it’s because I haven’t done much marketing and PR of the project yet, but I will be as of now. After our initial launch, there were a few essential changes I needed to make to the site so that it worked better and was easier to understand for new visitors. They are now mostly done, so I’m swapping my coder hat for my marketer hat for the next few weeks.
Finally, thanks again for the review - it’s great to hear what others are thinking and hopefully we can grow and mould to what you want. projectstars is built on open source software, and we want the growth to be open source - it’s not up to us to decide what you want, we make some initial assumptions and you provide us with the rest. Then we go build it and you get stock in it. Who could ask for a more perfect solution?!
Steve,
Thank you so much for the complete and detailed answers. I look forward to being involved with projectstars at some and have already identified some people I would like to be connected with.
If I can be of any help in any way please let me know!
No problem, it’s great to hear projectstars has been of some benefit to you already!
As I mention in my post, if you have any tips and/or links as to how to ‘get through’ to more recruiters then let me know, I’ve posted on ere.net and will be finding more.
I am curious. What is it you hope to learn by identifying all these applications?
My question is, “who is putting them to work and how for what benefit?”
G, you ought to charge that guy, Purkiss, by the foot.
Ami, Mike sent me this link today and it worked. How come the link to recruitingblogs.com is broke. Cool post.