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NOTE: This is an update to an original post from 2011 on our 4th birthday
As you may have noticed from the top of the logo, it is Land Surveyors United's 10th birthday and to celebrate this occasion, I've decided to write the story of how LSU was created, the ideas which gave birth to this network and where it is headed. Keep in mind that I am writing these posts straight from my mind and will most likely not go back and edit them until I have reached the end, so just enjoy these raw memories and comment if you'd like to know anything specifically. If you haven't yet read parts One and Two, you might like to read those first:
Happy Birthday Land Surveyors United! Part One
Happy Birthday Land Surveyors United! Part Two
On November 1st 2008, a glorious thing occurred. Land Surveyors United reached 100 members and things started to change.
I come to you today proudly announcing that Land Surveyors United has officially inducted its 100th
member into the community! This has by no means been an easy and quick process and it is with great excitement that I share this with you today. I know that for most social networks, attracting one hundred members may seem almost too small to make the news. But when you consider the possibility of there only being around 1000-5000 land surveyors in the world online at the same time, you may just see what my excitement is all about.
The Big Change in Land Surveying
Ok,so I had a handful of professional land surveyors who had signed up, were committed and they began sharing resources and I began to become excited to see a member take time out of their day to share something with the community. However, the ways that surveyors were sharing information were fundamentally different than that which can be found in other 'social networks.' Again, returning to the notion that there would need to be a scientific (anthropological) approach applied to this experiment, I made it my own personal responsibility to teach "social media" to land surveyors,because it became apparent that no other person in the industry seemed qualified to do so. On the day LSU reached 100 members, I closed the blog post with the following:
I consider it an honor to have gained the respect of an industry that is for the most part comprised of individuals who spent the majority of their time offline. When I began creating the network almost one year ago, i decided to let it grow organically by moderating the membership to only allow land surveying professionals who truly yearn to share their surveying life and experiences with a community of like-minded individuals. Originally started as somewhat of a social experiment conducted on behalf of my father, Skip, over time I began to realize how much the land surveying industry needed a place to socialize in a not always dead serious manner about the goings-on of the industry. As a graduate student of anthropology, this is just the sort of thing that I enjoy- the study of how social networks grow. Nevertheless, it is the needs of those in the industry which have attracted over 100 members, not me. Surveyors needed a place to find and post jobs. LSU provides such a place. They needed support documents to peruse and a place to vent about problems in the field. Again, LSU is this place. Professionals needed a way to share and discover tips of the trade and a place to upload and share videos and tutorials that everyone in the community could learn from. But most of all, land surveyors needed a voice that could be heard. When technology breaks down or is just too damn hard to understand, LSU members have only one place they need to go-to the community with a request for help.
Land Surveyors United overcomes geographical boundries and language barriers because members are from all over the planet and work in every environment known to man. Together, members of LSU are now learning the fundamentals of blogging and RSS syndication of information that they need in order to progress or just stay up to date. This type of learning is almost imperitive today in order to keep up with competition. With only a little bit of research, it is not hard to see that LSU has already begun to reshape the industry or at least the ways in which information is swapped and shared. I could go on for days about all that LSU is and will become, but I'd rather you just read a document that i created for the group and if you're not already a member, you should join us!
Welcome to all of the new members and if there is anything at all that I can help you with, please do not hesitate to ask. Enjoy your social network!
How Communities Succeed
Communities succeed when they reach a critical mass of activity, not a critical mass of members. Despite what other networks or surveying forum boards like to boast, there isn't such a thing as a critical mass of members, it doesn't exist. The only way for a community to accumulate critical mass of members is to either pull a publicity stunt, spam other networks with links back to a source or to produce an immediately gratifying solution to a current problem with something important to people's lives. Nevertheless, with time and effort, a critical mass of activity is very much possible - but it is as hard to achieve as you might imagine.
Again, despite the boastings of other surveying boards,if you think you need lots of members to get activity, you're wrong. My goal was then to reach that critical mass of activity amongst the members i had. My goal was to build slowly, for example I hoped for 5000 interactions per month at this time, because I had only 100 members. But in the future I projected 25000 interactions when LSU came to 500 members. At this point I began to finally start looking around at other social networks for possible ways of 'creating' discussions, but discovered right away that nothing these other networks were driven by could ever power a serious network of land surveyors. And because no such place existed for surveyors, I had nothing else to work off of and no other source of inspiration. My inspiration would have to be my own list of objectives. Surveyors communicate in highly specific ways...ways that are not typical with other online social networks. I started to move away from the whole idea of building a "social network" for land surveyors and began to gravitate more towards a network built on "social support".
Naturally, I needed my few members to interact with one another because members need others to talk to,engage with and in the case of land surveyors, compare notes. I knew that any community that begins with a big promotion push fails. It's the communities that start small, reach a critical mass of activity per member, then keep growing at that level of activity which succeed. This means, during this time I needed to focus on starting discussions and measuring the outcomes. In order to accomplish this, I realized that I needed to do something radically different than other surveying boards in the past...I had to find way to do the unthinkable...namely, somehow remove cultural boundaries, bring communication gaps with translation tools and open the community up to the entire globe. I needed to create corners of this network which actually existed in all parts of the world....that is to say, when a land surveyor from Africa started a discussion about surveying in their region of the world, that discussion would be considered network news which virtually came from that part of the world, carrying with it geographically unique and culturally specific terminology, ecological conditions,social and professional norms.
Below are a few dated excepts which demonstrate where my head was going during these times. You will notice that what I was trying my best to do was educate land surveyors about ways to share information, provide ways for surveyors to support one another and promote socialization of surveying knowledge:
Job Board For Land Surveying and Surveyor's Chat Room Added To Network
Surveyors (both new school and old school) really should have these tools of communication . They are among the most technology driven workers in the world. And although the information that they gather day to day in the field is so vitally important to our understanding of the earth and our growth as a society, it isn't hard to imagine how difficult it must be for surveyors to stay up to date in respect to changes in technology. I hope to eventually have created a few useful avenues of exploration and sharing for the common surveyor. Communication amongst these valued workers in the field, in my opinion shouldn't be limited to the woods. When the day is over and you're back at the office uploading data from the field, what better way to get advice, share stories and get support (burning that company time), than simply logging into an environment full of like minded individuals who know what they are talking about? It takes a mere 5 minutes to set up a profile and announce who you are. In the very least, you'll have learned something, meanwhile setting yourself up for new avenues of networking within the industry.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
New Thoughts on Blogging in the Surveying Equipment Industry
Land surveying and construction, as I have come to understand is a tough niche to socialize. For many reasons, there should be plenty of you who understand exactly what I mean by this. For example, creating an online network of surveyors for purposes of socializing ideas about the industry is most definitely not something that can occur over night. For one, those out there who I ultimately would like to connect with (and encourage to interact with one another) are for the most part standing behind a total station somewhere in the middle of the forest all day. Thus, my engagement with their needs can only occur when and if someone writes me a message or leaves an inquiry on a forum of some sort. I'm not out looking to sell them a piece of equipment they can't operate, but rather I want those that I help to find themselves not only satisfied with the tools they have chosen, I hope they somehow come to feel more comfortable with their choice, knowing that our relationship will yield endless support for them in the future. I certainly will not always have all of the answers but the they can always count on Palmetto knowing where to look for solutions.
What are we doing here.... Rebranding?
Yes. Well, if Entrepreneur.com is a worthy source, let's just say that we are partially rebranding. Palmetto Equipment has been a reliable company from the start, due to the values that my dad placed upon customer service- the one real thing that this industry lacks. It seems that this industry is being so consumed by the mergers and corporate takeovers that are occurring, that it has become difficult for the surveyor himself/ herself to find a company that he/she can count on. When all the Allen Precisions and Hayes Instruments of the world become wisked up into the mega-cloud of distributors in the sky, who will there be to take care of the hard working instrument man? He's the guy standing on the side of the road cursing himself because he can't seem to work his damn data collector...remember him?
Finding Thirsty Horses
One of the biggest corporate dilemmas with online media is how to best interact and engage the customer and prospective customer. Showing the world that my dad's company indeed has a voice to be heard, has been an exciting, yet at times, frustrating situation to monitor. Others out there who conduct similar types of business, truly seem to have no earthly idea about what it is that I am doing. Why? Mostly due to the fact that there are stark differences with intentionality. Many (if not most) in my position just want to sell high dollar equipment and just be done with it. However, this industry is changing at such a rapid rate that it has become more important than ever for those who are buying this equipment to have trusted support and channels that lead to answers. Surveyors are a tight bunch of people while they are out in the woods or along side of the road- they can troubleshoot in remarkable ways when it comes to closing a loop or pulling that impossible shot with precision. This becomes possible due to shared experience, dialog and communication, but mostly because of the teamwork element.What if the same opportunity for connectivity could be found online? Just think of the possibilities that could exist if the individuals who actually gather the data that produces the buildings and landscapes in which we all live had a place to network, share experiences and help one another troubleshoot problems that exist offline Just think...
December 2009
Creating Benchmarks
Land Surveyors United has officially become the destination of surveyors all over the globe and can be enjoyed in over 144 languages. It has become what it was intended to be-a place where land surveyors from any region can go to find answers to their problems in the field, affordable equipment and supplies and news from the industry. In the LSU forum, you will see surveyors hard at work and networking with other surveyors to get the job done. We are becoming a one stop site for all things surveying related and I want to congratulate you all for putting in such hard work while socializing. Remember the this sitetranslates into every language so there are no barriers as to what will be understood by other surveyors from the opposite side of the world. You all should be proud of being part of the largest most interactive social community of professional land surveyors anywhere in the world. Beef up those profiles with links to your business and experience, stuff to share and get those buddies in here to spread the wealth of knowledge that we have at our fingertips. Take a look at our member map and you'll see that we are quickly covering the globe.
Land Surveyors Find Support Options in Social Media
By early 2009, Land Surveyors United reached 200 members and things were starting to really move, as you can see from my snazzy discoball graphic displayed on the Palmetto Equipment blog post. Then by March 2009, we were at 300 members...all professional land surveyors and all starting to share the vision of a globally unified support space for land surveyors. I began setting benchmarks for myself and for the community and it wasn't long before we saw LSU members double and then some, reaching 675 members in December of 2009.
Tomorrow I will discuss the critical change on the Land Surveyors United network that occurred when I began to realize the importance that a social network can have in the real world. I'll tell you about the shift that occurred when I began mapping our members and providing ways for surveyors to find local surveying news right from their location based support group. Thank you for following this series of articles, written stream of conscience style in celebration of our 4th birthday. Happy Birthday Land Surveyors!
Thoughts