Wind of change....Unhappy with Purestorm for the first time...

Quote from Crazy_Diamond
Not all changes are perceived as good....we've changed from having no speed cameras to having loads, some perceive it as good some as bad....are the ones that see it as bad really Luddites?
Likewise the change to ID cards?
Just a couple of examples.

In the last week, people at my studio have commented...these are people that you don't notice on Purestorm, they don't post on the forums, they don't advertise for models, they just silently come onto the site and arrange shoots. Out of 6 people who commented (I didn't solicit any comments btw), 1 liked it and 5 didn't.

Do these people represent the (maybe 80%+) "lurkers" who never express a view or make comments on the forum?

No way of knowing, until, perhaps some months down the line they gradually evaporate away to other sites....realistically they ain't going to jump ship rapidly, they're conservative people (hence their views on change) and might take weeks or months to reach their decision or take action. Taking straw polls a few days into the changes is naive bordering on the stupid and demonstrates nothing except a lack of understanding about how the real world works.

Managing change is one of the most difficult things to do in an organisation.....it's hard even when it's employees involved (who face the choice of changing or getting the sack) getting customers (using the term in it's widest sense) who cannot be compelled to accept change is even more problematical.

I suspect nobody within Purestorm has even googled "change management"....the attitude of "play elsewhere", would bear that out.

The fact is that change always alienates some people, it always will.....unfortunately the blunt instrument of the "play elsewhere" attitude will just alienate even more, as it clearly demonstrates a bombastic and arrogant attitude and, if continued, will cause serious long term damage to the popularity of this site.

The change might be good...but sneering, shouting down, insulting and effectively telling dissenters to "eff off" shows a level of ignorance that cannot be allowed in any organisation, particularly a "customer facing" one; it will drive away even those that agree with the change as they will object to the ethos and style being pursued.

Quote from Desova

Quote from matt
Guys, give me a little bit of time to implement the changes I mentioned earlier, additionally I will also add a section to the home page that will list the latest casting calls, I will also be changing the location to regions rather than counties, ie south west, south east etc.. lets see how it looks after the changes have been made

Quote from Desova

At the risk of sounding like an arse here, why remove the old system to replace it with a new system which wasn't functional yet? In additional to my above comment on people reading documentation - if people try a system and it doesn't work, the chances are they won't try it again on the offchange it has improved. What really should be done with what could be regarded as a critical feature of the site would have been to Beta the new system and iron out all the issues / get feedback whilst the main system was in place, and then migrate from one fully functional system to another. Whilst it might seem like a bit more work it'd have eliminated most of the complaints about the system and vastly reduced the number of people to dislike / stop using the casting systems. I say this as a software engineer with a lot of industrial clients, and I know if I made major changes to software in the same way I wouldn't remain employed for very long.

Quote from Two_stops
Not posted on this before, but I'm still undecided which is better from a finding suitable work partners position, what I didn't like was the censorship when posts became read only, through the replies many models that wouldn't normally be seen came to the fore, it also gave an opportunity to gauge their commitment from the posts they wrote, all this has been lost and I feel the site and its members have lost out as a result.

Can someone explain where to find the tuition courses that were frequently advertised before, as the new system doesn't seem to cater for them now.

John

Quote from matt
Yes, admittedly I made a mistake in rolling it out before it was fully ready, and for that I do apologise

Quote from Desova
What really should be done with what could be regarded as a critical feature of the site would have been to Beta the new system and iron out all the issues / get feedback whilst the main system was in place, and then migrate from one fully functional system to another.