Founded in 2008. The Landscape Juice Network (LJN) is the largest and fastest growing professional landscaping and horticultural association in the United Kingdom.
LJN's professional business forum is unrivalled and open to anyone within within the UK landscape industry
LJN's Business Objectives Group (BOG) is for any Pro serious about building their business.
For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
Replies
The tabs across the top now includes chat as well (or I just noticed it?) Before moving to Ning 2 there used to be a lot of chat between members but with the changing the chat system pretty much died a death but now perhaps we could bring it back a bit more?
'Group' chat exists via the horizontal green option bar, but operates somewhat in reverse, in that you have to Opt-in to one of the Chatrooms or have have someone 'Invite' you where as previously all logged in members were co-opted in by default. I'll discuss further with Phil
Certainly improved now the emailing of every reply has been sorted. Goes to show it's worth moaning now and then. ;-)
LJN aims to please, but you get an A+ for that skill ..... ;)
Lol, happy to help. :-)
On a serious note, criticism needs to be addressed. I know how damaging it can be when people have problems with changes, as usually they leave rather than complain.
I've seen an 80% loss of traffic on the forum I help out on after recent changes We could bury our heads in the sand, but better to address it.
The email issue was a new thing from the developers. It was really irritating and not needed, so it seems they removed it. Moaning aside, job needed doing, and job done.
Agree Paul.
Be sure, all "comments" are looked at seriously and discussed. Feedback is important to help the site move forward.
Where it can be resolved locally, it get's done. If not, Ning has to be approached for Support.
However, sometimes the ability to tweek/modify or change parts of the site are limited by its building block approach, money and time.
With full member support I know much more functionality and features could be made available......
At the risk of boring the pants off the people who don't care....
We found there's a huge issue with forums within web packages, as the free add-ons are useless, and the developers rarely understand forums. Forum hosting is so cheap it's worth considering a separate option.
The free forum should be the shop window for LJN, and if it's causing issues with things like email spamming then it puts people off.
Money and time are always going to be an issue, but forums are so cheap to host. It's when you try to combine them with more complicated websites that you get problems.
Keep the forum simple, and I'd be wary of too many comments that the bog (why is that still the name for a professional area?) is the only place to be. Many of us don't want to join and just love the forum, or chose to withdraw the optional payment, but we're all clicks for your advertising.
LJN is not just a forum, it's a social & business network with facilities and capabilities far exceeding those you allude to within basic web packages and you're right that's where many fail.
The main forum remains there for use should one not wish to utliise Pro membership. However LJN is and always will be more than that and will continue to evolve and improve.
the BOG (Business Objective Group) remains and, in my mind, will continue to be the core of where LJN needs to go. The name is quirky and disruptive with many having opposing views to those stated above.
I'd suggest that only advertising as a revenue source is not the way to fund an independant open forum and if it did, I would also suggest, many would then moan about that aspect !
Members are welcome to come on the ride, see where we go, what we find and do or stay at the station and continue to use those facilities.
It's all about choice, but then again the above is just my oppinion :)
I really think the new BOG Forum layout & front page activity feed is a major improvement and allows much more flexibility and clarity for Pro members