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Listening to and Maintaining your Community and Following

Having a community and following is something that most companies and people desire. It can be hard to maintain and expand that community but there are steps that can be taken to ensure the community is happy and lasts for a long time. The three simple steps listed will be targeting the right audience, maintaining and focusing on the needs of the community and growth & expansion. The examples listed will include big name companies to small groups. No matter how big your community is, there is always room for expansion and things that will bring everyone together.

Having a community and following means you need to treat the people who are in the community with some respect and carefulness. Many people join these communities and followings because they all share a common interest or belief. Keeping your focus on these core beliefs and values can ensure the community stays together and focused on goals and tasks. It is also important to listen to feedback and general comments. They can provide a lot of ways to improve and grow communities and followings.

Thousands attend Blizzcon each year. It is a convention created by Blizzard Entertainment. The majority are fans who share the passion and interest of Blizzard’s games

A good example comes from an online video game. Overwatch is an online video game where changes happen a lot in their game. Characters and new things being added to the game influences a lot inside. The game has a player base of over 35 million players monthly and many of these players have their own opinions to changes in the game and the overall state of the game. The developers at Blizzard Entertainment do a great job of listening to the community and fitting their needs. The development team and support team are always active on forums and social media to inform and assist others. They also release monthly update videos to give the player base an update on what they are doing with the game and what they want to know from the community about these changes etc. Blizzard shows a great example on how to create and maintain a large community and keep them active and happy in where they are.

Having a community and following shouldn’t be focused on profit and general gain for yourself or your company. A lot of people can rely on these communities and believe it progresses people’s lives and other aspects. A community’s voice can even have a large impact on companies and other products. For example if you are making a change to your website that many members of the community dislike, you may want to change the plan or ask the community how they would like it. It seems like a simple concept except many large companies can sometimes fail to suit their community’s needs.

Battlefront 2 by EA had the record lowest user rating of any triple A studio

This is an example of a game publisher focusing on economical gain and not listening to their community. Electronic Arts (EA) published the video game Star Wars Battlefront 2 which was hit hard with negative reviews and feedback from the community. A lot of the issues were profit orientated and didn’t work well with the large player base. Issues included loot boxes which you have to pay for, paying for in game bonuses which is unfair and other features that made the game almost unplayable. EA’s response is the current most down voted (disliked) comment on Reddit with over 600,000 down votes. Their response to the situation and lack of care for their community resulted in negative sales for the game and a stock decline in an already declining company. EA’s response was listed as one of the worst company decisions of 2017. EA has also been nominated as the worst company in the U.S of 2017 and almost won that award as a result of this backlash. All they had to do was listen to the community and make the appropriate changes and maybe they wouldn’t have lost millions of dollars and decreases in stock prices.

Growing and expanding your community is a future goal that most people look forward to. It allows the community to grow even more and allows for a wider range of ideas from going outside the target interest to even creating live events to becoming a company. There are many success stories of companies and communities doing these things.

E-sports is very popular with students.

For example, many universities across North America have been creating varsity level Esports teams and clubs across campuses. Scholarships and other programs are now being offered for playing video games at a high level. This started as a simple idea. For example, the University of Toronto had a Facebook page for all of their students who enjoyed playing video games. It slowly kept on growing and other universities did the same. As popularity of these groups became more popular, they expanded and reached out to other universities about hosting friendly tournaments etc. Eventually over 30 universities signed up for the first tournament and this started what is now known as the University Esports League. Now there are over hundreds of universities, colleges and even high schools doing the same thing in North America. This all started as a small Facebook group talking about video games to a multi-million dollar investment.

UC Irvine’s Esports arena was built to cater the growing trend

All the examples listed showcase the large impact that a community can have and ways a company or leader can turn things around. Some of the most important steps are to keep a maintained focus on what the community enjoys and what they want out of being in a community. Making changes or doing things that will upset the community will lead to problems occurring and can go downhill. The most important step is making sure everyone in your community is doing well and truly caring for them.

– Benson Lam

 

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Top 5 ECO Home Gadgets

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The 2000’s have been all about saving; saving energy to save our planet. This is what inspired me to create a list of the coolest high tech ways to save. My list is relatively basic but will make everyone who comes over envies. Now if saving the planet to you isn’t super important, then how about having the coolest home set up wale still keeping money in your pocket.

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1 – Belkin: Conserve Socket

The conserve Socket by Belkin is first on my list because of its simplicity but effectiveness. This device goes into your outlet and will automatically shut off. There are three different time settings; 30 minutes, 3 hours; 6 hours. Once the device shuts off no power is used preventing from fantom power (when a dives is off but still uses a small amount of energy). As you can tell this would be great for; your daughter how seem to always leave on her straightener, or the dad that can’t fall asleep with out the T.V. on, or how about charing your electronics. We know that leaving them plug in when fully charged isn’t good for the battery. Just set your timer and the plug will do to rest. I can think of so many different uses for this relatively cheep product, coming to just 10 dollars

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2 – Nest Smart Thermostat

This sleek looking and incredibly smart thermostat will be the prefaced addition to anyones home. Being one of the smartest thermostats on the market, its great for the forgetful or busy individual. The nest will start to learn your habits, yes LEARN. For example lets say that every night at 6 you turn up the tempetcher a few degrees, your nest will learn this habit and start doing it aromatically. Now if you get to hot and your already in bed, no problem because you can also control your Nest with your smart phone. This awesome addition to your home will also know when you leave for work and will shut off so that no extra energy is used when your not at home.

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3 – E-Shower

This new shower head will let you save with out even knowing it. This Kickstarter product saves 70% of your water but still has the same power and feel of your old one. The shower head combines air into the water stream creating “nano bubbles”allowing you to use less but still have a full feeling shower. Not only did they improve on the water savaging showers, they also solved one of their biggest flaws calcium builds up. The E-Shower will never clog with calcium, and keeps your shower clean from buildup. This small but mighty piece of tech will save you on your power and water bill and will cost $144-$195, depending on if you need a shower  arm or not.

 calgary, canada, cool, Eco, ECO friendly, edmonton, efficient, energy, Gadgets, Home, home gadgets, LED, lighting, ottawa, regina, technology, toronto, vancouver, Winnipeg

Philips Hue white and color ambiance starter kit A19

4 – Smart Lighting

This Philips hue starter kit is the coolest when it comes to smart home lighting. Yes these fancy lights connected to your smart device and can be controlled. This not only means you can change brightness, and colour from your smart phone, you can sync then to your smart T.V. as well. This set of lights comes with a movie sync feature that changes the lighting in your room according to what your watching, bring your viewing experience to the next level. Now all of this doesn’t  sound very ECO friendly but some other fetchers this supper cool gadget comes with are Away from home control and scheduled lighting. This is really helpful if your just as forgetful as me and come home from work to find you left half your lights on all day.  Sadly its not so cheep, coming to Just under $200. There are cheeper versions but come with less fetchers.

 calgary, canada, cool, Eco, ECO friendly, edmonton, efficient, energy, Gadgets, Home, home gadgets, LED, lighting, ottawa, regina, technology, toronto, vancouver, Winnipeg

Whirlpool® Smart Front Load Washer with 6th Sense Live™ Technology

5 -Smart Washing Machine

This Whirlpool Smart Washing machine allows you to control and monitor your machine from your smart phone. This gives you freedom to do the things you need to do through out your day but can still start your laundry during the lower energy cost times.  It also comes with many Energy saving features like Smart assistant, that helps you monitor your energy levels. This is sure to be a great saver if your in the market for one.

– Stephanie Bradshaw