This new digest is ideal for groups who have a high volume of forum messages and have members who only want a few emails a day from the group. Here is a quick summary of details:

- You can choose to receive the topics-only daily digest by going to settings > email options. Then find the forum setting you want to change and set it to “Email daily message digest (topics only).”

- The topics-only daily digest will be sent after 25 new topics have been posted to the group, or at the end of the day, whichever comes first.

-Similar to the topics & comments digest, there are links to view the full discussion thread on BigTent, send a group-wide response to the topic, or contact the topic author directly.

- The topics & comments daily digest is still an option. This option is still the default for new members joining your group.

We hope your members find this new email option helpful. If you have any question please contact us by clicking “help” on any BigTent page and choosing “Submit a support case.”

Happy New Year!

Best,
Mary Ann & the BigTent Team

This past fall, BigTent celebrated the three-year anniversary of BigTent Group Administators (BTGA), an online group we formed to bring together BigTent group leaders and leverage collective knowledge in using BigTent to manage community groups.

When BTGA first got off the ground in the fall of 2006 there were only 20 group leaders -– now we have over 1,600! The content of BTGA conversations may have changed over time (different groups, challenges, and requests), but the end goal of supporting and informing our group leaders has remained the same.

Reflecting on this growth, we’ve made some structural changes to BTGA to make it an even better resource for leadership and best practices.  Here are the details:

- BTGA MODERATORS: Several leaders of active BigTent groups will become volunteer Community Moderators. Stay tuned for their formal introductions!

- GROUP: To help BTGA to have its own identity and lower the barrier of entry for new members, BTGA has been spun off from our company communication channel, BigTent Announcements, and is now its own separate group. Visit the BTGA public page to join today.

- BUGS: To help us better serve you when you find a bug, we ask you to please submit a case to our customer support team by clicking the “help” link on top of every BigTent page — there’s a link to submit a case right on the help page. Frequently, we need to find out specific information from you, and we’ve found it more effective to communicate with you about it via support case instead of the BTGA forum.

- FEATURE REQUESTS: Please file a support case to submit your feature requests. This ensures that your ideas are collected, counted, and analyzed by our Customer Experience team. The tools we have in our help area allow us to better track and respond to your great ideas.

Please know that we’ll still read the forums to find out what is important to you and your members. To contact us directly, please submit a support case.

Best,
The BigTent Team

Great news for everyone starting groups on BigTent! We just launched our Coach Corner, which is designed to help you learn the ropes for managing your group on our site.

The Coach Corner contains live, recorded, and printed resources to train both your leadership team and your members.  Sign up for a web training session with expert Community Coach, Jaine, check out a series of videos to make sure you’ve done everything necessary to set up your group, or download helpful guides for transitioning to BigTent.

We plan on making frequent Coach Corner updates to keep pace with new features and site growth, so be sure to check back frequently for new content. We look forward to seeing more of your groups on BigTent!

Best,

Rufus and the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Here’s a little Q&A with our fearless leader, Melanie:

Q. How does BigTent improve the day-to-day functions of your group?

A. BigTent offers seamless integration of a calendar, forum, news items — plus widgets to link the group to our website. On a typical day, you’ll see a variety of professional development opportunities, trainings, deadline reminders, and other resources posted to our group.

Q. What are your future goals for the group?

A. Our online group is still fairly new, so I’d like to see us up the rate of participation.

Q. Aside from your role with Access Colorado, what keeps you busy?

A. I practice yoga daily, spend time with friends and family, and teach computing skills to adults reentering the workforce.

In case you couldn’t attend this morning’s webinar, How to Grow Your Group, we have a copy of the slides and a recorded version of the webinar to help you out.

Jaine Murphy, BigTent Community Coach and expert in starting and growing groups, led the session and shared 10 tips for increasing publicity and member interest in groups. Audience members represented all kinds of great groups, including neighborhood, parenting, PTA, and non-profit organizations.

BigTent will continue to organize webinars in ongoing efforts to share best practices for leading groups and for getting the most out of our free site. We hope to see you at a future webinar!

Best,

Mia and the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Missed our free webinar for school group leaders? No worries, the slides and audio are now available:

PDF copy of the webinar slides. View and download all 10 tips in one easy document.

Audio recording of the webinar. Listen in at any time. Please note, it may take a couple of minutes for your browser to open up the WebEx Network Recording Player.

It’s great to connect with other dedicated school leaders like you. As volunteers, we often don’t hear thank you enough. So, I thank YOU for your part in connecting people for the benefit of children.

BigTent and I welcome any additional questions, feedback, or ideas for future webinars that you may have. Good luck with your group!

Best,

Monica

Croce PTA volunteer & BigTent expert

A big BigTent welcome goes out to the FlyLady community! Starting today, Wednesday, September 16, BigTent will begin hosting the communications that connect over 500,000 FlyBabies around the world.

FlyLady and her team chose BigTent for its ability to send timed newsletters, and the opportunity to strengthen their community through two-way discussions and organized subgroups.

If you currently receive FlyLady emails, you will continue to receive emails without having to make any changes. Your current email delivery options (daily digest or individual emails), will also be preserved with the switch to BigTent.

If you currently receive FlyLady emails and would like to see how FlyLady is set up on the BigTent Web site, please check your email today for a special invitation to join BigTent. The message will come from “no_reply@lists.bigtent.com”, and we recommend you add this address to your email “Safe List” to ensure delivery. To learn how to update your Safe List, please read our help article.

To join FlyLady as a new member, please visit the FlyLady BigTent page and fill out the form provided.

Welcome to BigTent! We are so excited to have you join us.

Best,

The BigTent team

About BigTent

BigTent (Big Tent Design, Inc.) is where trusted groups connect online.  The free platform for family-friendly organizations strengthens group involvement and simplifies group management. By combining the best of today’s social networking features with group management tools, Big Tent helps real-world communities share, communicate and organize online and in-person. Founded in 2006, the company is headquartered in San Francisco and currently hosts parents groups, PTAs, preschools, clubs and thousands of other community groups. Learn more at www.bigtent.com.

About FlyLady

Founded in 1999 by Marla Cilley, FlyLady is a mentoring group that uses the “Sidetracked Home Executive” (SHE) system to help members organize their homes and lives. Marla adds humor, spunk, and a dose of common sense to her advice. When members join FlyLady, they receive daily FLYmail with FLYing Lessons around setting up routines, removing clutter, and Finally Loving Yourself. The public is invited to join this group at https://www.bigtent.com/groups/flylady

Member manage page. This new addition your group’s Manage area enables you to navigate all the ins and outs of the membership process. You can change membership types and end dates, suspend or remove members, and create exceptions to your group renewal rules.

For example, let’s say Helene enjoyed her trial membership and upgraded early to a full membership. In just a few clicks, you can make this change in your group records:

Revised enrollment process. We’ve shortened the number of steps it takes for a new member to join your group, and we’ve made things more familiar by adding your group name and logo to every sign up page.

We hope these changes, in addition to our new support for international time zones and group subscription changes via email, help you connect with your trusted communities. We want to hear from you — please feel free to share any questions or feedback you have.

Best,

Michelle  & the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

Following a bevy of coverage in WalletPop and other blogs, The Boston Globe,  and a call in segment on Denver radio station Alice 105.9 (click on “Wanna Save HUNDREDS on Groceries? Here’s How…”), consumers have flocked to Kathy’s group in hopes of slashing their grocery bills. After hovering around the 1,500-member mark, How to Shop for Free has welcomed 4,000 new members this month. Way to go, Kathy!

The BigTent team had an opportunity to interview Kathy after she started her BigTent group in July 2008:

Q. We’d love to know more about you. When you’re not managing How to Shop for Free, what else are you juggling?

A. I have four kids, ages 3 to 18, so life is never dull in my house. I LOVE and I always will love, to save money and find great deals. I also run an Ebay store, which has enabled me to dress my kids in designer clothes like Limited Too and Baby Gap for free, and I can help others do the same.

Q. Why did you switch from Yahoo! to BigTent?

A. Our group talks about so many different stores and subjects, it was challenging to keep things organized by categories. BigTent has been such a huge time saver, and the group runs so much smoother now. I love it!

Q. What makes your group unique?

A. We do group meetups where we all meet to exchange coupons. Then we help newbies get through the grocery store, with a cart of super-cheap goods.

Our group chat also has a language of its own, with our talk of cats, Ecbs, onyo’s, tearpads, and blinkies. There’s also an imaginary friend, KWIM. Most newbies think we are nuts, but within no time they’re sharing coupon codes — and mentioning KWIM.

Q. Why does it cost $1 to join the group?

A. The fee is just there to make sure we build an active community that keeps out spammers and is full of people who really want to learn the secrets to coupons.

Q. What are your future hopes and plans for the group?

A. I would like to focus more on charity work with the group. We all have large stockpiles of items, and many members already donate to family, friends, churches and soup kitchens. I know we could do more as group.

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

A great opening keynote conversation with Lisa Stone (one of BlogHer’s founders), Tina Brown (Founder and EIC, The Daily Beast), Donna Byrd (Publisher, TheRoot.com), and Ilene Chaiken (executive producer of The L Word), set an energizing tone for the event. It was uplifting to hear how each woman has brought her successful, offline media career into the social media world.

BlogHer then gave participants a chance to explore every niche of blogging imaginable. Sessions ranged from WordPress geek labs, a personal favorite of mine, to discussions on changing FTC guidelines for bloggers.

In the thick of Tweeting, crowds, and flashy swag filling every corner of the Sheraton Chicago, Donna and I enjoyed catching up with some of our friends and leaders of groups on BigTent, including Silicon Valley Moms Group and Manic Mommies.

The parties, which included unicorn cake*, weren’t bad either.

BigTent is excited about the role we can play in helping bloggers evolve their conversations with readers and build strong communities. See you in New York in 2010!

Best,

Caroline & the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

*unicorn cake: