How would you turn vBulletin around?

Just a question of opinion, since a lot of people have their own answers here, how would you turn vBulletin back around to being as popular, liked and successful as it was prior to the vBulletin 4 fiasco if you were made the new project manager of vBulletin Solutions?

For me, I'm not sure. I don't agree that Kier's old style was the best possibility, but if I ran that company, I'd both try and get more major new features in (because let's be honest, there needs to be a lot of benefits for the end user as well as the administrator), and I'd try and please the community by communicating more, making the price fairer, etc...

 

ooohhh there is SO much I could say here - but won't.

 

Kier's proposed style left me somewhat underwhelmed when the screenshots came out, to be honest. As did the current one when it first appeared in the early alphas.

However, it's looking very good now. I still have reservations about the customisability of it though. All I've really seen so far has been people colouring a few title bars and leaving difficult stuff like the header anf the buttons either unchanged or looking like a total abortion.

 

Someone somewhere has suggested that vB. should re-hire Kier and the others who left in the last six months or so. That wouldn't be a cure-all, but it would get a lot of press and give people hope.

 

Kier was "the face" of vBulletin for years. As p*ssed off as he might be that what he built has, in many people's opinion, taken a downward turn, I highly doubt that he would work for Internet Brands again.

 

I too doubt that Kier would want to come back. It was my impression, however, that we are just blue-skying here.

 

Well, now that Ray Morgan is gone, that at least perhaps opens up the door to change and perhaps the adoption of a different approach, hopefully one different from the one of the last year and a half.

Perhaps there might be another reasonable explanation for Ray's departure, beyond his public explanation of that he just suddenly decided to retire to Central America.

Maybe the intention of Ray's role all along, was for him to basically come in for a short time, make a bunch of unpopular changes, position the company for higher financial returns and then leave. Perhaps it was all by design that Ray would come in to be "the bad guy", and then once the changes are implemented, he would then leave - it sure seems to fit.

If that's the case, I would think that it's quite possible that after his departure, we can expect the next manager that comes in will be the customer friendly type, who's mandate it will be to clean up the remaining mess and play the "good guy" role.

I guess I just find it hard to believe, that Ray just suddenly decided to retire out of the blue. I would think, if he has been building a house in Central America, (something it appears he's been doing and planning for some time) that the plan all along, has been that his tenure would be short in nature. And, I would think IB's management most likely were quite cognicent of all of this and of the timelines involved, as typically management at the level of Ray, have contracts that spell out things pretty clearly. Whatever the case, I would seriously doubt the contract stipulates that Ray can depart at any time by giving his two weeks notice.

That's all obviously just speculation on my part, but it will be interesting to hear what the true story is, when the truth no doubt, comes out in the end.

 

Sell it to Invision.

 

lol.... :rofl:

 

i dont feel the "hate" that most everyone feels towards vb, so i cant really say what i would change.

 

No need to hate vBulletin, just what would you do if you were allowed to run the product as Project Manager?

 

The problem is - the old management of vbulletin has not listened to the customers. The project has grown stale, almost to the point of displaying a level of incompetence.

We, as end users have grown accustomed to this incompetence, lack of change, stagnation,,, to where we expect no less.

We are used to the management of vbulletin not listening to us.
We are used to being ignored.
we are used to not getting any real changes in updates.
We are used to social networking sites passing us up.

Maybe internet brands can change all of that. The problem is, people do not like change. We like things to stay the same - as bad as it may be sometimes.

I would turn vbulletin around by offering a content management system, offering built in search engine friendly URLs, built in sitemap generator, develop some kind of social networking script,,,,,.

Then, I would sell that product for a quality price. That would weed out the serious forum owners from the others.

I see no reason for someone to open a vbulletin forum, only to close it in a few months. If raising the price will stop a lot of the "fly by night" forums, then so be it.

If fewer people buy vbulletin, that will raise the quality of the product for everyone else. We need serious forum owners to buy vbulletin. Not people who start a forum, close it, start, close, start, close,,,,.

 

The first thing I would do is probably turn over the project management portion to someone more adept than me. I don't have a lot of software project management. I would also let folks like customer support, focus on exactly there. Support. They wouldn't be the ones conducting public relations.

I'd focus on working with the community. I'd practice the Google mantra of "do no evil". I would appoint a community liason or product enthusiast to help manage the customer relations.

• I would ensure that my team doesn't fall into the pit of over-confidence.
• I would ensure the team gets in the habit of doing the right thing even when you don't feel like doing it.
• Think, and think again before I act.
• I would remind the team that impulsiveness will do us in.
• I would get rid of people that truely were not happy at Jelsoft.

I would leave the current pricing and licensing structure as I think it makes good business sense. I would encourage certain tennents within the customer community.

I belive that Vbulletin has somewhere along the way lost it's values. That they've been attempting to look good without doing good. That they've been avoiding the truth as a symtom of their lack of commitment to the customer.

I would make sure we were providing opportunities for thecommunity to do good things. In order to provide those opportunities I would provide helpful ideas and concepts to our community members in one way or another. In otherwords, as a leader I would help set the tone, pacing and affinity for people in your community.

I would change the feel of the customer community.

 

My issue with this is that raising the price just to weed out "serious" forum owners from "the others" would likely put the price out of reach of hobbyist and/or forum owners who run a serious forum, but not for profit. I can't see this being fair.

However, I can, and do, agree with you about the forum owners who open and close forums with the changing of the tide.

I knew there was a reason I like you.

 

ROFL! ^

 

Oh real funny... [/sarcasm]

True with the relations bit, but assume you did have the skills to manage vBulletin for this question, okay?

That seems a fairly good point. Heck, if I was running a business, I would definitely consider the last bullet point on the list, simply because I never got the point of keeping someone around who doesn't like the product or company.
The first one seems best though.

How would you change the feel of the customer community?

True. Although me already accepting stagnation is probably because other companies I support, don't particularly listen to the customers in the first place.

I would turn vbulletin around by offering a content management system, offering built in search engine friendly URLs, built in sitemap generator, develop some kind of social networking script,,,,,.[/QUOTE]

Isn't this much like what vBulletin 4 is already offering, except maybe better quality versions of the products feature and coding wise? What kind of social networking script?

This is the only thing I'd disagree with, if only because many people do not have a high regular cash flow. And let's face it, most free forums are pretty horrible, otherwise more people would be using them (I will get a lot of criticism for the last sentence).

True, less fly by night forums would be a definite improvement.

 

I think implimenting the changes I suggested would change the feel of the community.

More specifically though I think the community suffers from a bad case of discouragement and doubt. As such I would address it by:

• Considering the different causes of discouragement.
• Identify the varied causes.
  • IE, Discouragement is caused by unmet expectations.
  • IE, Expectations set us up for discouragement because they're often unrealistic.
• Examine the characteristics of a discouraged customers.
• Set new realistic expectations.

Most of the customer discouragement is trivial. Typically worries revolve around some kind of doubt. This is what holds us back. If Jelsoft doesn't deal with customer doubts they'll ruin the community, and prevents Jelsoft from doing what they need to be doing with the customers. So in order to overcome customer doubts:

• Customer doubts should be confronted, not ignored.
• Teach and point out objectively at the evidence.
• If customers doubts about something, investigate the evidence.

I think that by addressing customer doubts and unmet or unresolved expectations the feel of the community would improve for the better.

This combined with an active product enthusiast working to coordinate feedback and issue more proactive communication will ultimately yeild a better product and a happier community.

In addition I would impliment to a greater degree the beliefs and values I posted in these two posts.

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?315635-Keeping-Customers-Happy

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?310648-Customer-Community-Management-Enhancement

 

Well,

I think I would probably work on the path that we're currently down. On the technical side of things I would continue how the CMS is being developed and have the portions of the forums that need to be rewritten be rewritten.

Specifcally a content based approach. Meaning that content types, whether that is blogs, posts, articles are treated the same and templates are applied. The layout manager be extended to the forums and blogs. The stylevar system be improved and the theme be retooled a bit to be consistant throughout all products.

I would delay the release only a few short weeks.

 

At present, they have to refund money in order to put people in the position they should have been in. Any talk about the future is premature - it merely sweeps all the wrongful under the carpet and pretends like it didn't exist.

I and many others were forced to upgrade our licenses for $130. My other licenses required $190. Want to start off on the right foot? Begin by sending me a refund check for every license I didn't want to upgrade above and beyond the $40 maintenance subscription I could have and should have been able to purchase. Unfortunately, this will never happen.

Second, as long as the current CEO and executive management is in place, I can't see anything changing. I see the trust factor in going forward here about as likely as seeing my money come back and the fairness of providing me the maintenance subscriptions that I was told was part of the bargain years ago. Does Ray have to give back any part of the record bonuses he may have received after he escapes to Central America or is our money already gone?

So far the best suggestion I heard is to sell it to Invision, lol.