Feedback forum is now up and running

Dear all,

Now that NABUUR Beta has been online for a few days we're starting to receive feedback and comments from NABUUR users. In order to keep things transparent and more efficient, we set up a feedback discussion thread in the web development group.

To leave your comments, ask questions, or report a bug, log in to www.nabuur.com and click on the following link: http://www.nabuur.com/en/group/nabuurcom-website-development/project/task/general-feedback

In that thread you can also read up on the latest bug reports and see what fellow users have to say about the new site.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to make your thoughts known, and please keep 'em coming!

Romina

A celebratory drink, and back to work it is!

What's a website launch without a party, right? After a rather long and busy day in the office yesterday, the NABUUR team (minus Gerdie and Pelle who happen to be on holiday) ventured into the heart of Amersfoort for a lovely meal, accompanied by some liquid joy (read drinks) to celebrate the launch of the new website.

Check out the smiling faces below.

And if you haven't done so yet, please take a peek at www.nabuur.com and let us know what you think.

(From left to right: Siegfried, Rolf, Kester, Frans - Yours truly is holding the camera.)

The new NABUUR site is now live!

Dear all,

Have you visited NABUUR.com yet? If so, you'll have noticed we are now live with the new site - and we're beyond ecstatic to have it up and running! So help us celebrate by browsing or logging in to the new site, and checking out what's new. As always, any feedback is welcome. You can post your comments here or send them to us at info@nabuur.com

And last, but not least, I hereby copy a message from NABUUR's CEO, Siegfried Woldhek, that was sent out to all our users.

See you online!
Romina


"Dear Neighbours,

With much joy I announce today that the new and improved website is live! Over the past months you have seen it take shape via the demo site. Neighbours from all over the world not only supplied recommendations or feedback, but also contributed text, translations, theming and coding online. One of them even filled a sudden mid-project vacancy. The new Nabuur platform has been completely built by drawing on the Nabuur global neighbour network! It has been a massive effort and on behalf of myself and the rest of the team, I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank you for your dedication to help improve the NABUUR platform for the benefit of local communities worldwide. The energy behind this effort has been tremendous and gratifying. The result is a site that I believe represents a significant leap forward in improving the quality, accessibility and effectiveness of the NABUUR model

Some important changes aren’t visible to the naked eye. Changes were made to the processes, too. Local Communities e.g now help each other prepare the projects before they appear on the site. The role of the NABUUR staff has shifted from “waiter” to “host.”

The previous NABUUR website proved the concept can work, and now it’s time to ensure that many more Local Communities and Neighbours can use it effectively. That is what the new site will do. Because the possibilities of the internet keep changing rapidly, the NABUUR Beta has been designed so that it can be improved and changed very easily. In fact, a list of additions for the coming weeks and months is already being put together and will be up in the new Nabuur.com development group shortly. Jointly we’ll thus create an ever more effective platform. So keep in mind that the improved site you see now is just the beginning.

Let me give you a few examples of some new things that you’ll be able to do and experience with NABUUR Beta:

- Notification of new posts in your village. You’ll have a choice of receiving this notification in your email accounts or in your private message inbox. (You can choose which by adjusting the settings in your profile.)

- Village chat room is back! Here you’ll be able to chat with fellow Neighbours who are online in your village. It will be a lot easier to discuss the project in this way.

- There will be the chance to tag (label) the resources and documents you post, which will make it easier to share these resources across the whole website and in your own village.

- Via the ‘groups’ you can now organize yourself with your colleagues and Neighbours in any way you see fit; around themes, expertise, neighbour meetups, etc.

As I already mentioned above, this will be put up in the new Nabuur.com development group shortly so that we can jointly continue to improve and adapt the platform.
If you like what you see, then please share it with your friends and families. This has been made a lot easier as at the bottom of each page there’s a ‘share this’ set of bookmarks for other sites such as Digg, Facebook, del.icio.us, etc. By clicking on one or more of these, you can help spread the new site to many new users.

On behalf of the team in Amersfoort I want to thank you once again and I look forward to working with you more on the new NABUUR Beta.

Warm regards,

Siegfried Woldhek
Founder / ceo"

Monday is the big day!

It's now almost 6PM on Friday evening. I'm sitting in front of our programmer who's been sitting in the office since 6AM, making sure all things are go for the final migration this weekend. It's been a long day for everyone, and it will continue into the weekend, but the good news is that we're almost there and NABUUR Beta will go live on Monday.

Just a quick note of gratitude to all our NABUUR volunteers who have provided feedback over the past few months, and who have offered their assistance with testing and web development. This improved website is indeed a team effort, so thanks to everyone involved. It couldn't have been made without you.

Please remember that log in to NABUUR.com will be disabled this weekend as the final data migration is conducted.

Have a super weekend and see you online on Monday at NABUUR Beta.

Romina

A quick preview of the Village pages

Things are quickly taking shape on the demo site in anticipation for the launch of NABUUR Beta on Monday. Today, Frans has announced the Village pages are almost ready, so we thought you might want to take a peek.

Please click HERE and browse around the different tabs.

Keep in mind that this is just a preview. The theming (design) still needs tweaking and there may be some functionalities that are missing (i.e. newsletter archive) but it should all be in place by Monday.

Like it? Don't like it? Let us know by posting here or emailing info@nabuur.com

Have a great day, everyone.

Romina

Notice: Log in disabled this coming weekend

Hi everyone,

This coming Friday we'll be making the final move to the new NABUUR.com website. In order to do this, the programmers need full access to the current website so NABUUR.com will have its log in disabled starting Friday July 25th at 18:00 CET until Monday July 28th. The log in should be restored Monday starting 09:00 CET.

This means you'll still have access to the NABUUR.com website, browse its pages but not log in, post comments, or upload any information. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

If you have any questions, please post them here or contact us via email at info@nabuur.com. Thanks everyone for your cooperation.

Romina

People often ask us what this migration business is all about...

Over the past few weeks you've been hearing a lot about migration of data on NABUUR.com. It's perfectly understandable if this technical concept is difficult to grasp, so we asked Pelle Aardema, project manager at NABUUR, to have a go at explaining what this migration business is all about - in plain English. Ever the 'think-outside-the-box' type, Pelle compared the migration of data (basically all content - pictures, documents, links, etc.) from the old website to the new website, to moving into a new house.

While reading, picture the old house being the old NABUUR.com website, with each room representing one of the 152 Villages currently online...

"The old house is quite big, it has 152 rooms, and all the rooms are full of boxes. Some of the rooms contain over 10.000 boxes. Some of these boxes contain pictures or important documents. Of course we've had to decide in what room the boxes will be moved into the new house. But in order to make sure all the pictures and documents aren't lost, we're going through all the boxes to see if there are pictures or documents in them, and make sure they are brought to the new house first, before all the boxes are moved in. In order to keep track of the context of the pictures, a link is put on the boxes that show the new location of the picture."

There you have it, migration explained a la Pelle. So only a few more days to go, and the move will be all but complete. Then comes the house party, which will take place when the programmers hit the 'live' button on the new website - and you're all invited!

Romina

(Pelle at his desk, seeing the world through migration colored glasses.)

No publishing on demo site for the weekend

Dear all,

Looking ahead to another weekend of work for the demo site. To get the final bits of the migration completed, along with other updates that need to be made, publishing on the demo site (demo.nabuurtest.com) will be turned off for the weekend.

This means that you can still browse through the site, but please refrain from posting or uploading information as it will not be saved.

Please note this does not affect the current NABUUR.com website - we hope to see you online there!

Enjoy your weekend, everyone. :)

Romina

Counting down to NABUUR Beta

The closer we get to the launch date of NABUUR Beta, the more techie-speak is heard around the office. Even during lunch hour where the topic today was theming of the blocks and panels...Or something to that effect, though admittedly, I just smiled and nodded throughout the conversation. But here's what you should know - and relax; it's in plain English!

~ The first translation pages are up. Thanks to the quick work of our volunteer language translators, we have the first translated pages ready and they have been added to the website.

~ The Village chat room has been tested and it's working perfectly, so you'll be able to chat with Facilitators, Local Reps and Neighbours about the project, in real time - as before!

~ Theming continues on its path, bigger and better every day.

~ A set of user test questions will be tackled by a few of our volunteer Facilitators to make sure functionalities are working as expected.

~ New Village projects are being added, with the project definition starting next week.

Eagerly counting down, and we hope you are too.
More coming up very soon!

Romina

Your Monday dose of NABUUR news

Hey everyone,

Why is it that the weekend always goes by so fast?!? At least we had some sun over the weekend (after a week of rain and chills) so no complaints on my part. :)

Monday started with our customary meeting, where a few things were addressed. Here's a quick recap.

- The last bits of migration are being done. There were some hiccups with images but they have been recovered now. Of course, the migration will be tested so a testing plan is being devised to make sure nothing slips past us.

- Rolf and Frans are pouring their time into the theming of the village pages. In some cases the theming can't be done before the content is there, so the content is being filled in as quickly as possible, then - you guessed it - the theming can get fully underway.

- All processes are being tested to make sure everyone accessing NABUUR.com finds it an easy to nagivate ride. Processes from registration to creating a task in a Village, and everything else that falls in between, will be tested out.

If you're like us, you're looking forward to know when NABUUR Beta will see the light. Fingers and toes crossed, the site will be launched within the next two weeks. As mentioned before, this will be a soft launch, meaning that functionalities will continue to be added after the launch date.

In the meantime, tons more things are happening. A NABUUR wide newsletter will be sent out by tomorrow so happy reading!

Ciao for now,

Romina

Holidays

Dear readers,

I will be away for a while to relax and reload my batteries for the next steps in the development of NABUUR.com.

Thanks for the commitment, feedback and your patience so far. I am looking forward to what's coming up. Really,I do believe in the new possibilities which the NABUUR Beta site will give for faster and easier results in the Villages. And not to forget; it will be so much more efficient, fun and self-organising. At least, that's what we are aiming for.

Also happy that we are launching it ''soft'': step by step and not a whole new site at once. This gives the opportunity to make improvements on the way, together with you.

So far for now...stay tuned,

Gerdie

How will new projects come online?

As we've had to put a hold on new projects coming online in the past few months, there are currently over 130 projects in the pipeline, with many of them eager to come online as new NABUUR Villages. We've already established contact with most of them to advise them of the new process - so we thought we'd share it with you as well.

The Villages (or projects) waiting have been asked to answer some very specific questions regarding their local community and project. These questions will help determine if the project is feasible and achievable within NABUUR standards. The new local reps will be asked to join a preparation group on the new website where along with a special task force they will define their projects and outline tasks for the neighbours to work on. The task force is made up of experienced Neighbours, facilitators, leading local reps and a few external experts in project management. Each new local rep will be matched up to a project manager where they'll be given a space in the preparation group where they can discuss the project definition. The group will be visible to all NABUUR neighbours, but the discussion threads will only be accessible by the expert in project management and the local rep. No offence meant: Just trying to avoid too many chefs in the kitchen!

Simultaneously as the local rep works on the project definition, they will begin filling in their village pages with the assistance of leading local reps and yours truly.

This is a new process and we sincerely think it can work. We are emphasizing the peer to peer aspect and have already had positive feedback on this new way of working.

As soon as the preparation group is fully set up, we'll link you up to it so you can see how things are being set up.

Romina

You may have been spammed...

We're sorry to say that overnight you may have received a spam message from NABUUR. This was caused due to a mistake in not turning off the email function off for the test and feedback site.

If you received emails sent from info@nabuur.com with the titles below, please ignore them.


Subject line: You are now an administrator for the group (name)

and

Subject line: Replacement login information anaragaj at Nabuur 2.0 Demo Site.

Apologies if this caused any inconvenience, and thank you for your understanding.

Romina

Screenshots, screenshots!

Hi everyone,

The week is ending with good news on one hand, but sad news on the other. Our theming expert Gertjan has had to resign his work at NABUUR due to health reasons. It was a great experience to work with him, and we wish him all the best. Thanks Gertjan for your dedication to the new site, you’ll be missed.

The good news comes in the form of the screenshots below. You’ll see a preview of the homepage and the Village page (both still in progress) which we hope you’ll like. Just so you know, the current image in the middle of the homepage (where it now says "Volunteer from behind your computer...") will be replaced by a video showing some of our NABUUR volunteers and explaining how to join. A real dynamic homepage!

We wish everyone a happy weekend and hope you make your comments known on the screenshots.

Gerdie and Romina