The Biznik Blog - where business networking meets the future

I’m delighted to announce a new feature for the Biznik business networking community: member badges. These little icons will display under your profile photo, and elsewhere on the site, so that members can tell at a glance how you are contributing to the community. For example, if you’ve hosted at least one event, an “event host” badge will now automatically appear under your profile photo.

Many of the badges are awarded by the community: for example, to earn an “expert” badge, you must have published at least 4 articles that the community has given an average rating of 8 out of 10. A “tipster” badge is earned the same way: you must have published 5 tips that are rated at least 8.

Here’s what the badges look like, and how to earn them:

	To earn a Connector badge, 10 people you have invited to Biznik must have followed your invitation link and signed up.
	To earn a Tipster badge, you must post 5 tips with an average rating of 8 or above. Write a tip.
	To earn Expert status, you must write 4 articles which are rated 8 or above by the Biznik community. Write an article.
	Event hosts build community by hosting business networking events, such as happy hours, and workshops. Host an event.
	Instructors teach Biznik Business Essentials workshops. Instructor badges are awarded by invitation only. Contact me if you’re interested in becoming an instructor.
	Biznik staff moderate forums and events, and are always happy to answer your questions and help you out.
	Biznik editors review articles and tips, and will work with you to prepare your article for publication.

NOTE: We’re still working out some bugs on these - for example, there’s a bug that is preventing some article authors from having an “expert badge” because it’s calculating incorrectly - that will be fixed next time the script runs that updates your status. That runs every night at midnight, so if you hosted an event (defined as recording attendance) don’t be surprised if you don’t immediately receive a badge - you’ll see it on your profile the next morning. Also, event hosts are being calculated incorrectly - my badge shows that I’ve hosted only 18 events, but I’ve actually hosted 52. We’ll get that fixed asap.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 13th, 2008 at 6:41 am and is filed under News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.