The Buddy List and Groups

We anticipate the activity on this website to pick up as we get closer to the event in Carefree, AZ, even if you aren't attending. In anticipation of the event, we encourage you to discuss your interests and curiosities in the topics of this website so that by the time you get to the event, you can take more advantage of your time there. To help facilitate collaboration, we encourage you to utilize some of the networking tools installed on this website, which include:

Groups - There are six main groups on this site, five focused on the track topics, and one just for general topics surrounding the event. This post is in the general topic, for example. You can see all of the groups in the box down the right side of this page. Join in the discussions in the groups that are of interest to you. You only receive emails from posts in a group if you are subscribed to that group, so one advantage of using groups is that you only have to participate in the discussions that are of interest to you, rather than everything going on in the entire website. Once you have joined a group, you will receive email notifications when a new posting is made, making it easier to track the discussions. Basically, groups help you focus on your interests only!

Buddy List - You may be familiar with the concept of a buddy list from your AOL days, or your MSN and/or Yahoo Messenger experiences, and this website's buddy list follows the same general structure. However, on this particular site, you can use these buddy lists to form your own small groups around your particular interests. Down the left column, when you are logged in, you will see only the posts that your buddies have made. This allows you to track only the discussions of the people you know or are interested in. If you find someone is posting on a topic that is of great interest to you, ask them to be your buddy too, and then you can track their posts as well. This allows you to narrow your website tracking further, while getting to know other colleagues in your interest area.

There are many other applications on this website, but hopefully these two will help get you started towards a more engaging experience on this website, as well as at the event itself.

- Symposium Team