( I + P )

"Design should bring the most of the best to the greatest amount of people for the least."

- Charles Eames 

London-based artist Paul St George recently unveiled an exhibit called The Telectroscope.  In the piece, giant, steam-punk style telescopes embedded in the pedestrian walkways in London and NYC provides onlookers with a real-time view of people on the other side.  Even more impressive is the story as to how this idea came about.

While today's version is done with video streaming technology, it's a whimsical piece and worth checking out if you're in either town. Here's an excerpt from the story page:

Some years ago an artist by the name of Paul St George happened upon a packet of dusty papers in a trunk in his grandmother’s attic. On further inspection he discovered that they had been the property of his great-grandfather, an eccentric Victorian engineer, Alexander Stanhope St George.

Paul began to read through the papers and discovered a veritable treasure trove: diaries, diagrams, correspondence, scribbled calculations, and even one or two photographs. At first, Paul felt a detached interest in this first hand account of social and cultural history. But as he read on, he became more and more absorbed, until, with a sudden thrill, he realised that these papers could have a greater significance than was at first apparent.

The notebooks were full of intricate drawings and passages of writing describing a strange machine. This device looked like an enormous telescope with a strange bee-hive shaped cowl at one end containing a complex configuration of mirrors and lenses. Alexander seemed to be suggesting that this invention, which he called a Telectroscope, would act as a visual amplifier, allowing people to see through a tunnel of immense length… a tunnel, the drawings implied, stretching from one side of the world to the other.

 
When you create a group on Convos, a Page is displayed in the rightmost panel. This is your default Group Welcome Page (shown left) and the first thing members will see when they access your group.

Why not take some time to make this welcome page unique before inviting members to the group? It's easy to do and can really make your new members feel welcome.
 

Get Creative!
As an admin, you have the ability to customize this page to display whatever you would like your group members to see when they access the group. Below are some examples of how a dinner party group might use a Group Welcome Page:

 Group Name                   Quote Board                   Letter from the leader 

Schedule                         Recipes                            ASCII Art

It's easy to customize!

Ready to customize your group's welcome page? Simply click the "Group Welcome Page" in the middle panel (in Pages) and your welcome page will display some simple WYSIWYG controls at the bottom.

Need some help?

Stop by the Convos Help Center for a step-by-step guide to setting up your group welcome pages.

Not feeling creative?  Contact us here and we would be happy to help you to make a nice welcome page for your group.

We just launched a new way for you to select the recipients of personal messages by accessing your contacts, groups, and members of groups (where the group member directory is enabled).  Below is an overview of how to use this new feature for Personal Messages.

First, click the "Personal Items" dropdown in the top of the middle panel and select "Message".  A new message will appear in the right panel of the Convos interface.

Click the "To" button on the new message. A pop-up window will appear with a tree list as shown below.

From here we can select anyone in our Contacts module, any of our group's email addresses, or any member from groups that we are member of (only if the group has enabled the member directory module).

When you select the recipient(s) for your message, simply click "Ok" and they will be displayed in the "To" field on your message

As always, if you know the email address of the recipient(s), you can type them directly into the "To" field (separated by comma for multiple).

Try it out for yourself and let us know what you think.

We just released the newly designed Group Setup process. When you click "Start a Group", a pop-up will appear and allow you to select your group name, group email address, and enter an optional group description. If you click "Save & Close", a new Private Listserv group will be created.

If you wish to modify additional group settings before you create the group, click through the options on the top of the screen to update the following:

Group Type - Choose Private or Open membership and select your group's messaging platform (Listserv, Moderated, or Mailing List)

Member Profiles - Setup the member profile form that all members will be asked to fill out when invited to the group

Directory - Allow your group to be searchable in the Convos Public Directory

This clean, simple design allows you to setup a group very quickly (by entering a group name, group email, and clicking "Save & Close") and also allows you to easily setup your additional group options.