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 Posted:
Fri Nov 24, 2006 11:32 am
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God
Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 35
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Some users have asked for a more candid reason why greendotlife.com abruptly went down and we believe you deserve an answer. We know if web services that we used went down suddenly we would be hard pressed to trust them again in the future. Here's the full story:
From the beginning, greendotlife was a collaborative effort of several people internal to the company. Due to various reasons, we believe that the firm picked out one or two people whom it guessed was responsible. In our opinion, the Firm did not explicitly ask for the site to be taken down but at that point we felt that the risk/reward equation was no longer justifiable.
When we first shut down the site, we believed that we had at least demonstrated that there was a desire among people in the firm to communicate and build community and we thought that most likely, the Firm would in turn provide an alternate outlet that would make greendotlife obsolete anyway. Our belief was incorrect - we see the Firm as still a largely disjointed network held together only through the quarterly all-hands and Friday chats if you're lucky enough to be on a 3-4-5 project.
Over time, several "discovered" members of the original founding team left for various reasons. At that point, the remaining founders reconvened and decided to open the doors again because 1) we could again safely operate under the umbrella of relative anonymity 2) nothing technical stopped us from reviving greendotlife in its original form and 3) we simply missed the feeling of community that we feel had developed here.
As always, we'll try to be as open as possible in a situation like this. Feel free to post questions (as a reply to this post) or shoot us an e-mail at admin@greendotlife.com. |
Last edited by greendotlife on Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:41 pm
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Senior Manager
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 77
Location: home is where the client is.
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Let me be the first to say "welcome back" and "thank you" -- I've enjoyed this site since I first logged on, and appreciate the sense of community built here.
Thanks for putting the site back up!! |
_________________
Reality is what you can get away with |
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Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:54 pm
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Principal
Joined: 26 May 2005
Posts: 163
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Agreed.
I think its in the best interest of the firm to keep this site up... it a great way for them to let the practitioners connect with other practitioners without them taking on the liability.
The problem is, I don't think the firm will ever understand the value of Green Dot Life (They don't even know what a blog is for christ's sake! Their internal controls are just fucking crazy) and unfortunately will try like hell to shut it down.
Long live Green Dot Life! Thanks for keeping us all in touch while we're on the road and giving us a forum to vent our frustrations without fear of getting dumped on by a partner! |
_________________
Hey, don't shoot me... I'm just the messenger |
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Fri Nov 24, 2006 9:20 pm
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God
Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 35
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| From Vault User 'Loyalty Works Both Ways': Who told you to take the site down? What were their objections? I saw nothing offensive in there.
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As we mentioned earlier, no one explicitly asked us to take the site down. But, we believed that since they knew some of the people running it, we were causing those people undue career stress by keeping the site running.
The primary objections that were raised revolved around:
1. The site is as anonymous as we have been able to make it (as opposed to GPCS and other firm-run surveys that claim to be anonymous but often require you to do them through The Firm Intranet).
2. The content of posts here is uncontrolled by anyone. We try to avoid moderation unless we deem something to be extremely offensive (this has happened maybe twice in GDL's history). I think it's always a scary proposition for any corporation to have their external and/or internal messaging not controlled by HR and/or marketing.
Again, we think the Firm was pretty forward-thinking to not demand immediate removal. Since then we have technologically restructured greendotlife's code so that now it can no longer be unilaterally shut down.
We don't think everyone at the firm will like greendotlife, ever join in the conversation or even want to read any of the posts and of course we don't expect that. However, for those that do use the site we feel that it provides a valuable service. |
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Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:19 pm
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Manager
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 62
Location: In the cube across from you
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| Glad to see this site back up. Cheers! |
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Tue Nov 28, 2006 4:35 pm
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Manager
Joined: 23 Jan 2006
Posts: 39
Location: San Fran
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I'd figured it was one of those things that wasn't a thing but was a thing. What do I mean?
For example, we have a couple of project members that like to sit in separate cubes at the client site from the rest of the (largish) team. Sure, it could be because they like space and quiet, but in the end I'm pretty sure it's going to slightly influence their perception in the eyes of the project manager.
So, it's not a thing, but it's a thing 
Likewise, nobody on here is saying horrible things directly about The Firm, but the idea that there's an unfiltered outlet and the fact that someone MIGHT do it leads to people thinking there's "a thing".
Such is life. I prefer having such an outlet over any potential negatives. |
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Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:38 pm
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Consultant
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 28
Location: Where hamburgers eat YOU!
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I would suspect The Firm doesn't have the time or interest to actively pursue action against the site. My concern has always been The Firm somehow linking our accounts back to our The Firm persona, however, again unlikely.
Glad to see it's back.
Can't believe I'm still here (The Firm, not GDL). |
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