Is the Atera Community a good idea?

frank.pietersma

I think product discussions should be open for anyone to read and not be "member only". Non Atera customers should also be able to read and participate in conversations regarding the product. There must be a public place where they can read the good AND the bad of the product. Obviously opinions should be expressed respectfully. Atera itself will also benefit if the discussions are open for everyone. I will explain:

Independent product comments allow consumers to share their genuine experiences and opinions without the fear of censorship or bias. When customers can openly express their thoughts, it creates a more informed and empowered consumer base. This, in turn, encourages companies to maintain high standards and address any issues that arise, leading to better products and services.

Independent comments promote a balanced perspective. Users can openly discuss both positive and negative aspects, helping others make well-rounded decisions based on a broader range of opinions.

When companies have control over product comments, there is a risk of manipulating or filtering feedback to maintain a positive image. In contrast, independent comments foster accountability and build trust with customers. Consumers rely on honest evaluations from their peers to make informed purchasing decisions. If these comments were controlled by the company, it would undermine the credibility of the feedback and erode trust.

Independent comments provide a platform for real users to share their authentic experiences. This feedback is valuable for potential customers seeking reliable information about a product or service. By allowing open and unfiltered discussions, companies gain insight into the genuine needs and concerns of their customers, enabling them to make improvements based on real-world feedback.

It's important to note that Atera can still engage with customers' comments by actively addressing concerns, answering questions, and providing support. By participating in these discussions transparently and honestly, Atera can demonstrate their commitment to customer satisfaction while maintaining the integrity of the independent comment system.

In conclusion, independent product comments are a crucial aspect of consumer empowerment, accountability, trust-building, and fostering innovation. By ensuring that commenting remains free from company control, we can maintain a fair and unbiased feedback ecosystem that benefits both consumers and companies alike.

Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences on this topic!

[Deleted User]

@frank.pietersma I completely get where you are coming from, at the moment apart from @nina it feels like no-one else who works for Atera is in here participating with us, which just makes it yet another marketing tool for Atera rather than a really lively community that it could be.

I think if they really want this to take off - as convenient as the facebook group is, they need to bite the bullet and shut that group down and shut down the slack community and tell people to come here . At the moment it feels like a ghost town with just 6 of us participating.

frank.pietersma

IMO Shutting down the public accessible groups would not be a good idea. The Discussions regarding the platform should be public and open to everyone and not private. Even Atera can benefit from that. When they perform well people will read all the positive reviews. When the discussions are closed Atera don't need to worry to perform well. Let s keep it all in the open ;)

[Deleted User]

But the facebook group isn't public anyway - to my knowledege it is only open to Atera customers and the same goes for the slack - so why have 3 different platforms fragmenting the discussion?

Ernest

I think it is a bit of a waste of time, the only reason there is a Facebook page is to complain when you don't get feedback from your tickets or can't wait for something to be implemented. I really don't have the time to come online and Kumbaya with others in the community just for the heck of it. I think the Facebook page is sufficient, but they can't fully control that, this platform they can. The other issue is by rewarding those who engage others in the community, you will get people just engage to get points

nina

Hi all! Thank you for your comments.

As I see it there are 5 main goals to this community:

1. Networking
2. Learn about Atera and all things IT
3. Support and inspiration from fellow IT pros
4. Sneak peak in to the Product Roadmap
5. Rewards - earn swag and other prizes!

That said, let me clear the air on a few points:

1. We are open. This community is viewable to all (customers, trials and guests). One must log in only when someone wishes to post or comment.
2. We want to direct all our users here. There are a multitude of reasons we chose to have our own platform (like many other tech platforms have). This gives us more ability to help you network with one another and share information in one space. We also have the ability to reward YOU for participating and being a valuable member of Atera's community.
3. We want to have healthy conversations in the community, balanced debate with positive comments and constructive feedback on where we can improve.
4. We will be pausing the activity on Facebook (though you will be able to access the information there). Reddit will remain open.
5. This community is an Atera-wide goal. You will see Atera employees (aside from me) posting and engaging too! Just last week, Atera's CISO Oren Elimelech was on here answering security related questions! This week, our CPO will be doing the same on Wednesday, July 5th at 12 PM EST. So don't miss it!

Should you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don't hesitate to DM me or email me at nina@atera.com.

[Deleted User]

"3 We want to have healthy conversations in the community, balanced debate with positive comments and constructive feedback on where we can improve."

So I put up a constructive post about how it would be helpful and improve our productivity if the known issues were published somewhere to save us and the support team time, and I got a warning for that post - so sadly you have just proved Frank & Ernest right that you just want to control the narrative.

frank.pietersma

This demonstrates that discussions and opinions about a platform should not occur on a forum hosted by that very platform. When individuals search for information about a product, they should encounter honest and unbiased information. Therefore, it is advantageous to have multiple avenues where people can read reviews and seek information about the product. When all the info is centralized and can be controlled by the company you don't know if the the information is objective.

jstewart

Well, i'm not banned here (yet), glad to have a voice back!

To Nina's point, as long as the community is publicly available/readable, then it's promoting openness and allowing people a vantage point before purchase which is very important.

Regarding "healthy conversations", here's hoping that Atera sees the occasional negative feedback as constructive as most companies do. If you have a group of people bashing a feature or bug, it should be seen as a PERFECT opportunity to engage and correct. We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, i look forward to engaging the community, offering help and suggestions, tips, etc.

m.vincer

If you have a group of people bashing a feature or bug, it should be seen as a PERFECT opportunity to engage and correct. We'll see how that goes.

I came here to say exactly this - so many companies forget or don't realise this. I would love for this to be true here and implore the Atera team to take note - at the end of the day, if this community that's growing here see's mismanagement and "narrative control" they'll simply go elsewhere - discourse, fediverse, reddit (shudder).

I have high hopes for this resource and can see it becoming very valuable!

nina

Hi guys! Following up on this post. I wanted to see if you felt differently now that the Community has been up and running for a few months and is more active.

Personally, I am proud of how far the Community has come in such a short period of time. There has been a lot of:

• Knowledge sharing re: scripts, best practices, best business practices etc. - it's lovely to see this!
• Customer engagement from new and veteran Atera users.
• Swag, contest and raffle winners - always fun to win things!

So, what do you think?

[Deleted User]

it is much easier to see the conversations in one place, rather than facebook, slack etc..

and easier to find the tips that people have shared.

But we need more interaction from the Atera team besides just Nina & Roy otherwise it is becomes a user to user discussion forum and we might as well use reddit if that was the case.

I am a bit confused by the navigation of the discussion topics and the tagging (which we cannot add to) for example if was reading a post in HOME› GETTING STARTED›  and then press New discussion - does it appear there then as well as being linked to the keywords that I selected ?

Should it not be that the tags are linked to the topics ? otherwise I could start a post about integrations in the billing category ?

I am used to old style forums that just have a view of categories and then the discussion topics in each category.

DaveWebster

Well I gave up trying to figure out where to go to post ideas and follow them up.

Although a lot of my 5+ year old ideas from near Atera inception have been implemented now although a lot are still in progress. albeit relabelled as internal suggestion when moved between platforms. :)

But when it all moved to Facebook hell no. I'm not going near that **** pool.

So it will be nice to see if this takes off as this has been a suggestion of mine to bring it back here for a long time.

I tried posting things to reddit earlier this year around Atera backup solution of itself as I was updating my disaster docs and wanted some info and that post was taken down 3 times for unknown reasons so I gave up and just started looking at other platforms TBH.

However it does look as though someone internally is trying to steer the ship back to somewhere good so fingers crossed things start improving.

Any way Hi to everyone and fingers crossed all the best

Dave.

frank.pietersma

Well I was actually warned one time by Atera because my remark on a topic was not positive enough.
I replied on a topic agreeing that a feature did not work properly.
At that moment I thought back to this post. It felt like Atera was trying to control the narrative.
However that post was not deleted and I was not banned.

I still strongly believe that a platform for discussing and cooperating on a product needs to be independent.
The product can only get better if we can openly discuss the good AND the bad things.

Atera has a lot of good things going. I am a happy customer liking the product.
In terms of developing much asked functionality it's kinda slow. The Features Board for instance has many, many very good ideas to really improve the product. Many of these things are planned for ages making the Feature board less credible. Atera has shown with the development of a whole own community they do have the capacity for developing.
I would've liked it more when the much reviewed issues were solved and much asked functionality was added.
In that perspective I don't understand why Atera puts so much precious development time in the community.

On the other hand the community has become better then I expected. There are more people actively participating then I had foreseen and I've seen some interesting topics come by.