Do you do anything “fun” with your board for different seasons? For example, my main board is nicknamed “BOB” and here is the normal logo:

Today I have this logo instead:

I would have thought that stuff like this is harmless fun, but several years ago when I tried changing graphics around for Christmas I got some rather interesting comments from board members. I was reminded - in some cases fairly bluntly - that some folks don’t celebrate Christmas. As a result, I have tried to stay more generic with what I do.

What about you? Have you ever tried to set up special holiday themes for your board? What was the reaction from your members?

Human beings being, well, human like to be rewarded. Many boards use a points or karma system to reward frequent or effective members of their community. The problem in my opinion is, however, that whenever there is a reward to be gained, people (again, being human) will look for shortcuts or ways to “game” the system. That can have a negative impact on your board. Is it worth setting some sort of reward point system up on your board? What can be gained or lost as a result?

In this post I will share some experiences as a board participant as well as a board owner. I would love to hear your stories as well; the comment form is always open. As long as you can manage to click the right checkbox.

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One of the most critical steps that many board owners fail to take is designing and implementing an effective backup strategy. In my opinion, backups cannot be a manual process. They have to be automatic. If they’re not automatic, then they don’t get done… and a backup that isn’t done is worse than no backup at all. At least if you know you’re not doing backups you don’t have anything to complain about.

I lease a dedicated server from a hosting company so I have root access. I do several layers of backups, including an automatic download to a secondary server located in my home office… and storage on a RAID (mirror) device. This all runs during the wee hours of the morning. But what if you don’t have the same choices as me… does that mean you can’t have the same advantages?

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