Company of Friends HandbookFast Company offers this handbook to help Company of Friends members, coordination team members, and coordinators make the most of their participation in their local CoF groups and SIG's. For additional information, check the online FAQ, Help tools, and 2000 edition of the CoF ToolBook.
Company of Friends FAQGet answers to Frequently Asked Questions about the CoF.
Welcome to the Company of Friends, Fast Company magazine's readers' network. Members of the CoF connect, communicate, and collaborate online and offline to help each other develop ideas, learn skills, and solve problems. CoF activities and events are designed to help members improve their careers, companies, and communities.
Fast Company has compiled this Help documentation to address frequently asked member service questions about how to best participate in the network. If you read this and your questions have still not been addressed, feel free to contact global coordinator Heath Row at heath@fastcompany.com -- he'll do his best to help you.
On the main CoF page, click on the View Your Profile link next to the welcome message that appears near the top of the page. Update your profile. Required fields are labeled in red. Be sure to hit Save when you've completed all of the desired changes.
When in a CoF group's Discussions section -- or when browsing the local member list of a CoF group you belong to using Find Members, click on your username. This will launch a pop-up window containing your business card. You can control how much information other people see by editing your profile as described above. "Nobody" means that information is only visible by Fast Company staff for member service use. "Members Only" means that only CoF members can see the information. And "Everybody" means that any Fast Company.com member can see the information if they access your business card through another section of the site.
Per our privacy statement, we pledge not to make the information available to partners or make it available elsewhere. We will only use your profile information to contact you for member service -- and to gauge the state of the network's membership in the aggregate.
You can also review the new-member FAQ for membership information usage guidelines.
We've thought long and hard about asking CoF members for more information -- in the early days of the network, we required next to no information -- and realize that some people might be averse to sharing it.
Without a solid demographic sense of who members are around the world and at the local level, however, Fast Company cannot have an accurate sense of the network's makeup, much less how members relate to other Fast Company readers. We need that information to better help members find the value that's in the network -- and to continue to develop new products and services for members.
Membership organizations are built by members -- they are only as strong as their members -- and if we don't know who members are, we cannot build an organization. As a member, you can search for experts, innovators, and leaders around the world -- the CoF has the potential of becoming an extremely useful global resource. And the more we know about each other, the more useful the network will be.
Click on Find Groups in the row of tabs below the My Groups navigation bar. You can find CoF groups -- local CoF's, as well as the Special Interest Groups -- by searching by country and state, industry, interest, or name.
After searching for groups, click on the Join link within the Find Groups search results. Or, if you're visiting a group's Web page, click on the Join Group link below the row of tabs on that page.
Use the My Groups navigation bar to access the Web page for a CoF group you belong to. Coordinators are listed on the right-hand side beneath the upcoming events and current discussions listings. Click on a coordinators' username to access their business card, and email them using the Email link. All local CoF's have coordinators who collaborate to manage the group and organize local event series. Not all Special Interest Groups -- the industry- and interest-based CoF's -- have coordinators yet. If you would like to volunteer to coordinate a SIG, refer to the CoF Handbook and Rough Guide to CoF Coordination -- and contact global coordinator Heath Row to inquire about next steps.
Choose one of your CoF groups using the My Groups navigation bar. Click on the Edit Subscription link below the row of tabs on that page. Select the Leave Group option and hit Submit. Please remember that you must belong to at least one CoF group to belong to the CoF writ large. If you only belong to one CoF group -- and you leave it -- you are effectively retiring from the network.
While on the main CoF page or a specific CoF group's page, select the View Your Profile link near the welcome message. Select the Retire from the CoF link.
Click on Find Members in the row of tabs. You can search for other members within a specific CoF group or across the entire CoF by username, email, first name, last name, company name, postal code, city, state, country, and industry.
If you would like to search within a specific group, first choose that group using the My Groups navigation bar. Then, click on Find Members in the row of tabs.
To see a list of everyone associated with a given CoF, follow the above instructions and then click on the Browse Member List link.
Click on their username to see their business card.
Click on the Email link when viewing their business card to send them an email via the Web site. The address that appears in the email that they receive will be the primary email address associated with your CoF profile. No email addresses appear on the Web site -- and within business cards -- to help protect your contact information from potential spammers.
Use the My Groups navigation bar to access the page for a specific CoF group. Upcoming events are listed on the right-hand side. Local CoF coordinators will also email notices of upcoming events to members. You can also access a global calendar of CoF events by selecting the Calendar tab.
Use the My Groups navigation bar to access the page for a specific CoF group. Click on the Upcoming Events link. You can use the navigation bars to determine how far back you'd like to refer to the group's calendar.
There are several ways to post to your group's mailing list.
You may want to refer to the CoF mailing list usage guidelines before you send a message to a group for the first time.
There are several ways to reply to a post made to a group's mailing list.
Choose a group using the My Groups navigation bar. Click Discussions in the left-hand menu bar -- or access the Most Recent Post from your group's main page. The 10 most recent posts are viewable on the first page. Navigate to older posts by clicking on Previous or Last. Members can also search past messages by keyword. The search tool is not fully functional at this point, but it will be soon.
Because the CoF mailing lists are now integrated with Web-based discussion forums, members are unable to edit posts made to the list previously. Please keep this in mind when drafting emails and composing Web posts. Your words have weight, and members may judge the quality of your work by the quality of your communication.
There is currently no way to delete a post previously posted to the list, just as there is no way to retract an email message once you hit Send. If you need assistance, contact global coordinator Heath Row at mailto:heath@fastcompany.com .
Check your email subscription settings. You control how you interact with other members. Choose a group using the My Groups navigation bar. Click on the Edit Subscription link below the row of tabs. Members can participate in a variety of ways.
The CoF is more than a mailing list. Members engage in online discussions as well as meet face-to-face at local meetings and events. To foster and encourage this dialogue and exchange, the mailing lists are configured to Reply to List. If you'd rather not participate in the email-based discussions and exchanges, check your email subscription settings.
You control how you interact with other members. Choose a group using the My Groups navigation bar. Click on the Edit Subscription link below the row of tabs. Members can participate in a variety of ways.
Unfortunately, we cannot control how CoF members send their emails to the list. If someone includes rich text, HTML, or otherwise formatted text in their message, many email applications have difficulty parsing that formatting. The MIME format digest may better parse such formatting, depending on your email client, but in general, it's best to email the list using plain text. We'll continue to look into better weeding out formatted emails, but you can help us -- and your fellow members -- by not sending rich text, HTML, or otherwise formatted emails. For further information about using the CoF mailing lists, refer to the mailing list usage guidelines.
To prevent the inadvertent spread of viruses, the CoF mailing lists do not support attachments. Additionally, in the medium- and larger-sized CoF's, there are upwards of 1,000 members. It's rarely necessary to email an attachment to an entire CoF. If you need to send members an attachment, please do so on an individual basis.
If there is not already a group near where you live, and you'd like to volunteer to coordinate CoF efforts in your area, contact global coordinator Heath Row. You might also find the CoF Handbook and Rough Guide to CoF Coordination useful.
