Just the Opportunity Zone.

Eric, Forgive me for being slightly off topic, but how much trouble would it be to make a slight adjustment on the Personal Retail Website template for qhealthzone? Here is what I would like to suggest: * on the subtitle header bar (in the Healthy Lifestyle template, for example) which lists Vitamins & Supplements, Diet & Fitness, Air/Water, Cookware, and Other, there appears to be room for one more category option. What would it take to add in "Personalized Health" either just to the left of Vitamins & Minerals, or to the right of it? * within the Personalized Health category, could you list: 'Gensona Heart Health test', 'Gensona General Nutrition test', and 'IL-1 Nutrigenomic Supplement'. I understand from Interleukin Genetics' Form 10-K/A 2006 Annual Report that Quixtar is planning to launch a Skin Care test and Osteoporosis test in 2008 in North America. This suggestion would make it easy to just add them in when they become available. * would it be possible to also embed the Client view of the Personalized Health Questionnaire, including the customized/personalized supplement recommendations and ordering option, and the lifestyle recommendations. * streaming video that is available on the main site would also be great, but I'd be overjoyed even if only the above suggestions could be implemented This would provide Alticor/Quixtar with at least the option of better visibility for the Personalized Health category without all the work that will be involved in any possible relaunch when the new tests come on stream next year, or even later this year. It would also provide you and Health Marketing with additional, low cost data on user uptake, usability, and perhaps reveal greater potential for this aspect of the Health portfolio. Thanks in advance for your kind consideration of this request, and I hope it won't be too much trouble to implement. With much appreciation,

P.S. Eric, I realize that the Gensona tests and the IL-1 supplement are already in the retail site, but they are buried -- you have to drill down about 3 levels under Vitamins & Minerals to find the Gensona tests, although the IL-1 does headline under the Heart Health category. But adding the Personalized Health top line category would bring more benefits than just easier accessibility for these three products. With appreciation,

Hey Erik,

Well, as far as online "communities" I have been a part of:

O-Zone, here.

QBlogs forum and blog area

The Truth about Amway blog/forum

I have an account with Facebook, which I am active with, and an account on MySpace.  I have not touched MySpace in a while though.  I'm not big on uber-costumizing my frontpage to make it the flashiest thing since the Scion World's Fair that passed through.  

I also have accounts with my alumni association and a networking site LinkedIn.

What I have found interesting about online sites and communities is: they are often driven by curiosity and/or controversy.  I guess, similar to box office ticket sales.  In this information age, we require sparkle and pizazz to grab attention and keep people interested or coming back.  I will admit, I don't check the Opportunity Zone as much as I do other sites because, there doesn't seem to be as much change compared to elsewhere.  (Hence the reason I suggested an interactive FAQ section or something)

MySpace and Facebook give this appeal by allowing users to customize their homepages, and essentially, dress them up to reflect their personality.  There are also tools like gifts and "walls" etc that allow people to connect in ways that you don't in real life.

As for who I believe my community to be?  well, I seem to have a distinct seperation between my online life, and offline.  "Brad" is a handle that I used first at Qblog and have stuck with it.  The online community is alive when I want it to be, pretty much.  And the level of interaction remains where I want it to be.  In "real life" my community is my small group of really good friends.  I have read in many places that those "real life" groups have become smaller and smaller.  As people move around more, switch jobs, and find activities in the home to keep them busy, social interaction between friends, and number of "best friends," has really declined.

I believe as a business, Amway/Quixtar needs that "pizzaz" and sparkle to make a statement.  Some of that is in branding and sponsoring like nutrilite is doing.  Other ways are stepping out and challenging the "consumer reports" and proving that we are #1 or #2 and we are competively priced, even at retail.  And for IBOs, I believe we have a great opportunity to utilize this business as a reason to make friends.  We need customers to build this business, and we need friends to be customers.  Therefore, I am constantly on the look out to make a new friend, and the next step is to break down the wall of uncomfort and false ideas of "selling" such that I can solve a problem for them with my product -- the ability for IBOs to do this well, and not be weird about it, is key to making this business work.  If IBOs cannot sell properly, they resort to other things like only sponsoring, or being really weird about it and alienating all their friends because of the business.  Perhaps Amway/Quixtar should address this in the sales training at Quixtar University?

Anyway, those are my lengthy thoughts on your question.

Community?  Well I am a retired motorcycle roadracer and current off-roader, so I participate in those forums.  With the bikes, I center on the Colorado Sportbike Association's site since that is where I ended my racing career - eventhough I have since moved to Albuquerque.

I did the MySpace thing too and got quite a following of friends there. It was a good forum to promote my books and e-zine ---- www.vonconcepts.com.  the problem with MySpace is that I am a family guy and want to keep my computer family friendly.  It became an issue in my home when my spouse pointed out that a great deal of my "friends" thought they amatuer porn stars.  An objective look at the site gave me the same feeling --- so I cancelled my account after years of being there.

It may cost me some referals here and there.... but at night, I have to sleep with myself and the decisions I make with my family.

Kurt

This is my first visit to the Opportunity Zone, which I heard about on CommuniKate.

In today's highly connected world, avoiding social networking today is like avoiding the internet just a few years ago--you do so at your own peril.

While having a presence on a social networking site is no guarantee of anything, it is a place from which to link to your own websites, search out other like minded individuals and get a feel for what is going on, particularly with Gen. Y/millenials.

I have a Friendster profile, a Yahoo 360 profile and a blog on my company's website (www.wsa.org) that I use in my job.  I also have a Linked In profile and one on Konnects.com.  Frankly, I don't use these sites much as I probably should but it does provide an opportunity to say what I am all about.  Today, many people of all ages and demographics are comfortable with being approached by e-mail but our business still has to have that personal touch because it is different.

So, to answer your question, I think of community as many things and I am part of many communities, whether it is the neighborhood where I live, the Quixtar/Worldwide community or the global community of networked individuals.  I am still much more active in the offline world than the online world but both worlds are starting to converge more and more.

One social networking site that is trying to go beyond being linked just electronically is Zoodango.com.  This site is sort of like LinkedIn meets match.com in that it encourages face to face meetings on shared interests.  Check it out.

? here in syracuse, new york  many people have had a bad experience with amway a way back(80's 90's) many people that i have talk to want nothing to do with it or they say that  its all fake and all. i have a hard time talking to people about this and explain in a way  about what i do. and still nothing. how does one get pass all this negitive stuff from the past?

Kelly,

Thanks for sharing your concerns about the rebranding and overcoming negative baggage associated with the Amway name. Your concerns are certainly valid!

I encourage you to visit the Opportunity Zone's Inside Quixtar Blog "It's About a Transformation" post for more information.

Thanks,

Anna Bryce

Managing Editor, Opportunity Zone

Erik Toth,

Back in the days of the corner grocery store, the towns people would gather and share the days experiences with the folks at the store.  The shop keeper was up on all the news of the town since he owned and operated the hub of information.

Most large cities started by means of a busy trade route or port, and communities sprang up to support the demand for commerce. Likewise, the IBO has a potentially busy trade route in their very hands and people will talk about the great personalized service that they received at the IBO's website.  Isn't it strange how history has a way of returning to the simple things that work well.

There are a lot of Quixtar-related groups on Facebook. Most positive, a few negative. I started my own called "True playas drink XS." I have an XS background on my myspace page and sometimes will post articles or You Tube videos related to our products -- mostly XS because it speaks to this generation. I had my own myspace page just for my own business but it was too hard to manage so I rarely use it. Plus, there are too many fake profiles and spam messages on Myspace.

There's no doubt that web 2.0/social networking is the direction to go.  I have finally been convinced of that...now that I have found much better alternatives than myspace and such.

None of them are exactly what we need though.  They aren't duplicatable enough for the new IBO who has so much to learn at that stage.  Quixtar University will be great with that but finding the right community and developing content is not as duplicatable and difficult to monitor as would say... 'QTube' for our video bank.  This way, the corp would be in control of what is posted there and being said about our business.  I think that a presence in the face of the digital combatants is important but not as a prospecting link.

Having a 'QTube' or something like that would also be perfect to integrate into our own personalized Qblog (www.IBOname.qblog.com for instance).  This could be a platform for Quixtar/Amway to put content out for us to select as content for our blogs as well as add our own personal posts.

This would take care of building our lists, contact management and communication/calendar of events, sharing information about our products, opportunity, lifestyle, photos, etc. all in one place.

I think this would allow us to have a better platform designed for IBOs and help new IBOs get into the game easier and faster making it more easily duplicated and allow content to be monitored by the corp. to protect our image better as we move into this new era.

We could still be involved in other social networks but primarily to meet people, develop relationships and drive them to our Qblog.

I hope that you can get some feed back on this comment, Erik, and I'm hoping that this or something better is already in the works.

This would be awesome!!!

-Tom