If I were to write a personal list of proscribed activities, I’d caution against taking a date to a UFC event, reminding a police officer that you pay his salary, and getting a Bart Simpson tattoo. But no such list would be complete without the following warning: Avoid the cheeky epitaph.

So it’s not without irony when I say that this post, our last for a little while on the new rewards system, is doubling as the epitaph for JoeC. I have decided to lay him to rest. (If you want to help me pick a new screenname/identity, add your suggestion in the comments field and I’ll select one.) After all, JoeC posting on a topic other than rewards is like Jason Alexander playing a character other than George Costanza.  Alas, we’ve typecasted ourselves.

While he’s still around, JoeC would like to share a few parting rewards-ish thoughts:

Overall thoughts:

When the late Congressman Tip O’Neill (D. Mass.) said, “All politics are local,” he could have been talking about Agents’ reaction to our new system.  For the most part, the way someone was affected personally colored their perspective on the entire program. Just so everyone is aware, we strove to invent a system that would invigorate our “average” Agents while acknowledging the value provided by our most active members. On balance, I think we achieved that goal. Sure there were a few miscues, but a certain number of stumbles are an unavoidable part of serving a community this large.

Thoughts on Shaloha:

This was the change that had us most nervous. Not because we didn’t think you’d like it (most of you did), but because there were so many moving parts. We had to close our rewards store, tell everyone a new system was coming, partner with a rewards expert, design an easy roll-over process … you get the idea. Because there were so many changes happening at once, we were hesitant to reveal too much for fear of eating crow (which JoeC did once!).

Thoughts on Womlets:

Womlets are largely misunderstood. We’ve positioned them as a reward, and in some cases, we’ve made them feel almost like a substitute for BzzRewards. Truth is, they were never intended to replace anything. They were an added “thank you.” Here’s how the idea came about: We were talking about ways to recognize Agents at the moment they file a report. In other words, was there something extra we could do after a report is submitted but before it is approved? Someone came up with the idea of brokering special offers with different merchants on behalf of our Agents and displaying those deals as a quick, “Thanks!” That’s how Womlets were born, and it’s trulyall they were ever intended to be.

Thoughts on points:

BzzAgent isn’t a rewards company. Our previous system had an internal rewards component that brought with it a number of challenges. We wanted to continue to motivate Agents to report, yet be out of the rewards “business.” How does a company do that? Through a carefully formed partnership.

Thoughts on status:

Fascinatingly, it’s become clear that status matters more than any other aspect of BzzPerks. We aimed to make status more fun, easier to understand, and less “punishing.” We also wanted the everyday Agent, the person who joins a handful of campaigns a year and files a couple of reports per campaign, to have as good a shot at earning status as anyone else. I think did ok here. We realize we may need to tinker with the formula now and then, so we’ll keep our eyes on this one, for sure.

Speaking of paying attention, we hired this remarkable intern named Max. As president of his fanclub, I’m authorized to say that Max is pretty much the world’s most competent 21 year old. Anyway, he’s spent a lot of time studying the reaction to our announcements and he created a bunch of cool graphs to illustrate his insights. Here’s one:

Those are my thoughts on these changes.  We may have more to add periodically.  But there are many, many other aspects of the BzzAgent business that we want to discuss, debate and debunk on the BeeLog. So that’s what we are going to do moving forward.

In the meantime, as far as JoeC goes, he wishes he could sign off as succinctly as this gunslinger:

Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.
In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery

Seven of us just had a 9:00 a.m. meeting to confirm who is doing what for Monday’s BzzPerks launch. Here’s a role call:

D. Balter: Our ChiefBzz is going to continue to work with the MyPoints top brass to make sure all BzzPoints transferred over the past two weeks are processed as quickly as possible. He’s gunning to make sure the points are not only reflected in our Agents’ MyPoints account on Monday, but also ready to be redeemed on that day.

J. Bigay: He’s my boss. He isn’t really doing anything other than make sure none of us lose our heads. Essentially, he’s the reality checker for all of us. And with a change of this magnitude, a small dose of reality goes a long way. (And he’s asked for his opinion … a lot!)

B. Cahill: She’s the project manager. Her job is to make sure everyone is doing his or her job. That might sound like a funny role, but I wouldn’t want it. I have enough trouble doing my job, let along everyone else’s!

D. Eisenberg: He owns the MyPoints relationship, so he’s going to make certain all promises we’ve made are fulfilled and our Agents’ relationship with MyPoints is as “rewarding” as possible. Along with some key folks in business development, he’s also finalizing some special offers for our Agents. (Stay tuned for Monday’s BeeLog post.)

M. Pearl: She owns it all. Goodness. For more than two years she’s been thinking about this, imagining this, planning this, and organizing this. And on Monday, she’s going to see this happen. She’ll spend this weekend reacquainting herself with her two boys while making sure nothing, absolutely nothing has been overlooked in this process. She’s not expecting to sleep.

K. Overberg: He (along with his tech team, which includes guys like E. Dasque, J. Rutledge and B. Dame who pretty much built this new system) will spend the weekend finalizing BzzPerks code, making sure MyPoints has all of the requisite information on every Agent that transferred points, confirming (with his crack QA staff) that everything works, taking down the BzzAgent Website, launching the changes, and staying in close contact with his counterparts at MyPoints. Fun way to spend a 90-degree and sunny weekend!

Me? I escaped easy. I just accept the credit for the hard work performed by the people above, as well as folks like K. Leong (who wrote all of the copy that explains how the new system works), B. Bonus (who designed all the new pages), S. Wylie (who planned the new “honeycomb” tiering system) and M. Maranda (who actually built it), K. Johnson (who played a major role in imagining how the system would work), E. Danyliw (who sent all of those emails making sure nobody forgot to transfer their points), and the team of P. Mulford/J. Minton/N. Pagnotta (who answer all of the questions you submit).

So what’s the culmination of all of these efforts? Here’s the sequence of events:

• Sunday afternoon: The BzzAgent website will be brought down as these changes are implemented. This’ll take a while
• Sunday evening: K. Overberg will supply MyPoints with all of the information they need to process the points transfer.
• Sunday late night: The BzzAgent website will be brought back up.
• Monday morning: ChiefBzz will post on the BeeLog about the new BzzPerks “economy.”
• Monday day: MyPoints will process all of the points transferred by our Agents. This could take a full 24 hours. We’re trying to reduce that time as much as possible.
• Monday evening: Hopefully all points have been processed and are ready to be redeemed. This could carry over into Tuesday. If it does, there’s no cause for alarm. Try to remember that it will take a little time to transfer boatloads of new MyPoints points.

That’s it. I’ll end this BeeLog post with the last thing ChiefBzz said in our meeting: Commence freaking out now.

Answering questions on the BeeLog is a bit like eating PEZ (or is it Pzz?) out of a bee-shaped dispenser: As soon as you gobble one little candy (or answer one question), another slides up the cartridge to take its place.

The challenges with using a publishing medium (such as a blog) as a chat tool are significant: questions beget questions, responses are lost in a sea of comments, and for every broad answer someone has a personal exception. In other words, using the BeeLog for Agent Q&A just doesn’t work very well.

So we made a decision: We’d let the new rewards system speak for itself. And we’re sticking to it.

We asked you what you wanted for our new rewards platform (on the BeeLog, over email, through polls, in telephone interviews and face-to-face focus groups), and then we worked really hard to develop solutions that met the most important requests. The two elements that were requested by almost every Agent we discussed this with was:

• A greater variety of rewards (the opportunity to get lots of things!) and;
  
• An unlimited inventory so that rewards could be had anytime, regardless of campaign involvement
  

The new system might not be flawless, but it certainly meets those goals. As we’ve noted, there’s plenty more to come as well, including additional reward opportunities and a new ranking and tiering system to help you get into more campaigns. In other words, you talked and we didn’t only listen … we acted.

Some of you love the new system. Others don’t. Some of you are taking a wait-and-see approach. That’s all we ask. Give it a chance.

There is more planned, and we are excited to share those enhancements with you. For now, this will be the last communication about Shaloha — let’s focus on the future!

We hope all of you find value in the new rewards program.

We hope it makes your BzzAgent experience a fulfilling one, and getting into campaigns remains the primary reason you join our program.

If you can’t bring yourself to try it out, or just don’t like the rewards system, that’s ok, too. We understand and we hope you find a system that rewards you in the ways you wish.