Invite your clients to forum topics: do you?

[guymayor]

[ QUOTE ]
But to be on the safe side at all times - which is the best - they know that they CAN'T assure that something won't go haywire in a thread where clients were invited.

In a way, they are handling customer / arborist relations like climbing. ALWAYS work safe. In tree work, we want the path that virtually is always going to work, with no haywire results.


[/ QUOTE ]Mario you are free to have this approach. I do not, because it seems to prevent evolution and improvement of work practices. Always work safe, yes, but safest is not always best. If it was, I'd have to trade in my Honda for a Hummer.

And adopt the Chicken Little approach to tree risk assessment, and recommend clearcutting the planet.

 

[Blinky]

I voted uncertain. My inclination is that it's fine but there's always trolling and a client could wind up being offended if they didn't realize the thread was being trolled.

I wouldn't be as likely to refer someone to AS as I would here, to much snitty bickering there. Behavior here is a lot more professional.

Helping a client become more aware of trees and arborcare can only have positive results.

 

[Tony]

I voted yes unequivocally. I do not fear the risk of being wrong. Nor do I fear the risk of being shown wrong. Even when these situations make me feel uncomfortable or stupid, I welcome the chance to expand what I know and perhaps help someone else to do the same. The strongest lessons are often the product of failure.

I fear lost opportunities to learn and diversionary semantic battles.

Sorry just a momentary diversion to my philosophical background.

Tony

 

[mdvaden]

[ QUOTE ]
I voted yes unequivocally. I do not fear the risk of being wrong. Nor do I fear the risk of being shown wrong. Even when these situations make me feel uncomfortable or stupid, I welcome the chance to expand what I know and perhaps help someone else to do the same. The strongest lessons are often the product of failure.

I fear lost opportunities to learn and diversionary semantic battles.

Sorry just a momentary diversion to my philosophical background.

Tony

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you missed the nature of the thread, whereas blinky before you read it right.

It has almost nothing to do with our own knowledge.

 

[treesandsurf]

[ QUOTE ]


I think you missed the nature of the thread, whereas blinky before you read it right.



[/ QUOTE ]

According to who?

jp

 

[mdvaden]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


I think you missed the nature of the thread, whereas blinky before you read it right.



[/ QUOTE ]

According to who?

jp

[/ QUOTE ]

I think according to the smiley

.

The smiley

is the sum of wisdom

 

[treesandsurf]

cheers to that

jp

 

[Fred_Berkelhammer]

I voted risky, for three reasons. First, the course of the discussion will probably be altered if a poster has in the back of his/her mind that the client is observing. It might be elucidating for the other posters, for instance, to include some background such as, "the client lost his wife last year, and has been struggling to make sound decisions on his own", or some such. Or, "I am about at my wits ends trying to convince these people to stop treating trees like rose bushes." This is part of the whole picture that will help other posters to tailor their responses.

Second, as others have noted, there is a very real danger that misunderstandings, vulgarities, personalities, etc. will obscure the lessons to be learned. These forums can be just as valuable to our customers if we professionals use them to learn from each other, and then present the lessons in distilled form to the clients, than if they read the discussions themselves. Any one who posts questions to this group can be assumed to be sincere enough that he/she will try to learn as much as possible from the responses, and can therefore be trusted to relay the best information back to the customer.

Finally, there is a real risk that one of us, after trying to make the best informed decision, will find himself in legal trouble because of what was said on a forum. I would assume that lawyers have visited here from time to time, but that eventuality doesn't need to be encouraged.

So I said "risky." On the other hand, I think that some topics would be "safe" for clients to view.

 

[Tony]

I don't think I missed the point. I was just putting in my vote.

As arborists we often have to defend our positions from rather outlandish, differing points-of-view (POV). Who here has not tried to sway a tree owner away from topping? Often these differning POV's are not so outlandish. Either way, the source of these differing POV's become irrelevant.

Whether it be outdated folklore or dated scientific material, whether it comes from grandma Jones twice removed uncle who did tree work once upon a time or directly off the pages of TreeBuzz, I do not fear it, nor do I doubt the possibility to learn from it.

This is how I understand this post.

Perhaps a different take from others, but mine none the less.

Tony