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As mentioned in our last feature release, Invite Mavens to Project, we had some exciting things in mind for how it could be used.  Today, we're releasing the first phase of what we're calling Maven Recommendations.

What does this do for me?
It's pretty simple: now, when you post your project, we determine a few mavens that might fit your need through our system of social tagging and search.  In some initial testing, we've found the recommendations to be right on point, so we're excited to roll it out and begin getting your feedback.

We have merged this feature into the current candidate list, so now the recommended mavens are presented alongside the mavens who are bidding on your projects.  The thought here is that if you see someone you like, you can invite them to your project.  Of course, you can still utilize the maven search page if you want to broaden a search.

Give it a try and let us know what you think!

When we originally started thinking about Mavenlink and the user interactions that could and would take place, we had a vision for a system where people would just tell us what they want (i.e. post it) and mavens would come to them.  We still think that's a core use case, but it is clear to us that only supporting the "supply-side" is not enough.  This is the web and people like to poke around!  In all likelihood, you're reading this, because you took a few minutes to poke around and read our blog.

As a piece of a broader feature set that we're really excited to be pushing out shortly (hint, hint), our clients can now invite mavens who they see as a good fit to their projects.  It's a logical extension of the Message Center that we pushed out last week.

If you have an active project, you'll see a link in a maven's profile to "Invite Jane Doe to a project".  The catch is that you need to have an active project, so start posting!

(PS Keep tabs on our blog over the next few days to see the really exciting feature we're about to release...)

As any experienced consultant knows, payment terms can often be one of the final negotiating points before beginning work with a client.  Payment terms usually come down to a reasonably balanced agreement between a client and a provider, where the provider needs a little "getting started" protection and the client pays as/when services are rendered.

We have been talking to some of our initial mavens and, to no surprise to us, one of the big comments has been, "to provide my services, I usually take an X% fee up front and then get milestone payments and/or full payment upon services being rendered."  That comment is usually followed with the question, "do you support that?"

Well, as of today, we can say - yes we do!  Mavenlink wants to get out of the way when it comes to terms and support the way our mavens and clients like to work.  We think that allowing you to negotiate the terms that best fit your business and then support that through our payment system is the way to go.

Try it out and let us know how it's working!

As Projects begin to flow into the Mavenlink system, I wanted to share some initial first hand experiences and learnings from my first three Projects as a Client on Mavenlink.

1. Posting Projects as a Client can be almost addicting. It will change the way you think about interacting with external professionals and how you get work done.

2. Managing Projects within Mavenlink provides definition and visibility. I was able to keep tabs on my Projects and quickly share with other colleagues within Mavenlink how things were going, what my extended team was working on, and budgetary guidance for the effort. As Mavenlink roles out groups within the system in the near future, I will be able to provide direct visibility to the progress on my Posted projects with identified colleagues.

3. Posting Projects in Mavenlink is extremely simple, but every ounce of thought put in to the Post will be rewarded in terms of attracting Mavens and speeding the engagement process.

4. Don’t let pricing deter you. On two of my Projects, I needed help refining the appropriate budgetary guidance from the Maven population. Let the Mavens help you establish reasonable budgetary parameters once the Project is clarified and you have the ability to evaluate multiple proposals.

5. Mavens will take advantage of the up front messaging and collaboration opportunities within the system to clarify Project details. Help them help you.

6. Your level of responsiveness in the system is contagious. Just like in your offline relationships, actions speak louder than words. On two of my projects I made a conscientious effort to respond as quickly as possible, and noticed clearly that the Mavens were more responsive as a result. On a third project, I unintentionally dropped the ball and missed a message for nearly four days. You can imagine how hard it was to complain about my Maven’s lack of response for 24 hours.

7. Years of email inertia is hard to overcome. Especially on the first couple of Projects, I had to focus on uploading documents instead of sending emails (see 8 below).

8. Uploading documents and capturing the conversation with my Maven inside of Mavenlink pays dividends. Having all of the communication history, the agreed upon documentation, the interim deliverables and the final deliverables in one place came in handy. As Mavenlink expands the collaboration tools available to both Mavens and Clients, making it easier to never leave the site, this collection of information related to the engagement will become invaluable.

9. Notifications and Messaging are key. As we worked through these initial projects, it became apparent that the ability of Mavens and Clients to interact outside of the workspace is important. You’ll continue to see features rolled out to extend and improve the Notifications and Messaging within Mavenlink.

10. Payment within the Paypal system was quick and easy. Paying with Paypal is straightforward and instantaneous. Paying with a credit card is equally smooth as long as you have not exceeded your credit card payment maximum, as established by Paypal ($2000 during any 90 day period).

To Learn more about Mavenlink, please visit: www.mavenlink.com or on Twitter at twitter.com/mavenlink

I'm emerging from a long blog slumber and hopefully getting back on here to post more often.  I thought I'd kick it off with a new feature announcement!

Now that Mavenlink is launched and we're actively gathering feedback from our community, it became apparent in our last iteration planning meetings that we needed a better way to message people directly and, by the same token, to allow members within the ML community to begin talking one-on-one.  We have long had this feature on our development horizon, but decided that it should take the top spot in our latest push.  As we are about as agile as companies get, here we are approximately 4 days later rolling out a fairly massive feature.

Whether it's to invite mavens that stand out to your projects, ask your clients questions outside the flow of a standard project message, or just shoot someone a note - give the new message center a try!  You'll see the message link in the mavens list and on individual profiles.

As always, let us know if you have questions either through Get Satisfaction...or maybe the Message Center!