When you roll out the welcome mat for new members, are you giving them everything they need to get oriented in your community?

In a new post for the YourMembership blog, Peggy Smith, Community Brands’ director of marketing and membership solutions, notes that when new members join, they often form opinions fast, and they need some guidance on how to get involved.

She recommends offering a welcome packet, as well as a personal—not automated—note to welcome them to your organization. And after that, give them a direction so they can start digging in. “Help new members feel comfortable right away by letting them know how your organization works, what to expect next, and where to go for information,” she writes.

Check out the full post for some ideas on how to onboard your newbies the right way.

Boxed Out

The features that made it great don’t have to die https://t.co/u5lkbqilR9

— Co.Design (@FastCoDesign) September 19, 2018

For more than four years, Google’s most ambitious rethink of email hasn’t been Gmail. The company came up with an ambitious redesign called Inbox in 2014, and that alternate interface has been a key tool for power users.

Sadly for fans, the company announced it would shut down Inbox next year, with the goal of bringing some of its best features to the recently redesigned Gmail. (People aren’t happy.)

As Fast Company‘s JR Raphael notes, not all of the Inbox features have made it into Gmail yet, which led him on a mission to see if they could be re-created. Here’s where Raphael got with the process.

RIP Inbox. You were a good client.

Other Links of Note

Luck isn’t an accident. At GQ, Stanford professor Tina Seelig suggests there are ways to “engineer” good fortune in your favor.

Prompt some new ideas. Jeffrey Cufaude of Idea Architects offers some design prompts to help boost your event design.

Brevity, please. In a recent interview, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner argued that the biggest problem with email is that people write too dang much.

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