Today 23 April, 9:00, we witnessed an event to say the least poco epochal in the history of Xiaomi but above all for the many Italian Mi Fans who have been waiting for this moment for years. With immense joy and deep emotion, the doors of the Mi Italian Community!
From today this will be the meeting place for all the Fans of the Boot, where we will be able to get to know Xiaomi products and services, finally available in Italy. Mi Community Italia is certainly not limited to this. Thanks to a real one forum, administered by the Team Mi Comm e moderated by Italian Mi Fans of exceptional caliber, we will be able to stay updated on all the news, better understand the Xiaomi universe, clarify any doubt, finally receiving official answers from an Italian language staff! It will be an opportunity to meet the friends of Team Mi Comm and all the other Mi Fan, both the historical ones who now love Xiaomi for a long time, and the new explorers that will arrive in the future.
Diary of a beta tester
I would like to steal a few minutes to share with you what was the experience of the birth of this incredible Italian Mi Community, having had the good fortune to live it behind the scenes as a beta tester, retracing the various stages until the day of the official launch of this morning.
Premise
I now follow Xiaomi since his birth as a company, in an escalation of passion and enthusiasm that over the years have led me to realize various projects dedicated to it. This closeness is the reason why I knew, between official news, confidential information and other signals more or less cryptic, that the official launch in our country was almost upon us. This was already a cause for palpitation, then one fine day Luca Frigerio, decides to contact me via my website Mifans.it.
The first contact
If you are wondering how such a great adventure can have started, here is the answer: with a very simple email.
Luckily it was already 2 day, otherwise I would have thought of a very ugly April Fool!
At this point it is not even necessary to say that my reply of confirmation and availability left the computer after a nanosecond reading ...
Thus began the exchange of contacts with Luke and, since he was in China, the best platform on which we would then carry forward communications with other beta testers would have been WeChat. So the same 2 April, Luca and I were already talking in chat.
I knew I was not the only one in Italy to have been "recruited" by Luca for this adventure, but I could not fail to ask (this time, I do not know why, through LinkedIn) to give the same opportunity to my fellow adventure with for which I have been carrying on the Xiaomi culture in Italy on for years Miui.it e Mifans.it. Boys who have become very dear friends of trust and great talent. I speak, above all, of my "oldest" adventurous companion Alessandro (ale8530), of Mario (MarCav) Gianni (Giannicoter) Angelo (Angelo76) Dario (Bugrider) Orazio (Orlaf) e Roberto (Roberto Piffari).
So, given some difficulties in contacting others individually, I created a temporary WeChat group with the boys of my team + Luca, waiting for the opening of the official beta tester group.
The video project
After a few days we discovered that the projects for which we were asked for availability were actually two: beta testing of the platform that would host the Italian Mi Community and the participation in the creation of a video to be presented at the launch event, which also coincided with the inauguration of the first Mi Home store in Italy, in Milan. In short, one stratospheric figata.
For the video project a separate WeChat group was created, in which more than Luca, also other Xiaomi team members, participated, Nelly (then also added in the beta group) e Paty, which would have played key roles in the execution of the mission.
The beginning of beta testing
So we arrive at the fateful day, the11 April. Luke tells us that the group is ready and invites us to enter, here we make the acquaintance of the other Mi Fan who would share the secret trip with us, all experienced and great Mi Fan, from some of the most known industry sites: Luca Ceraso (Gizchina.it) Cristiano Cento (Xiaomitoday.it) Simone Rodriguez (Xiaomitoday.it) Salvatore Castaldo (Gizchina.it) Emanuele Iafulla (Xiaomitoday.it) e Gian Mario Deluigi.
Luca welcomes us with a warm welcome message, announcing a program full of mysteries, enigmas and intriguing challenges ... I do not know why but for a moment a famous horror film XD came to my mind.
Then the "game" really started and it was a dive to the heart. After communicating our Mi IDs (which would have been granted special access permissions) we received instructions to login on c.mi.com and, for the first time ever, we saw the word "Italy"In the drop-down menu for choosing the country ... ..WOW! The revolution was also starting from us, finally Xiaomi became a reality in his homeland and we were the pioneers chosen to help organize the great landing. A huge responsibility!
Everything then took place in a very well organized manner, with "Missions" assigned every two days or so, free bug report (reporting of errors or missing translations on the platform, to be reported in a shared document) and a great availability and kindness from Luca who made the intense work really enjoyable and enjoyable.
The missions were simply groupings of activities that allowed us beta testers to become familiar with the platform but at the same time to create content, learning the guidelines, tools and layouts to be used, just to give an example, in creating threads good quality level.
La Mission #1 arrives the following day, 12 April, and consists in the opening of new threads, without an established numerical limit, with the dual purpose of practicing the basic functions and starting to create the first contents of the Mi Community.
In general we have been granted a very pleasant creative freedom in the sense that any suggestion, idea or opinion that could bring any value to the structure of the Mi Community was heard, evaluated and, if valid, applied immediately.
Il 13 April we are presented with the mission #2, in which we had to focus more on the qualitative level of content than the quantity. This time, in fact, we had very precise parameters available for the creation of interesting content, which had to be well written and graphically appealing, with use of photos and video if possible. A challenge not simple but absolutely stimulating!
Already in these first days of activity, we have rediscovered the true spirit of Xiaomi, the one that has always allowed communities in the rest of the world to grow thanks to their force of users. In fact, since always i pillars at the base of the success of Xiaomi are the i Mi Fans. MIUI ROM itself, the official firmware on Xiaomi smartphones and tablets, has been developed over the years thanks to the continuous feedback that users provided directly to the developers, who modified and corrected the software on the basis of reports and recommendations. So it was in the 2010 and so it continues to be in the 2018.
For this I recommend to all the Mi Fans of always express their opinions, to give feedback and also expose any constructive criticism within this brand new platform. In this way you can contribute to the better of the community itself and become protagonists in the first person of the evolution of Xiaomi in the years to come.
The Moderators arrive !!!
Testing, opening threads, reporting bugs, discussing in chat and working constantly on Mi Community, we arrive at the 17 April, day when a new phase begins. Luca gives us a good morning with a great news, we have been granted moderation permits and so we become the first ones Official moderators of Italian Mi Community!
With the permissions of Moderation has also arrived the mission #3. This involved a period of in-depth testing of the functions, and in particular the thread moving option, which is crucial when you need to tidy up a somewhat disordered section of the community or simply place a misplaced discussion.
This first part of the mission was accompanied by a short questionnaire where we were asked to indicate 5 sections preferably among those that make up the community structure, this allowed Luca to know what our favorite sections were and in which sectors we had more feeling. So no imposition but free choice on which parts of the community we would like to moderate.
Due to some unforeseen technical problems, however, nobody was able to complete the phase of moving the threads, but thanks to the work of Luca and the developers, we later also solved this unexpected event.
The Skype Call
19 April - Match day at the grandissima with one Skype Call at 8: 30 with Luca (based in Beijing) where, in addition to seeing each other for the first time, we exchanged a series of information on the work done and the one still to be completed. Unexpectedly Luca gives me a preview of the launch date of the Italian Mi Community that would have been only after a few days later, I almost couldn't believe it! Time was running out and the things to finish were still different. We then discussed some aspects relating to the contents to be published shortly and, last and incredible final surprise…. Luca then explained to me that the fact of being a Fan me from 2010, having believed from the beginning and constantly in the strength of this brand coming to create and manage a large community like that of Miui.it, they mean a lot to the Mi Community team, which has evaluated these aspects, along with those that are today my skills compatible with the activity in Mi Communtiy, asking me to cover none other than the role of Super Moderator... .omg!
Honored and aware of the necessary commitment, I accepted, so the preparation (also psychological) began for a beginning of activity FROM FEAR!
End = Start
With the company 20 April officially ended the period for beta testing so, you say, the work is finished ... .nothing at all, quite the opposite, until now we were only prepared for thebeginning of the real adventure! On this day we worked hard as in the previous days working on the forum, increasing our familiarity with this new platform. But the climax arrived in the evening, when Luca announced the launch date to everyone and the process of assigning the sections to the various moderators began.
The preferences had already been expressed through the questionnaire but it was important to discuss and discuss to make sure everyone was in most suitable section for preferences and attitude but we also had to maintain an average of two mods per section. The section that certainly needed more moderators was that ofassistance, where in fact you will find more mod than in other sections, for obvious reasons.
As for me, as written above, I will support the general management of the platform and the coordination between the mods, with the role of Super Moderator.
The work of this last day was intense at the end of the day, just think that Luca has stopped to discuss and organize the division of the sections up to the 00: Italian 30, or the 6: 30 in the morning in Beijing! This is just a small example that shows how much passion and hard work hide behind this new one Mi Italian Community. I am sure that the opening will be only the beautiful beginning of an incredible journey that, over time, will multiply exponentially the number of Mi Fans around us.
Ours, and I want to emphasize that "our" means of every Italian Mi Fan, Mi Community will develop and be shaped directly by you that you are reading, its success will be first of all your merit and I think we can already thank you in advance of this. So, if you have not already done so, log in now and start this incredible adventure with us, see you in the Mi Community!
Author: Michel Cognon (Mish)
Source: http://c.mi.com/thread-964499-1-0.html
