Given that OPIEWeb is an entrepreneurial (I’ll never be able to spell that word correctly) venture, I guess that makes me an entrepreneur.  Don’t get me wrong – I am positively excited about launching this wonderful site.  But there is something about being labeled an “entrepreneur” that clashes with being an academic.

I am not a bottom-line thinker.  I don’t like the idea of pushing a product on people.  And I was initially very uncomfortable with the idea of having to put ads (<<shudder>>) on our site.

I’m an idealist.  In the beginning I had this crazy notion that tons of people would come to OPIEWeb and get hooked.

And in an ideal world, that is what would happen.  I think that everyone – not just academics – has an internal desire to seek and share knowledge.  And that is the overall mission of our site.

Because people did not flock to OPIEWeb like I thought they would, it appears that we need to do more work promoting our site and sharing our vision.  So reality has brought this idealistic academic down from her ivory tower.  Not all the way down, but just enough to realize that people are busy and the thirst for knowledge may not be enough of a motivation to drive people to our site.

To that end, Rob and I have been brainstorming ideas on how to make OPIEWeb more user-friendly.  I said to him, “we need to make it ridiculously easy, otherwise people won’t go and they won’t contribute.”  That’s the entrepreneur in me talking.  The academic in me would prefer to challenge you.

So here’s the way it goes:  Rob and I will do our best to make OPIEWeb as easy to use as possible.  My challenge to you is to generate the best possible questions and answers you can in the interest of furthering the great discipline of organizational psychology.