Hi from sunny Malta!

**SteveGill** · March 29th, 2012, 2:51 AM

Hi everyone, I was recommended this forum by Kay who I know from another forum, and it all looks very interesting so far. I like that you're using Vbulletin for a start

A bit about me; 35 years old, dropped out of Uni after 1 year at 18 (fed up with the widespread cheating in Computer Studies at the un-named university), mail merged over 150 of the largest IT depts in Edinburgh asking for a job, got a job, worked my way up the ranks learning valuable skills, jumped ship to a supplier at 21, became Head of the management team at 22 (baptism of fire, believe me), lead a management buy out at 28, and moved to Malta last year. I own 2 companies, and look after a few internet forums. One of the companies is internet based which is launching later this year and I'm quite excited - its my first jump from a bricks and mortar company into an exclusively online company which I've been preparing for almost 4 years now.

Hobbies? Running forums means there's not much spare time (

) but when I do have time I enjoy worshipping the sun and motor racing - I'm often found at the Nurburgring with my M3 racecar for those that know their motorsport

Hope I can both contribute and learn something here, thanks for inviting me!

**Kay** · March 29th, 2012, 3:03 AM

Hi Steve. Welcome to EP! I'm delighted you took me up on my invitation to join us. When I learned of your interests and involvement in forums and other online business, I just knew you would fit in well on here.

I'm looking forward to having some great discussions with you.

**Clinton** · March 29th, 2012, 3:34 AM

Hi Steve, and welcome to experienced-people.net (and thanks to Kay for tipping you off about us/ inviting you).

What type of forums do you run and do you manage them all yourself?

**SteveGill** · March 29th, 2012, 3:46 AM

Originally Posted by Kay

I'm looking forward to having some great discussions with you.

Likewise - just point me in the right direction to the threads

Originally Posted by Clinton

Hi Steve, and welcome to experienced-people.net (and thanks to Kay for tipping you off about us/ inviting you).

What type of forums do you run and do you manage them all yourself?

Forex Trading, but a specialised form. A spin off from a thread on forex factory if you're familiar with it. The rest of the forums are all related to various businesses for customers and staff, but the same principles apply.

I do all the techy stuff but have people who help the day to day management of the "hard of thinking's" posts. Apologies if I sound harsh on my 3rd ever post - I'm actually really friendly and welcoming to people who want to be part of a community - I just have a very low tolerance level for people who think its their right to just take, take, take without giving anything back.

I'm a believer in forums over email actually - I banned all but the most essential meetings in my company back in 2002 and replaced them with an internal forum running phpbb2. Productivity shot up dramatically - instead of sitting in a meeting getting bored, people would reply to threads when they had time and we had an immediate audit trail of who said what and when. Worked wonders for the usual blame game amongst staff. Brought in the same for customers in 2007, and merged the 2 in 2009. Now we co-ordinate most of our business with our customers through the forums - customers are happier as response times are faster, things are not forgotten as the thread sits there waiting for a reply (emails get forgotten about).

I'll try my best here but as a newbie no doubt I'll be a bit shy to begin with