Looking For a Few Individuals in the Boston Area

There is an exciting, new project afoot, and I am looking for some friends and neighbors in the western Boston suburbs to join me in helping a company that is building a huge, new web site. Your participation could make a difference in the look and feel of a new web site as well as the business plans of this huge new online service.

iArchives, Inc., a company located in Lindon, Utah, plans to launch a new web site later this year. This site will host millions of rich historical documents that have never before been available online. In some cases, the documents have not even been available on microfilm or any format other than the original paper. 

iArchives is looking for individuals living in the Boston area who are willing to volunteer an hour of their time to evaluate iArchives' new website and provide candid feedback about the content of the site, its ease of use, pricing, and so forth. The site will be a history site, but many genealogists will find the original records interesting as well. The site designers are seeking history researchers for this survey. Five representatives from iArchives will join me in the Boston area July 26-28, and would enjoy the opportunity of visiting with you in your home. The iArchives team and I are hoping to schedule visits in the morning (9:00), afternoon (1:00), or early evening (4:00). 

If you are a genealogy or history researcher living within 20 miles of the Waltham/Wayland, Massachusetts area, and are interested in volunteering to help iArchives with their customer research, please let me know so I can help arrange the visit. You can contact me at richard@eastman.net or call me at 508-471-3890. If you would rather contact iArchives directly, you can call Roger Bell at iArchives, 801-224-4015 extension 232, or send him an email at rbell@iarchives.com. 

Word has it that they might offer you a free annual membership to their new website once it launches. If you are able to volunteer, it's certainly an opportunity for you to make a difference. 

I'll be joining the iArchives researchers and hope to meet you then.

Thank you!
- Dick Eastman

Comments

[sue b]

within 10 miles of Wayland - that seems like it will limit the socioeconomic groups in the research -

[Dick Eastman]

It will also limit the travel that the team needs to do. We have to visit a lot of people within a very short period of time. We (a team of several people) plan to spend one hour in each person's home and we need to visit as many people as fast as possible each day. That location is near Route 128, Route 2 and the Mass Pike, making it an ideal starting location. If we open it up to a wider radius we end up spending too much time traveling and not enough time working on the objective.

- Dick Eastman

[Dick Eastman]

I talked with the folks at iArchives today and we have decided to expand the area in which we are seeing volunteers. If you live within 20 miles of the Waltham/Wayland area, we would love to visit you on July 26, 27 or 28 to see how you like the prototype of this new service.

You do not need to be a history or genealogy or computer expert. In fact, ideally we want a MIX of experts, intermediates and novices alike. That is why we will ask about your skill levels: we do not want ALL experts or ALL novices. We need to ask about your skill levels so that we can make sure we can pick a mixture of each.

Thanks!