Mooney.com website revamped

[shawnd]

New site focused around community, and they got their own owner's forum now (fyi, glad to see they called this out in the Mooney memo - "it was not added with a mind to replace or compete with MooneySpace."). I like the idea to be honest!

https://www.mooney.com/

BTW, this got my attention:

"There’s a lot to do at Mooney and slowly but surely, we’re making progress. Parts are flowing (we’re working to get more of ‘em and faster) and the next generation of planes is on the drawing board. I feel the weight of a great responsibility not to let any of you down. We’re searching for the resources and the partners to make Mooney live up to its potential and I promise I’ll do everything in my power to make sure that happens. "

[hammdo]

And this:

https://www.mooney.com/register/

 

"THERE ARE OTHER ON-LINE FORUMS THAT PROVIDE A SPACE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO EXCHANGE IDEAS, THIS PART OF OUR WEBSITE IS INTENDED AS A WAY FOR OWNERS TO HAVE A MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION WITH EACH OTHER AS WELL AS MOONEY..."

https://www.mooney.com/december-18th-2020/

Explains the thought behind the new forum...

-Don

[Seth]

It creates exclusivity which is a driver of want. I can't fault that and it is not an attack on Mooneyspace.

-Seth

[INA201]

Signed up!  Sounds like addressing useful load and manufacturing efficiency will indeed make for a more competitive aircraft.  I’m certainly more optimistic based on what I’m seeing.

[hammdo]

40 minutes ago, Seth said:

It creates exclusivity which is a driver of want. I can't fault that and it is not an attack on Mooneyspace.

-Seth

They pretty much stated that on the 2nd link I posted... 

-Don 

[skydvrboy]

I love the new website!  As an industrial engineer, I thought one of Johnny's comments was spot on: "But as great as our aircraft are, there were inefficiencies in the way they were built and simply restarting production would have been a fool’s errand."  I picking my jaw up off the floor at Oshkosh when the salesman was bragging that Mooney's took something like 10 times as many man-hours to build as a Cessna and 5 times as many as a Cirrus.  He was actually trying to imply that was a good thing!

I also saw that our very own @aviatoreb was selected as the Mooney of the Month.  Nice write-up Erik, and what an amazing plane to be featured as the first MOTM.

[Browncbr1]

Seems like they should have just bought MS..   

[ZuluZulu]

4 hours ago, hammdo said:

And this:

https://www.mooney.com/register/

 

"THERE ARE OTHER ON-LINE FORUMS THAT PROVIDE A SPACE FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO EXCHANGE IDEAS, THIS PART OF OUR WEBSITE IS INTENDED AS A WAY FOR OWNERS TO HAVE A MEANINGFUL DISCUSSION WITH EACH OTHER AS WELL AS MOONEY..."

https://www.mooney.com/december-18th-2020/

Explains the thought behind the new forum...

-Don

BUT WHY ARE THEY YELLING AT ME

[INA201]

What’s truly amazing is that the prior owners totally neglected the “good will,” of all of us Mooney owners, Mooney watchers, Mooney fans, Mooneyspace members, and frankly it seems like Mooney employees too.  I’m optimistic mostly because of what I feel is an about face from the prior owner.  There is an insane amount of passion amongst the Mooney community.  Passion is an almost free resource produced from the respect and passion(energy)that is created when things are done “right.”  We all know the Mooney story and it feels like the new owners do to. It’s the whole point of all of this. Good luck Mooney Inc.  I am on the team as long as you are on the team too. 

[201er]

"The forum portion of the site was created to allow for more efficient communications between the Mooney team and all of you. Its functions are not ornate or fancy and as I mentioned in my blog post, it was not added with a mind to replace or compete with MooneySpace."

"This page is a showcase for you and your Mooney. Submit a pic of your plane, some information about yourself and your Mooney and if you’re chosen, it’ll be the featured Mooney of the month. You won’t get anything else – no cash prizes, no discounts on parts, nothing – not even a stinkin’ t-shirt!"

I sure can't wait to find out the kinds of freebies and food they'll be handing out at the Mooney tent at Oshkosh next time

[skydvrboy]

2 hours ago, 201er said:

I sure can't wait to find out the kinds of freebies and food they'll be handing out at the Mooney tent at Oshkosh next time

It seems we are an easy bunch to please.  The MS gathering is well attended and something many of us look forward to.  The menu... beer and pizza... by donation of course!

[aviatoreb]

5 hours ago, skydvrboy said:

I love the new website!  As an industrial engineer, I thought one of Johnny's comments was spot on: "But as great as our aircraft are, there were inefficiencies in the way they were built and simply restarting production would have been a fool’s errand."  I picking my jaw up off the floor at Oshkosh when the salesman was bragging that Mooney's took something like 10 times as many man-hours to build as a Cessna and 5 times as many as a Cirrus.  He was actually trying to imply that was a good thing!

I also saw that our very own @aviatoreb was selected as the Mooney of the Month.  Nice write-up Erik, and what an amazing plane to be featured as the first MOTM.

Thanks!  What a surprise to be invited.  Many more beautiful Mooney's here to follow I am sure and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of your planes in months to come.

[carusoam]

If you struggled more than me to log in...

You probably didn’t see EB’s plane...

Go find it... it turns out Erik, not only knows his math, but his writing skills are pretty good too... 

PIC #1 shown below... is just the the beauty on the surface...

Pic#2 shown next... is part of this birds deep personality... You have to look closely... she has a beauty mark right between the 3 and the 1 in her endless tail number.... somebody once posted her official full tail number and took an infinite amount of electronic pages to cover it all...

Fortunately, she received a nick name right after that... She is belovingly called the Pi Plane...

 

Best regards,

-a-

 

[toto]

About the new forum... 

Since this is not meant to be a general purpose forum, and not meant to compete with MS, I'm trying to understand when I would or should use it. 

If I have a technical question, I'm always going to start with MS - hopefully it's a question that has been answered before, and if not, then I'm almost certain to have some helpful quick responses from people with experience to share. 

If I need wisdom directly from the factory, I'm probably going to use a more targeted contact (email or phone) rather than posting on the forum. And when I'm done, I'll summarize the information here on MS so others will benefit. 

So.. serious question.. when would you use the new mooney.com forum instead of MS? When would Mooney expect us over there instead of on here?

I've actually been really excited to have @Jonny lurking on here, and I'd love to see a dedicated factory rep on MS so we could communicate with the MS community and the factory in the same thread. 

[201er]

24 minutes ago, toto said:

So.. serious question.. when would you use the new mooney.com forum instead of MS? When would Mooney expect us over there instead of on here?

I’d rather see Mooney get their own section on Mooneyspace and handle the forum bit on here. 

[Andy95W]

I think the Mooney factory forum is a good idea, and an excellent way for the factory to control the message and provide a real, “official” response to questions.

I think many owners will still post their questions to Mooneyspace, particularly owners of Vintage aircraft.  But anyone who’s been around for a while has seen the differences of opinions presented here, sometimes by people who have no facts to support those opinions.  The factory can at least prevent that from occurring.

[Bob E]

I tried submitting a comment but got a "server error" message.  Tried it on several different browsers. Anyone else having the same issue?

Mooney Factory, if you're reading this, consider this my response to your invitation to comment!

[carusoam]

17 minutes ago, Bob E said:

I tried submitting a comment but got a "server error" message.  Tried it on several different browsers. Anyone else having the same issue?

Mooney Factory, if you're reading this, consider this my response to your invitation to comment!

Bob,

That get in touch button at the bottom is pretty disappointing...

I filled it up and got a similar response like you are showing...

 

But,

Today... I logged in as a new user... and posted my first theoretical request in the Ovation section...

So... some things are getting under way....

Best regards,

-a-

[shawnd]

12 hours ago, 201er said:

I’d rather see Mooney get their own section on Mooneyspace and handle the forum bit on here. 

 

Yeah, I agree that a dedicated space on MS would have worked as well. One positive side to this is that non-owners can see how active the company is with its client base and join the Mooney family.

However, with any random Joe able to jump in and start an opinion war - I can see why a separate forum with more control is better. But then it doesn’t stop any current owners from starting religious wars either on that forum.

Perhaps, a Zendesk style direct factory support would have been more valuable than a forum @Johnny? This would allow owners to see other support responses but post privileges to a thread belongs to the owner and Mooney.

[shawnd]

9 hours ago, carusoam said:

Bob,

That get in touch button at the bottom is pretty disappointing...

I filled it up and got a similar response like you are showing..

Lesson from the tech world: when you spend the time to write a thoughtful post, write it somewhere safe, paste it in the browser and then hit save. Or at least, copy the content before hitting save - the gremlins are notorious for creating havoc in the interweb trunk lines with new internet services and features.

[carusoam]

2 hours ago, shawnd said:

Lesson from the tech world: when you spend the time to write a thoughtful post, write it somewhere safe, paste it in the browser and then hit save. Or at least, copy the content before hitting save - the gremlins are notorious for creating havoc in the interweb trunk lines with new internet services and features.

Shawn,

I used to lose a post every day...

Each time the battery on the iPad ran out... 

So I wrote more... making the statistics look much better.... 

Today iPads give two warnings before shutting down.   MS saves everything within reason...

Its taken a decade to get this far...

Its going to be great watching Mooney climb this hill and succeed.

This hill, that hill, all those other hills....

Best regards,

-a-

[Davidv]

There appears to be some confusion about "technical support" in the Mooney forum that I can try to clear up.

This is not meant to be level 1 tech support from Mooney.  The usual email support email addresses are monitored and will be continued to be answered on a daily basis. Sure, it may take some time to hear back on a question about an electrical issue in an E model, but the team does it's best to answer all questions. You can probably appreciate the challenge and resources required to answer all technical questions about thousands of aircraft built over the last 60 years.

The Mooney technical support will monitor the forum and jump in when it looks like an answer to a specific topic or question will benefit a larger audience. Part of the reason for the forum and registration is to bring owners closer to Mooney. I've heard so many stories about people visiting Mooney at Oshkosh and being ignored by the sales representatives because they weren't potential Ultra customers. Allowing users to register for the website is just an initial small way of recognizing the thousands of passionate owners as part of Mooney's valuable community. Of course, no one has any obligation to participate in the forum but it's there if people want to use it to network with fellow owners or ask a model specific question.

Mooneyspace will forever be the #1 forum for enthusiasts to discuss everything from daily flights, to technical questions and jokes - or to complain about Mooney .

David

[Deb]

8 minutes ago, Davidv said:

There appears to be some confusion about "technical support" in the Mooney forum that I can try to clear up.

This is not meant to be level 1 tech support from Mooney.  The usual email support email addresses are monitored and will be continued to be answered on a daily basis. Sure, it may take some time to hear back on a question about an electrical issue in an E model, but the team does it's best to answer all questions. You can probably appreciate the challenge and resources required to answer all technical questions about thousands of aircraft built over the last 60 years.

The Mooney technical support will monitor the forum and jump in when it looks like an answer to a specific topic or question will benefit a larger audience. Part of the reason for the forum and registration is to bring owners closer to Mooney. I've heard so many stories about people visiting Mooney at Oshkosh and being ignored by the sales representatives because they weren't potential Ultra customers. Allowing users to register for the website is just an initial small way of recognizing the thousands of passionate owners as part of Mooney's valuable community. Of course, no one has any obligation to participate in the forum but it's there if people want to use it to network with fellow owners or ask a model specific question.

Mooneyspace will forever be the #1 forum for enthusiasts to discuss everything from daily flights, to technical questions and jokes - or to complain about Mooney .

David

It would appear as if at least one person from Mooney is an avid Mooneyspace follower !

[201er]

3 hours ago, Davidv said:

I've heard so many stories about people visiting Mooney at Oshkosh and being ignored by the sales representatives because they weren't potential Ultra customers.

Good thing you understand this. Mooney impressing a C owner into an E at Oshkosh and a J owner into an Ovation is part of what makes the Ovation owner get enough out of selling his Ovation that puts him into an Ultra! The appeal and legacy of the old planes is definitely a big part of selling the new ones. If Mooney makes new planes that are the envy of the legacy owners, those new planes will sell one way or another.

[aviatoreb]

Right - also the ovation owner who is now ready to sell and buy an ultra needs someone to buy that ovation - and the person who is buying that ovation needs someone to buy their j in order to buy that ovation. And on down to the c.  So if that person who buys that c never themselves buys the. Ultra they are part of the ecosystem that sells the ultra.

there is an old poem about this originally about the battle of bosworth in the war of the roses in England in 1485.

for want of a nail a shoe was lost

for want of a shoe a horse was lost

For want of a horse a rider was lost

for want of a rider a message was lost

for want of a message a battle was lost

For want of a battle a kingdom was lost

And all for want of a nail.

...sensitive dependence to initial conditions.  Causality.  Small things having big down stream consequences.  

i am glad Mooney is paying attention to the details in your current incarnation.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Battle_of_Bosworth_by_Philip_James_de_Loutherbourg.jpg&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field&docid=APzPPGBJkys9oM&tbnid=65OVJvgUcML3YM&vet=1&w=1172&h=884&itg=1&hl=en-us&source=sh/x/im