Client meeting about H Branding licensing and Memberships (notes)
- Kicki of ("Happy Mutts") - past SHF board member
- Frida - current board member (sole employee of a company)
- Susanna - current board member & developer
- Patrick - developer; working on the payments, including the H-branding fee and membership fee
- Ashley - developer
We talked through the questions and issues from Questions for the client: H branding fee payment
Patrick started with a demo of the current system under development so that everyone understood the context & background. He showed how a membership fee would be paid, how an administrator could change the membership status (is or is not a member) and make a note (visible only to a SHF administrators). He showed how a company H-branding fee could be paid, and how an administrator could change the expiration date for the H-branding term and make a note (visible only to a SHF administrator).
Questions (from the document) The owner of a company is responsible for making sure that the H-branding fee for a company has been paid.
The current approach: To simplify things, the system will not identify or track who the owner is. Instead, all employees of a company will see that the H-branding fee must be paid and just ensure that someone (any employee) pays the fee.
Discussion:
The SHF board must clarify and decide this.
There have been SHF Board discussions and notes about this. There were suggestions and ideas. (Perhaps those past documents are a possible source of information and ideas?)
Discussion:
Yes. There should be a checkbox that a user must tick stating that they agree to the "terms and conditions" for both the H-branding fee and the individual membership fee.
- SHF should pay for someone to do a 'legal review' (a lawyer / attorney) of both so that it is correct and clear and legal
- this also gives 'weight' to what the person is paying for ( = increases the perceived the value of what they are getting from SHF)
Yes. After discussion about meanings and different words, we all agreed that is the right term. The sveriges term is licens
Easy scenario: A person with their own 1-person company wants to be a member. They pay their membership fee and H-branding license fee at the same time.
B.1. What if a company has many people (employees) and the H-branding license fee has not been paid? Can the employees be full SHF members?
Discussion:
They say that you must be a member ( = membership approved + pay your membership fee), but do not explicitly say that the company must be H-branded ( = H-brand license fee paid).
What is the intent? Must the company be H-branded?
What is the value to the members and the companies?
How do you encourage (or force) people to pay both the individual membership fee and the company H-branding fee?
Example where someone might not see the value of paying the company H-branding fee:
- What if a person doesn't care if their company is H-branded? If someone is the only employee of a company, then they might just pay the individual membership fee. If they don't see the value of what is provided with the H-branding fee, it won't be paid.
- They earn the right to say that they meet the SHF qualifications
- They can publicly display the SHF H-branding logo to show that they meet the SHF qualifications
- The company will show up on the SHF site when visitors come there and search for H-branded companies. (If the H-branding fee is not paid, that company is "not visible to the public" on the SHF site.)
- The company can create their own highly customized web page on the SHF site
- The SHF site will automatically show:
- the skills/business categories for the company that meet the SHF qualifications
- the employees that are SHF members ( = a benefit/value to the individual employee and perhaps helps them encourage the owner to pay the H-branding fee so that they get their name listed.)
- a map showing their location
- a link to their website
- their contact info (address, phone)
Background: In the past it was too expensive for each person to pay the total cost of membership. Breaking the cost into 2 parts -- the individual membership + the company fee -- made it less expensive for employees of a company to become members. (In addition to the tax implication that the company fee is deductible.)
Real world examples: Kicki's company Glada Jyckar AB has 6 employees. There is another company that also has many employees.
Why is the membership fee more expensive than the H-branding license fee?
Is the ultimate goal to move towards having the H-branding license fee cost more than an individual membership? (Probably, but SHF board needs to discuss and confirm this.)
- wording for the "terms and conditions" when a person is paying for a membership fee
- wording for the "terms and conditions" when a person is paying for the H-branding fee
- legal review needed?
- What is the intent for the company H-branding (license)? Is it always optional? Should it be required or encouraged? How does it relate to the employee (individual) SHF memberships?
- what is the value of an individual SHF membership if the company is not H-branded?
- do the SHF by-laws support / encourage / drive the intent and value?
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Will go forward with the simple assumption that a person can be a member even if their company has not paid the H-branding license fee. (Their application must be approved and they must pay their membership fee, of course.) This simple approach will be fine for now and will help get this functionality into production sooner. This can be changed in the future if the board decides.
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Will not try to identify a 'company owner' for now. Will leave it to the employees to figure out and ensure that someone pays the H-branding license fee. (Since most companies currently in SHF have 1 person, this doesn't have a big impact right now. We can adjust in the future if it's clear it's needed. We'll start with this simple approach.)
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If a company has at least 1 employee that is an SHF member but the company is not H-branded (the H-branding license fee has not been paid), then:
- the company is "not visible to the public" on the SHF website. That means it will not be displayed on any maps or in any lists, and the custom company web page cannot be seen
- the employees that are SHF members can log in to the SHF site and start to work on their company's custom web page so that it's ready as soon as the H-branding license fee is paid Once the H-branding license fee is paid, the company becomes "visible to the public" on the SHF site
