Hey there GeniusU members, Citizens and Mentors - thanks for tuning in for another development update! We're 2 weeks into Q4, and we've been working hard on making sure our plans are aligned with user feedback from last quarter, and that they set us up for some exciting year-long plans in 2020. So what're we focused on right now in GeniusU?

**You may have noticed the site loading slowly today, and timing out on some of your requests. It's an issue our team have looked into - and it comes as a result of the amount of data we are syncing from our external CRM. Things like your membership level, the degrees you have access to if you're a consultant, and your contact information are all things that are being 'synced' in the background all the time - and all this processing was taking a toll on our servers. 

So before we work on any new releases, we're looking to ease up the load in the background, to make sure GeniusU is a smooth experience for all (in this modern age of technology, any loading speeds over 2 seconds are just too long!). 

For this final quarter of 2019, the key areas we're working on are Assessments, entry point onboarding to GeniusU, our 'Today' page with Genie suggestions, and a Membership page to allow you to manage your memberships and subscriptions from inside of GeniusU.

These are all priorities for us this quarter because we want to make sure you have autonomy and control over your experience on the site, and we want to support you with a more intelligent Genie - one that can answer your questions, and give you suggestions based on where you are and where you want to go. 

We're also improving our internal team processes this quarter. We've brought in one of our team to work full-time on data analysis - so we can inform our development objectives with data that's collected daily on where people are spending their time on GeniusU, and where people are leaving from. We can see already that Microdegrees are the most-visited part of GeniusU - so we're gathering feedback and looking at how we can improve the learning experience there. 

Who remembers this video from back in 2017?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4Wizvmw8Ec&t=2s

This is the GeniusU we're working towards - and getting closer every day. 

Thanks for your ongoing support - What do you think of our development plan? 

Please drop comments with feedback and suggestions for what YOU'D like to see on GeniusU down below. 

Have a great weekend, 

Kathleen