Archive for the 'Virtual Community' Category
February 22, 2005
Hiring: Community and Intranet Manager
Ever wanted to manage a staff intranet and a member community for a large membership organization in Rockville, MD? Have I got an opportunity for you! :)
The Community and Intranet Manager works on our Community and Knowledge Management team along with myself and Brenda, our Knowledge Manager. I think it is a wonderful position, in that you get to play (er, work) with a lot of fun technology, partner with some of the best web staff in the association world, and facilitate our member and staff communities.
Follow the link above for details on the job (including starting salary range) and how to apply.
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August 27, 2004
Hosted Drupal Service
Gunnar Langemark has pointed out a new company that provides a hosted Drupal service: Bryght From the site:
Bryght is our Drupal hosted service that enables anyone – from individuals to businesses and organizations – to easily build and maintain a dynamic website with an online community.
I’ve used Drupal for a couple small project groups. It is a great collaborative tool if you can keep everything html based (document management tends to be a bit weak). This service should make it feasible for a much wider array of people to easily take advantage of Drupal.
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August 10, 2004
Event Blogging
Dan Bricklin’s essay on the dynamics of event blogging, based on his experience at the Democratic National Convention, provide some useful thoughts for the bloggers who may cover the ASAE meeting:
What we learn from the Convention blogging:
Event blogging is different than normal, daily blogging. In normal blogging, you watch the world go by and pick and choose things you want to comment upon. There is material online to point to and react to. There are ideas that well up and you take the time to write about, but few people may be waiting for them. There are many, many bloggers. Some read other blogs and choose the posts they think others should read. Through popular gateway blogs like some of the well known political blogs, and tools like Blogdex, Daypop, and more, things bubble to the top.
Events are another thing entirely. The time is very condensed and the amount of information is concentrated. If you are “covering” the event, you have to look at it all and provide perspective to a reader who doesn’t see all of the context that you do. The event marches on and won’t stop for you to take time for thinking and writing. Picking and choosing is harder — if you stop to blog, you might miss the keystone piece of what’s going on.
Good stuff. I know I usually have a hard time just keeping up with voice- and e-mail while at a meeting like this, let alone trying to write something coherent.
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May 20, 2003
Sports Virtual Communities
If you follow virtual community news, you may want to check out the May 16, 2003 issue of Sports Illustrated which has an article about the impact of sports community sites on the lives of coaches and atheletes. The article interprets that impact as largely negative. “Caught in the Net”, p46. Unfortunately SI doesn’t post their print articles online as far as I can tell.
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May 17, 2003
Blog Tipping Points
David Pollard has some interesting ideas about tipping points for blogs.
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September 25, 2002
Smart Mobs Blog
Howard Rhiengold has started a blog in conjunction with his new book that is about to be released. The blogger at SmartMobs write about news and events that illustrate the phenomenon described in the book. Great way to extend the value and currency of his book after the type is all set.
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August 6, 2002
AOL Rediscovers the User
New Software (and Bosses) at AOL is a great article on the NYT web site today. It discusses how the revamped leadership of the company is moving back to being user-centric in their approach to business as opposed to investor-centric. Here is a snippet about their plans to reduce pop-up ads:
The worst fears of Mr. Leonsis and his colleagues became evident late last year as AOL’s monthly surveys found member satisfaction starting to dip. Mr. Leonsis formed a task force to look at why members were canceling their service. It zeroed in on pop-up advertisements, a longtime feature and to many a longtime annoyance. As revenue began to fall last year, AOL had increased the frequency of pop-ups, and members began to complain louder than usual.
A study showed that when the number of pop-up ads was cut in half for a group of members, their satisfaction improved notably. That led not only to a cutback in the number of pop-ups across the service, but was, according to Mr. Leonsis, the catalyst for a revolution within AOL.
The article also indicates they are trying to refocus on the supporting the community of AOL users. Sounds like they are coming back to reality.
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July 15, 2002
Self-herding Cats
From Michael Helfrich’s weblog: Technology Confined Collaboration?
Collaboration is about people. Collaboration needs technology frameworks that support adaptive, ad hoc interactions. Adaptive from the sense of extending functionality on the fly and securely embracing new members on the fly. Simply put, it’s the swarming culture fused with adaptive technology.
Good article from a Groove VP. It reminds me of the famous commercial for a consulting firm that featured cowboys herding thousands of cats across the plains. The joke there is that cats are independent minded beings and are not very receptive to centralized herding control. The other joke is that the consulting firm claimed they could do the herding for you.
Decentralized collaborative software such as Groove and weblogs allow knowledge worker cats to do their own herding. They really won’t be herded any other way.
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July 11, 2002
Listening to the City
Listening to the City volunteer appeal
Cliff Figallo is looking for 30 volunteer hosts to assist in a NYC community event gathering citizen feedback on how to redevelop the World Trade Center site. Are you an experienced online host with time on your hands? If so, this looks like a worthy volunteer opportunity.
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April 17, 2002
Shell Gets a Clue
Looks like someone at Shell read the Cluetrain Manifesto. This article describes how Shell has opened a public forum for their customers. They do not delete posts, they don’t give non-responsive responses (well, not many at least). Any employee at Shell can respond to a statement or questions posted by anyone on the forums. Here is the conclusion of the article that sums it up very nicely:
“So here’s how it works. A company opens a forum. People post messages of every sort, from the supportive to the stupid to the righteously indignant. Employees respond in their own voices. Readers of the forum see in the answers not just words but a real sense that the employees care and that the company is confident enough in what it stands for to allow employees to say what they want. As a result, the company’s social commitment avoids sounding like every other company’s trendy mouthings. Shell’s lack of control over the forum is precisely equivalent to the depth of its real commitment. It’s that simple.”
After reading some of the messages on that board, I am very impressed that Shell has stayed behind this concept since they launched it in 1999. Many other companies would have run away screaming and shut it down long ago.
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