19 February 2004|
The Role of a Weblog Inside an Online Community. I’ve been thinking a lot about how weblogs can be used as a part of an online community- and I think there are some real benefits. One of the essential elements of successful online communities is leadership. An influential leader’s ability to manage a community can make an incredible difference in community perceptions, member participation and overall success. Leadership cannot occur without communication. Without an effective way to communicate with members, a community leader cannot be as effective. Most managers participate in ongoing discussions and/or post information to a specific part of the community devoted to “Announcements” or “News”. While these are effective, I think there are new tools that can take community management a step further. For instance, weblogs could play a significant role in helping online communities by giving the community leadership a more effective tool for keeping members updated and engaged. In this case, an online community could have a weblog that is internally-focused and managed by community leaders. A community leader (or a group of leaders) could use the weblog on a daily basis and post:
Weblogs could be most valuable for new members of a community, who need a cultural touchstone to quickly get a “feel” for how things work in the community. By reviewing weblog posts, a new member could quickly get a feel for the community’s culture by viewing a chronicle of the community’s history, through the words of the leadership. The combination of a weblog and normal community tools (discussions, member profiles, etc.) makes for an impressive set of resources for the members. The weblog can act as a filter for the various discussions occurring on the site and provide members an easy way to find the most interesting or provocative discussions. Plus, being recognized on the weblog could be a incentive for thoughtful participation. Another way to look at this is making an online community’s weblog a public resource, but making the community private. In this way, the weblog pulls members into the community membership based on what they see on the weblog. I guess you could call it weblog-based PR for the community. 9:45:50 PM 
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Weblogs, Wikis and RSS Together: A Basic Recipe. At the recent Tech-Muck, I got my first real experience using a wiki, thanks to SocialText. I’ve been tuned-in for a while, but this was the first time I experienced a wiki in practice. (A “wiki” is a group of related web pages that are very easy to edit/update and used by multiple people at once). This experience (and Ross' post) prompted me to think about where/how a wiki fits into my other favorite technologies, RSS and Weblogs. During a morning dog-walk today, I came to the basic conclusions below. Here is a quick and dirty recipe for using these new tools in a project group situation:
I think using these technologies together could represent a new and effective way to allow groups to move more quickly from ideas to deliverables. What do you think? 9:45:05 PM
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High profile bloggers - continued. The head of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa, K.Y. Amoako, has just launched his own blog. Calixte's comment about blogging being a potentially powerful tool of accountability and change is well taken; but it's not so much because of... [BlogAfrica News and Discussion] 9:44:11 PM
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Using the internet in Namibian schools. Schools in developing countries are beginning to get computers and access to the Internet. They are using them in teaching and administration; learners can also use them to become computer and Internet literate. This reports evaluates the activities of SchoolNet Namibia and argues that programmes like this should aim to provide affordable access using open platforms, pay attention to longer term cost of ownership issues, leverage change through partnerships, work closely with governments, involve school principals and [Eldis ICT for development newsfeed] 9:43:40 PM
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ICT and special educational needs in Africa. The aim of this study is to investigate how good practice and experiences from the global use of Assistive Technology (AT) can be shared with African governments and people working in the sector. The study focuses on the use of ICT to support Special Educational Needs (SEN) in Africa with particular reference to special schools, teacher education and inclusive educational programmes. The main disability groups considered are the hearing impaired, vision impaired and children with general learning [Eldis ICT for development newsfeed] 9:43:20 PM
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Targeted Email Newsletters Show Continued Strength. "E-newsletters that are informative, convenient, and timely are often preferred over other media. However, a new study found that only 11% of newsletters were read thoroughly, so layout and content scannability is paramount." (Jakob Nielsen - Alertbox)... [InfoDesign: Understanding by Design] 9:42:38 PM
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Last update: 23/03/2004; 11:25:02 .
