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Transcript of Online Community Building and the Future of Websites Matthew Burnett Pro Bono Net Travis August Pro...
Online Community Building and the Future of Websites
Matthew BurnettPro Bono Net
Travis AugustPro Bono Net
Outline
What is a community? What is an online or virtual community? Why develop online communities? Building and sustaining online
communities Tools and services for building online
communities Examples of online communities Questions/Contact information
What is community?
A community is a group of people who interact and share certain things as a group, including intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions that may be present and common, and affect the identity of the participants and their degree of adhesion.
From “Community” on Wikipedia.org (a very good example of a robust online community)
What are some examples of real world communities? What makes them communities?
What is an online (or virtual) community?
An online community has the same characteristics as a real world community, except that the interactions and sharing take place (primarily) online.
A major benefit of online communities is that they can be both widely distributed and deeply networked, a feature that is supported by various online tools and services.
What are some examples of online communities that you belong to?
Why develop online communities?
Recruit membership/volunteers Increase visibility Share information/resources with a
wider network Organize/activate users around
issues or causes Coordinate trainings, events and
other activities
Tools and services for building online communities
There are a wealth of tools and services available to build and support online communities. These tools are sometimes referred to as “social software” or Community 2.0 (a derivative of Web 2.0). What distinguishes them is that they all emphasize collaboration among users.
Here are a few examples that have proven themselves to be useful, or may prove themselves be useful, to the poverty law community.
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Statewide Websites: Client sites:
Feedback Newsletters Online surveys
Advocate sites: Interactive content (calendars, news,
libraries, etc.) Listservs Multimedia
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Blogs/Blawgs (law blogs) Online journals where authors post a series of
articles in chronological order Take on a specific topic or cater to a specific
community of users Users can generally post comments/feedback Special features like track/linkbacks (notifies
an author that their entry has been linked to), RSS and inclusion in blog search engines (i.e. Technorati)
Free or small monthly fee, depending on the service
shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Webcasts Live/archived video streamed on the
internet (internet broadcasting) Can be used for advocate trainings,
client community education, etc. Live webcasts may include interactive
chat.
NYC Pro Bono Center
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Podcasts Like webcasts, only audio Can be syndicated using RSS or other
services (users can subscribe to a podcasts)
Relatively low bandwidth, can be downloaded and played with mobile devices (i.e. ipods, cell phones)
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Wikis Website that allows users to interact
and collaborate on a project or resource Users can add, delete and modify
information Tracks changes over time Can be made public or private
FEMAAnswers.org
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Content tags Metadata/terms associated with a piece of
content Folksonomy (ground-up) v. taxonomy (top-
down) Can be tagged by creators, consumers or both Examples:
Social bookmarking: used to store, share and search web bookmarks (i.e. del.icio.us)
Photo sharing: used to organize photos based on tags (i.e. flickr)
del.icio.us/popular/law
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) An easy way to syndicate content to
your community. Users can digest feeds into their:
Websites Blogs Newsreaders (also called feed readers or
feed aggregators) A simple way to bring relevant content
to your community.
IllinoisProBono.org
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Webinars/Online Meetings Collaborate using online tools (i.e. Webex,
GotoMeeting) to review documents, conduct trainings, etc.
Users call-in to a conference call number Can be saved for further trainings or to archive
project materials Reduce time and costs associate with travel,
increased audience (particularly when working with rural populations of clients or advocates)
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Online Project Management Share documents and interact with
other project partners online Can be for long-term or short-term
projects Commercial products/services are
available (i.e. Basecamp), but free services like wikis and blogs may work just as well
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Internet Forums Allow users to post questions and
answers using a simple, web-based application.
Allow administrators to set up different categories for discussion
Posts are threaded, which provides users a “map” of the discussion
Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)
Mobile Technologies SMS (text messaging) Instant Messaging to text mobile
phones Sending/syncing data between PDAs,
mobile phones, online services, etc. (i.e. photos, documents)
What’s next?
Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)
Identify your target audience Who are you trying to reach?
Example: clients, pro bono lawyers, law students
How will you reach them? Example: at the legal aid office,
communications with law firms/schools, substantive listservs, etc.
Why will they be interested? Example: to solve a legal problem, gain
insight into a new area of practice/career, networking opportunities
Building and sustaining online communities
Identify your goals What a your goals for building an online
community? Example: to build greater awareness of your
site’s resources How will building an online community satisfy
these goals? Example: sharing resources with a wider
audience will help build greater awareness How will you know if/when the goals have been
satisfied? Example: more resources downloaded from
the site; increase in demand for new resources, etc.
Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)
Identify the kinds of sharing and interactions that you hope to foster/facilitate What kinds of sharing or interactions?
One-to-one, one-to-many, many to many Do the interactions need to be real-time
or can they be asynchronous? What kinds of tools or services will help
to facilitate these interactions?
Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)
Identify any rules or community guidelines What are the rules or guidelines?
Example: flame-free, on-topic How will they be communicated?
Example: Join email, site policy/terms of use
How will they be enforced? Example: Warning, canceling membership
Second Life
EnviroLink
Common Circle
N-TEN
Global Voices
TakingITGlobal
Questions/Contact Information
Questions?
Contact information: Matthew Burnett
[email protected] Travis August