One of my favorite new (to me) blogs is Social Signal, which I learned about at the Online Community Summit last month. Not only am I totally excited about the super pimped-out laptop treatment that Alexandra was sporting there, but also about the thoughtful and practical advices on buliding online communities for social change provided on their blog.
I wasn’t surprised then, when Rob Cottingham pointed to this post on A List Apart about how managing forums is a lot like throwing a party. I love this post because it’s exactly what I tell my colleagues here at WJ about hosting new discussions or topics or forums … it’s as simple as being a party planner and following through as host(ess) with the most(ess). I know it’s super cheesy but ILTKOT (i love this kind of thing). And if you count as “success” the facilitating of countless (not literally, but..) useful connections for library staff on an ongoing basis on any topic at any time, you’d also have to agree that we’re on to something. Right?
Here’s where I start to go “hmmmm.” The A List post is directed to message board or forum managers. Rob points out that it’s worth considering for “the rest of us too.” He’s not the first to reference the fact that the new kids on the block are sort of over the whole message board thing. Social Signal seems to take a moderate stance on this question, so I don’t mean to single them out, but it is their post that got me thinking…
Ok. I get it. Forums remain /so/ 2003. But look at what we’re doing with them all the while! You’ve heard me say this about list-servs too. Do I sound like a broken record?
We know that WJ forums (and forums in general) have lots of things lacking. WJ itself has lots of things lacking (soon to be corrected, as we’ll see with the refresh). But as we grow and adopt new communications and networking technologies I feel some underlying pressure to reconsider message boards as our primary mode of connecting our members. I have a strong personal resistance to that pressure, if it’s really there. I have always felt that blogs and other web-based social activities were great for networking. They are perfect for organizing our own web-activities and connecting us to others with similar interests. Just knowing that these networks are there – that the like-minded are there with us – is fantastic. But I also believe that nothing creates community better than some good ole’ peer to peer /conversation/ which is where I think message boards really do well. Blog-to-blog banter and even profile-centric collection development still seems broadcast-esque to me. It isn’t until we start talking directly to our colleagues p2p that (at least I feel) we really start to hook it up.
Do I have a personal investment here that I should be questioning? What say you?