Well, I've been a bit too busy building out both my Events site and the
program structure lately to keep up with this tools list, but since
there's a gathering tonight, I'm running through the messages quickly
and to my surprise here's my name! I'll add a few additional pieces of
information here. (01)
What I'm doing is a social events program that involves meeting at
least once a month and in between meetings, I push an online component
in hopes that people also interact online to keep some momentum going.
These are people who have little else in common besides the fact that
they know someone who's part of the Events program. Think of it like a
mini-Friendster crossed with Meet Up and throw in discussion forums.
That's the simple introduction and I'd be happy to spill more if anyone
is really that interested. (02)
Back to the topic of discussion about tools, I do see a need for tools
in what I do though not necessarily purple numbers. By the nature of
the wide demographic that I work with through my Events at 1083
community program, I'm always running into the problem of people only
being able to use simple tools like a message board. Some even have
difficulty with that. Just the sight of purple numbers would probably
overwhelm these people and though I could do some education, most of
them really aren't interested. (03)
Now, as for myself as the man in the middle who does the lion's share
of the coordination and communication, tools are invaluable. Using
purple numbers to craft up edited digests could become helpful as my
message traffic grows. I try to quote and refer to other people's
posts as often as possible to recognize people and stir up more social
interaction. The object often has nothing to do with efficiency or
getting a project done, but I do have a need to quote and refer. If
you think of a person wanting to produce more within a collaboratory
for the feelings of prestige, then you have a situation that's not so
different from my situation. (04)
Another type of tool that would be of use to me are opinion gathering
meters to help me measure interest in a particular type of activity or
plan. I've often made the mistake of thinking that the low response
rate that I get is indicative that my users really aren't interested in
participating at a more active level. Many of them just need simpler
and direct tools to provide very basic levels of feedback similar to
what Evite does (yes, no, maybe). Most of my users are occasional
visitors so they often forget how things work. If it's not painfully
obvious, I can expect to eat a lot of silence. (05)
All best, (06)
Sheldon (07)
On Thursday, July 24, 2003, at 01:53 PM, Eric Armstrong wrote: (08)
Eugene Eric Kim wrote: (09)
My question for you all is, what is the relevance of
the tool philosophy we espouse to a community like Sheldon's? In
other words, what value would some of the ideas we discuss here on
this list bring to such a community?
Depends on what the group is doing. I'm on a woodworker's mailing
list that also represents a tight-knit community that passes
helpful information around. But they either point to a URL or to
a physical location. They are not about quoting stuff from each
other posts or from web pages, so they could give a hoot about
purple numbers. (010)
Information workers, on the other hand, need them. (011)
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