Post in Online Communities of Practice

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 4:21 PM, Steven Clift <<email obscured>> wrote:

> Actually Pete, you proved my point by using a web feed to follow this
> forum. :-)
>
> People should be able to choose their preferred method of participation -
> e-mail, web forum, web feed, even a Facebook application - and still be part
> of the same online community of practice.
>
> If it took someone as wired as you, X years to covert to web feeds
> (something like 7% of net users have used them directly), imagine how many
> years it will take for others. What I have found is that the invasive,
> broadcast character of e-mail is essential to reach busy people. People you
> need to be part of the exchange or it dies. They may not read most messages,
> but they will tune in if the subject is compelling. If you are trying to get
> local government staff for example to share knowledge, making participation
> a "destination" versus part of their daily online experience (location,
> location, location), excludes 50% of your audience. (Of course, if folks
> can't turn off e-mail you lose the other 50%!)
>
> I'd like to venture the reason mySociety.Org succeeds with tools like
> TheyWorkForYou.com compared to most other e-democracy projects, is their
> active use of e-mail hooks to users. Most projects are simply too timid with
> communication to succeed.
>
> Steven Clift
>
> Member profile for Steven Clift:
> http://groups.dowire.org/contacts/stevenclift
>
>
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