Setting Up a Community Site: Series Introduction
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I’m in the process of establishing a new WordFrame site to do with social media and online communities, with a bias towards the Asian and Australasian contexts. I thought it might be useful for others if I were to document the journey, in outline at least. It should also help me, if for no other reason than to give myself some accountability.
Applying the “first things first” principle, this series of posts will look initially at how I have worked through to a basic concept and purpose for the site. To be frank, I haven’t always done that in the past with setting up sites, including blogs.
There have been occasions when I’ve had what I thought was a good idea, checked to see if I could get a .com domain that fitted and then gone ahead, registered the domain and set up the site, only to find down the road a bit that it would have been smarter to think things through before I jumped in.
This time around my aim is to be more systematic.
Basically, I’m putting myself in the shoes of a WordFrame customer and being a learner. I’m pretty confident that in the process I’ll get some things wrong, or at least won’t get right the first time some things that will be a breeze for other folks.
I’m hoping that, by sticking my neck out and sharing the process of setting up the site, I’ll not only be helping some others with the process of think ing through their own projects in setting up online community sites, but also helping to make myself a more effective solutions provider for WordFrame customers.
A disclaimer is in order. Although I am a WordFrame Premium Partner, this series of posts are not in any way official WordFrame documents.
Also, although I’m using the WordFrame platform, my guess right now is that much of the content will be of general applicability to setting up a site for a community of interest, whatever the platform.
Notice that my aim is to set up a community site, as distinct from wanting to establish a community. I know there is already a worldwide community of people interested in social media, as exemplified by, for instance, the Social Media Club. I know too that there are people interested in how social media works or might work in the Asia/Australasia context and who might just value a site with that focus.
Time will tell.
And if you have something to share - whether positive or cautionary - about setting up an online community site, I would love for you to comment here.
Series
Setting Up a Community Site: #1 Concept and Name
Social Media Club Brisbane Launches Today
Back in March this year I asked Is Brisbane Australia Ready for a Social Media Club?
Today I have not only an affirmative answer to that (rhetorical) question, but the very pleasing prospect of participating in the official launch, at 6pm this evening, of Social Media Club Brisbane.
This is the first Social Media Club chapter to be formed in Australia.
The fact that we are able to mark the launch with more than a blog post, indeed as a suitably Queensland/Aussie manifestation of the Social Media Club concept, i.e. with a barbecue, has been made possible by the generous sponsorship of SJK Consulting. SJK describe what they do as being “about turning improbable ideas into functional prototypes and prototypes into scalable commercial software”.
As well as the support from SJK Consulting, we are developing some exciting connections in the higher education and research sector.
One of the things I like best about the preliminary discussions some of us have had about how SMC Brisbane might function is that we are agreed that we intend this to be a group which will be very welcoming for non-geeks as well as geeks. We want to attract people who are interested in ways they can use social media for practical outcomes. We want to help “de-geekify” social media.
We drew up a “thought-starter” list of things that might form part of the purpose and goals framework for this local chapter of Social Media Club:
- social networking – as in meeting with people with some common interests
- technology presentation/discussion, including evangelism for social media in government, education, business…
- imparting knowledge to the novice user
- surfacing clever ideas which could become business opportunities
- highlighting/demonstrating the potential of social media tools
- providing examples of how people can be genuinely engaged with these tools
- encouraging local developer talent and also providing some wise advice
(Should keep us going.)
If you see something there that you, or someone you know, could find interesting to learn about or talk about, visit the Social Media Club Brisbane wiki and feel free to get in touch via the email address there (or via the Contact page on this site).
Social Media Club Assembles Interim Advisory Board
The word is now well and truly out in the blogosphere about the Social Media Club Interim Advisory Board.
I’d had every intention of being quick to post about it, once the covers were lifted off the media release. That was not to be, and a combination of time zone differences and my main computer seizing up (and not recovering) yesterday morning left me playing catchup.
But it’s great to see the initiative actually launched and to have the honour, and it is that indeed, of being part of it.
Although that was not a foregone conclusion. In fact, when eleven days ago I received an invitation from Social Media Club co-founder Chris Heuer to join this process, it was not more than a week after I had declared to myself and anyone who was listening that I was not going to accept, for the foreseeable future, any more invitations to join boards.
But getting the invitation from Chris, a real giver and highly respected, in itself put a dent in my resolution. Then when I looked at the list of others being invited it took me about 10 seconds, max, to decide “well, no more after this one”.
Among the “key organizational and strategic deliverables” we will be addressing are:
- development of membership goals
- acceleration of local chapter development
- increase in adoption of industry standards and
- implementation of a new legal structure to enhance future growth
The timing of this announcement is particularly serendipitious for me, in that tonight we are launching, with generous sponsorship from SJK Consulting, the Social Media Club Brisbane (Queensland, Australia).
For more about Social Media Club and how to meet up with other practitioners and enthusiasts, visit the Social Media Club wiki.
IAC Coaching Masteries
I’ve been meaning for some time to post here about the International Association of Coaching (IAC) and the IAC Coaching Masteries™ .
One of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had, professionally and personally, in the past few years is to have been part of the team of volunteers which developed the IAC Coaching Masteries™.
Countless hours were spent, creating, analyzing, dissecting, re-assembling. One of the key challenges was that what was eventually produced had to work across cultures, globally.
The Masteries now form the framework for the IAC certification process, which focuses on masterful coaching skills that are observable and can be measured by IAC’s certifiers during recorded, half-hour sessions with two different clients.
IAC’s certification system is not, by any means, just for people who plan to make coaching their main career. Many people want to develop their coaching skills simply to be more effective in working with people in a business context. Or perhaps even in a family situation. They are not necessarily coaches by profession or looking to define their careers in that way.
The IAC Coaching Masteries™ are:
1. Establishing and maintaining a relationship of trust
2. Perceiving, affirming and expanding the client’s potential
3. Engaged listening
4. Processing in the present
5. Expressing
6. Clarifying
7. Helping the client set and keep clear intentions
8. Inviting possibility
9. Helping the client create and use supportive systems and structures
For an explanation of the Masteries, there is an e-book which IAC members receive free of charge and non-members can download at a cost of $27.
Disclaimer: as well as being a founding member of IAC, I am currently a member of the Board of Governors.
If you would like to know more about the IAC and the IAC Coaching Masteries™, please feel free to get in touch with me via the Contact page here. Or use the appropriate contact point on the IAC website.
Barcamp a First for the Gold Coast and for Me
The weather here on the Gold Coast last Saturday was stormy, but not stormy enough to keep me from attending my first Barcamp, which was also the first Barcamp to be held on the Gold Coast, at Griffith University’s leafy campus at Southport.
It was a thoroughly absorbing event for me. I learned new things, met - or re-met - some very interesting people, enjoyed several varieties of pizza and an uncharacteristically late but excellent first coffee of the day from the coffee van man.
“Unorganiser” Steve Dalton has posted about the day at Bar Camp Gold Coast 1 - Mission Complete.
Congratulations to Steve and his fellow unorganisers and to the day’s sponsors Linux Australia, inQbator, Apress Books, Griffith University and Dalton Technology (update: also Brisbane-based Custom Tees).
DJ Paine has some great pics at the BarCamp Gold Coast Flickr site
Photo by dj paine posted here under a Creative Commons licence
Bond University’s Michael Rees has a succinct writeup of the day’s events.
As promised in my post on Friday last, about going to Barcamp, I took my camera and eee PC. Without a full size keyboard, even Twittering was a challenge, so one of those foldable keyboards is on my list of future acquisitions for the travel kit. And while the eee has a card reader I was not able to edit the size of the pictures I took, so I was not able to upload pictures to my blog site as I normally do: there is evidently some software I can download to eee that will enable me to do that - next time!
Matt Hooper has a Barcamp Gold Coast 1 wrap up, which includes some notes on my unscheduled session on Social Media Clubs.
As Matt reports, that session gave me the opportunity to put people in the picture about Social Media Club Brisbane (being launched Friday, 11th July) and to sound out the people present - a mixture of Brisbane and Gold Coast residents - on whether there would be sufficient interest in establishing a separate Social Media Club at the Gold Coast. The upshot was that Michael Rees and I will work on convening a coffee session some time soon to discuss the possibilities, just as a bunch of us had done for Brisbane.
If there is enough interest we could have two Social Media Clubs in South East Queensland before the end of the year. Given that there are no “live” Social Media Clubs outside the USA plus one in Paris, France, that would be a neat achievement for Queensland. Maybe not on a par with providing the first Mandarin-speaking Prime Minister, first woman Governor-General, etc., but an achievement nevertheless.
Anyone interested in knowing more about the new Social Media Club Brisbane or the possibilities for a Gold Coast one, please get in touch with me, either via the Contact form on this site, or by emailing me at deswalsh(at)gmail(dot)com.
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