Greetings all,
I've got a question, and I'd like to get your input. I'd be especially interested if you developed your Ning community as an alternative to a previous communications platform your members were using.
Briefly, here's the situation I'm in:
My organization's members currently communicate with each other primarly via listserv. They use this both to get information quickly, and also for more casual discussions. It's the latter use we're focused on. We're developing a Ning site in the hope that people will turn to that when they have a longer-form discussion in mind.
However, because the listserv is useful for getting time-sensitive information, we're not taking it away. I want these resources to coexist. What I want to do is train people, when they don't have an emergency request for information, to post those on our Ning site instead of clogging people's inboxes.
So, my question: How aggressive should I be in steering discussion away from the listserv? I don't want to alienate potential community users, but I also want to limit how much our community is, in effect, competing against the listserv as a medium.
If this doesn't make sense let me know and I'll clarify.
Thanks,
gb
Replies
The technical writing community has this issue right now. The primary means of communication are two mailing lists that have been around forever.
Personally, I think mailing lists are dangerous.
Mailing lists create an atmosphere of "sit back, and don't participate". This is not the future of communication or interaction. To me, it's holding on to film. At best, it's quaint.
I know if said that in either mailing list, they would tear me apart. I don't own either list, so I can only shake my head in dismay.