OLD Jayne Blog on nonprofits/ngos, communications, community engagement, volunteerism, aid & development, women's empowerment, & random thoughts

Are you really connecting online?

05:26, 26 March 2009

.. Posted in Communication, Outreach and General Mngmt


.. Link

IMO, the biggest value from the Internet is, and has always been, the ability to connect with people interested in an area similar to what you are interested in, and to be able to collaborate with and learn from these people no matter where you are on Earth. When I say "connect", I don't mean marking someone as a connection on LinkedIn or as a friend on FaceBook or whatever. What I mean by connections is:

• having online conversations,
• asking and answering questions,
• sharing information,
• debating,
• inviting participation,
• referring someone to a person or resource,
• commenting on each other's work,
• etc.

I talked about real online connections in a recent post focused on networking via the Internet for jobs, and so I'm somewhat repeating myself: if you want to make real connections on online discussion groups (and I still get way more value out of YahooGroups and GoogleGroups than I do LinkedIn or FaceBook), you need to be using these groups to post answers to questions, post your own questions, post links to your own online resources, announce what conferences or workshops you are attending, and talk about other people's resources you have found helpful. You need to do this on your online profiles and blog as well.

You can see a list of most of the online groups in which I participate. An online colleague told me recently "you have a real knack for recognizing 'good stuff' among the noise and clutter." I hope you feel similarly after looking at my list!

I hope you will share the same information for yourself regarding your own online group involvement on your own blog, web site, online profiles, whatever. Share the information in an internal message to your colleagues, if you think they might find such helpful. Share it at your professional association meetings.

Get real value out of the Internet for your work, amid the noise and clutter!

(and please join, and post to, my own network, if you haven't already, or haven't lately!)