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Learning Communities: From Trekkies to Techies
"The people who watch Star Trek reruns each week aren't really a community because they have no way of communicating with each other. The Trekkies who meet up at conventions, fan sites, and mailing lists, however, could be a community, because they can get to know each other better over time."
--Amy Jo Kim, Community Building on the Web
Strange New Worlds: Online Communities
So what do you have in common with Trekkies? Even if you don't watch the shows, frequent the myriad Web sites devoted to Trekiana, or travel to Star Trek conventions, you're doing something similar if you attend a national foundation conference or post messages to an online nonprofit technology discussion board. The common denominator is sharing information. You and the Trekkies ask questions, talk to experts, and exchange ideas. With some nurturing from an organizer, a safe and supportive environment is created, and a learning community is born.
"A community is a group of people with a shared interest, purpose, or goal who get to know each other better over time," Amy Jo Kim, a leading specialist in online community design, writes in Community Building on the Web. Learning communities succeed because, at the most basic level, they fill a need. Those that don't fill an unmet need are not around very long. "The Internet is littered with ghost towns that fell prey to over-hyped expectations, cutting edge technologies, and an overall lack of purpose," she writes. What that community looks like, the form it takes, will vary with its mission, the style and desires of the participants, and the resources available. At the center though is usually a committed person or group of people willing to do the hard work of nurturing the community.
Exploring One New World: Nonprofit Tech Talk
For the past four years, Sheldon Mains has been the technology services director for the Management Assistance Program (MAP) in Minneapolis/St. Paul, a nonprofit organization providing management consulting and board recruitment services. He describes many people who end up responsible for technology in nonprofits as "accidental techies." They know a just little more about computers than everyone else. "In one instance," Mains says, "the executive director's computer had frozen, and one woman, on her first day at this small nonprofit, was brave enough to turn it off and then turn it back on. She immediately became the organization's tech expert."
As similar anecdotes accumulated, MAP conducted a survey of the local nonprofit tech community to find out the problems and issues these folks were facing. A lack of available tech training and the feeling that no one knew where to turn or go for help permeated the area. "People felt pretty alone in the world," Mains says.
A need was identified, and a learning community was born. "We wanted to make sure people could get their questions answered," Mains says. So Mains and his colleagues created Nonprofit Tech Talk, an e-mail and face-to-face learning community for the Twin Cites. They received some money from the local United Way and donated their time to growing the community. The group, now about 300 strong, communicates online via e-mail, and a smaller sub-group gathers once a month for in-person meetings. Each meeting is focused around a specific topic, usually one that has been a popular discussion online. Experts are often invited to speak and answer questions.
The organizers chose to establish Nonprofit Tech Talk as a hybrid online/on-the-ground community. People get to know each other in person, and that generates online discussion as well as facilitates positive online communication. "The face-to-face sessions help make the online interactions more civil," Mains notes.
But none of it would work without a community organizer, someone to encourage participation, introduce new members to the rules and conventions, and act as both a cheerleader and a cop. It's a job not to be underestimated; at MAP they rotate the organizer responsibility among the staff. "In the beginning, you build a community one e-mail at a time, and that takes a lot of work," Mains says, "The organizer really helps create a feeling of shared community."
For MAP and Nonprofit Tech Talk, this hybrid model works well, and Mains thinks it is more common than most people realize. Many online communities meet face to face at least occasionally, both at formal sessions while attending conferences or informally at the local coffee shop. All these interactions--online, face-to-face, formal, informal--grow the learning community. Mains is partial to the hybrid model because it has worked for him, but he says the form itself is not the most important thing. "Any form can be a success as long as there is an active community organizer. A sense of shared values helps as well. That makes people respect each other and the community in general."
Captain's Log: Conclusion
How a learning community manifests itself, whether via e-mail or on discussion boards, or in a monthly breakfast meeting will depend on the preferences of the group. Hard working organizers make those preferences a reality. At the most basic level however, successful communities like Nonprofit Tech Talk meet a need. "The list keeps growing," Mains says, "people have a place to ask questions and get answers."
Source
Kim, Amy Jo. (2000). Community Building on the Web. Berkeley: Peachpit Press.
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