Blogs and Community - Part 5 (the last part)
If you are confused, see parts 1, 2, 3, and 4... Plus be warned I'm copping out on this last bit. It deserves more thought and attention than I can give it tonight but I want to get the last bit up!
So we have identified three forms of blog based community, the single blog centric, topic centric and community centric. Now lets look at the implications for those thinking about designing and nurturing blog based communities. Can they help us strategically? (This assumes we believe we can "build" or "nuture" communities either from a top down or bottom up approach. I'll let you wrestle with the "if" part of that assumption and save it for later.)
These are just a few initial jottings... there is a lot we could develop here, but lets look at things from two lenses: tech/design and social implications. First tech/design. Would we choose one form over another if we wanted specific technical aspects? What does this suggest for hybrid forms?
The second lens is the social lens. I've mentioned some of the power differences I've observed in these community forms. There do seem to be some patterns unique to each form, but I suspect some of these get blurred over time.
We can also look at this from a genre perspective. What difference would the form make for an educational community? A hobby community? A community of practice?
And finally, what are the other questions that emerge from this way of looking at blog based communities? What surprises await us as we observe and learn more?
I'd be curious for your thoughts and feedback!
posted by Nancy White at 8:03 PM
3 Comments:
Your 5 posts on the different blog communities are terrific. Thanks for thinking this through and sharing. I hope to be a lead staff soon for establishing a community of practice for youth worker practitioners and their respective non profit organizations (and some teachers) who are working with youth poverty and homelessness issues. Blogs will be one part of the effort to improves worker and organizational capacity in our Region, so your work is spot on for me. The work may scale up to include other areas of the country as well. I will be following up on your many links and resources as well. I believe the topic centric or community centric model will be the one to follow. It's early yet and I am just visualizing at this stage. Thanks so much for your posting,
Brent MacKinnon
Dear Nancy:
I can't stop the temptation to cite you, because you are so thorough and so creative. I am not joking; I mean this.
I just did a post on citing you and Marshall, another info professional - both doing communitywise excellent service.
Best, Mohamed
Thanks for the very helpful shorthand for how to think about blogging. You've really brought the whole thing into focus for me.
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