A fellow association blogger (Jamie Notter) has been leading an interesting conversation into associations fears of social networking capabilities such as blogs, forums and communities of practice.
Check out Jamie’s thoughts and user comments in these two posts:
http://www.getmejamienotter.com/getmejamienotter/2008/02/myth-of-control.html
http://www.getmejamienotter.com/getmejamienotter/2008/02/the-myth-of-con.html
Here are a few of the fears I have heard expressed:
Our members do not blog or participate in discussion boards.
We can’t allow document sharing because viruses will be shared.
We won’t be able to edit all of the postings to ensure they are grammatically correct.
It will be just a place to complain about the association.
It will require too many resources to monitor all of the postings.
What sort of content would we be authorized to remove?
Do we ignore negative comments or respond to them?
How do we capture and bundle peer-to-peer learning from the forums?
Bundling peer-to-peer learning opportunities with traditional learning vehicles is the only constructive issue mentioned above. The rest are fears that handcuff associations and continue to drive members and potential members to the Facebooks, MySpaces and Nings of the world. Content should flow two ways in a successful association from the BoD and headquarters to members as well as from the members to the BoD and headquarters. It is time the members have a chance to drive for awhile.
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