Building the Web Management Community

Will we still be here in a few years time? How can we support ourselves?

Strengths and weaknesses
Opportunities - university resources are great
Key areas - low hanging stuff
Doing it - ie just do it (Web 2.0)

We've been supporting each other for a long time back to the original mailbase group. Brian gives the example of twitter - not as in your face as IM or email. But what's the point - Mark gives the example of Paul Boag wanting to do it to keep contacts from IWMW. Brian suggests that if we were all twitterbuddies for a couple of weeks we might build relationships. But too many apps can be a problem - others prefer the idea of facebook - though many don't understand it. But it has virtue for those working in virtuals teams.

There is an argument about the time taken to use these tools - Brian chooses to work this way - the informality means you can pick it up and put it down - twitter ideal for phone apps eg. Keele have banned students from facebook for posting comments about staff. Bath have a hate group for BUCS! Students are getting upset about staff "spies" though. Volume is required for a sustainable network. Do it via UCISA?

So what is our experience? Well, it's not for everyone. Good tools but too many of them and no SSO - too much of a fag. Some see it as their job to evaluate the tools, others dabble. Cambridge used it for flyers to recruit student helpers out of term. Some Skypers for specific purposes, IM. Some stand-off because of privacy. Does it improve or reduce personal communications? Will protocols be developed to handle the new comms? Traditional view - email is still best? The ideal is for the options to be open so that people an accept comms in the method they prefer.

Conclusion is that diversity rules!