Increasing interconnectedness using social software

I'm working on a presentation that extols the benefits of collaboration using social software, like Traction TeamPage. One big benefit comes from enabling a  community of participants to learn faster by having a system of open, transparent dialog.

My early realization of this benefit came from using discussion boards online to solve problems more quickly. Google makes it easy to search across communities of practice where subject matter experts post questions and answers. The internet is filled with examples of this. Information systems professionals were early adopters of this approach, even doing it before the Internet as we know it existed using bulletin boards and a dial up modem. I don't know a single geek that doesn't take great advantage of this technique, using sites like Experts Exchange and Tom's Hardware to solve problems in minutes that would have otherwise taken hours, days or weeks of trial-and-error and phone support.

Today, examples of online collaboration like this abound. Many times, a community web site will have a section called forums. Internet forums are a form of discussion board. Blogs, too, can include a threaded discussion, usually at the bottom of the page through the comments feature. (This one does. Please comment!) One can find these communities of practice on virtually any topic you can imagine; social causes, politics, sustainability, yoga. It's just about guaranteed that if you have an interest in it, someone else does too and has started a forum about it.

One recent example for me came while doing some research on residential geothermal systems. I wanted to know from the experts what it would take to increase the number of geothermal residential installations by 10x. If you want to find out how to do a geothermal project, the guys at greenbuildingtalk.com can help. They have a very actice community of people sharing their expertise with anyone that will listen. A friend recently put one of these systems in a house in Grosse Pointe Park, and we used this site to find him an installer.

With so many examples, I'm still surprised to find organizations not taking full advantage of the technique, especially applying the concept to benefit the organization's own interconnectedness. I've recently had a couple of opportunities to introduce a collaboration platform into organizations and witnessed their power to inform and engage.

What are your favorite examples of thriving communities based on a threaded discussion platform? I could really use some good examples for the presentation.

An idea shared has the power to inspire and engage

For too long, I've been keeping ideas to myself. Not to hoard them, but rather out of fear of being seen as a dreamer, a crackpot. I felt that ideas weren't worth sharing unless they were fully formed, ready to be funded and planned and executed. The idea had to be both novel and important in some way and that somehow, mine rarely measured up. 

But recent work on my personal mission has helped reframe my thinking about these ideas. Now, I see these incomplete ideas as seeds of greater understanding, as opportunities to inspire and engage. I see, too, that these ideas are a gift just waiting to manifest.

It's time to live out loud, to speak up, to free those unfinished thoughts and open myself up to the new experiences and understanding that only collaboration can bring. Most learning and growth happens when we share experiences, understanding, desires, and challenges. To that end, I'll use this space to bring those ideas off the notepad, out of the mindmap, and into the crowd master mind.

I'll hold fast to a belief that, through sharing, these ideas will stimulate dialog. Through that dialog, we will bring our efforts into alignment and integrate our resources. Together, we'll create future states greater than each of us alone would dare dream.

So, please... Join me in this journey of understanding. Let's flesh out some big ideas.


Peace and progress,
Tom