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If you've been in a neighborhood coffee shop, like Tazzo D'Oro in
Highland Park or Allegheny Sandwich Shoppe on North Side, you know
it's the place to go to meet with friends and colleagues to give
and get information, learn something new, meet people. Here are
some online opportunities to engage in discussion with other people
working to build communities.
CTAC Recommends
ABCD
(Asset-Based Community Development), (listserv)
Instead of focusing on a community's needs, deficiencies and problems,
the ABCD approach helps communities become stronger and more self-reliant
by discovering, mapping and mobilizing all their local assets.
Digests are available. Subscribe to the list by sending an email
to
Build-Com,
(listserv)
Build-Com supports neighborhood activism and empowerment by giving
direct access to hundreds of organizations, government agencies,
and researchers working on the problems and issues that addressed
through Neighborhoods Online. Visit the web site to subscribe.
Cd4urban, (listserv)
Cd4urban is open to anyone interested in community development
with an urban focus or relevance. Posts to this list have included
everything from announcements and current events, "e-journals"
and articles, requests for particular information, job openings,
calls for papers and presentations, and intermittent discussions.
The list is sponsored by the Community
Development Society (CDS), a professional association for
community development practitioners and citizen leaders around
the world. To subscribe to the list, send e-mail to:
Colist,(listserv)
Colist, the discussion list for the On-Line Conference on Community
Organizing and Development (COMM-ORG), welcomes organizing stories,
discussion of issues in community organizing and related areas
such as community development, community-based planning, and community-based
research. Visit the website to subscribe.
COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT BANKING-L, (listserv)
This list serves practitioners including Community Development
Credit Unions, CD Banks, CDCs, CD Loan Funds, and non-profits
involved in support. The discussions have ranged from the practical
(construction, mortgage, and small business lending; job opportunities,
conferences, fundraising) to legislative (CRA, HMDA, and CDFI)
to the cutting edge (micro-loan funds, peer ending, local currency,
targeting social impact). You may subscribe by sending e-mail
to:
ListProc@cornell.edu
In the body of the message type:
subscribe CommunityDevelopmentBanking-L YourName YourCompany |
Local discussions
Triboro Mailing List, (listserv)
This local list provides an easy means to communicate information
about activities and meetings of the Triboro Development Forum,
covering Braddock, North Braddock and Rankin in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
To join the list send e-mail to:
Start your own discussion
There are a number of services that will help you to start your
own online discussion. Two examples are www.topica.com
or http://groups.yahoo.com/.
Remember that organizing an online community can take as much
time, attention and patience as organizing a real community.
Types of Online Discussions
Listservs. More correctly called
"e-mail lists," listservs allow you to communicate with many people
at one time, with one e-mail message. You subscribe to listservs
like you subscribe to magazines - provide your name and e-mail
address to the listserv "owner", and material begins to show up
in your mailbox.
Like magazines, listservs exist on thousands of topics. Visit
www.topica.com or www.liszt.com
to get an idea of just how many. Unlike magazines, listservs are
not one-way communication. Subscribers are asked to participate
in the conversation by responding to the message. You can respond
publicly, to all the subscribers on the entire list, or privately,
to an individual.
Listserv postings will arrive in your email until you "unsubscribe"
to the list. Some listservs are available in digest form. Instead
of receiving 20 e-mails a day, if the list you subscribed to is
that active, you receive a daily or weekly e-mail with all 20
messages included.
Discussion Group. A discussion
forum, also called a newsgroup, is the online version of the bulletin
board that you might find at the corner store. Participants can
post news, questions, or opinions. Others post responses. Unlike
listservs, postings will NOT show up in your email. Participants
must visit a web site in order to join a discussion.
Chatrooms. A chat is a live,
real-time typed conversation. Everyone is online, at their keyboard
at the same time. Chats can get chaotic, with everyone talking
at once, and conversations going off on tangents, not unlike a
party. Sometimes they are hosted, or facilitated by someone, which
makes them more like a meeting. In that case, you wait to be "called
on" before you speak (type). You can "raise your hand" by typing:
? - meaning you have a question, or
! - meaning you have a comment. Then you wait for the host to
acknowledge you. It's also common to send a
/ga - (go ahead) indicating that you've finished with your question
or comment.
Chat Room Cheat Sheet
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