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Speakers List: Jane Goldman (moderating), Carol Lin, Betsy Aoki, Aliza Sherman. You can find more info about them and the panel in the Day One Schedule.
Pretty full room this year, folks are starting to get seated and find electricity to charge batteries and getting their connections going (so far so good on that end.) We're starting.... No mic? Yes there's a mic but a couple of panelists are having trouble keeping the mic open.
This session is about online communities, (Jane is speaking), she's associated with Chow.com (aka chowhound.com) and Urban Baby. Introducing other panelists.... Aliza is a serial blogger (I think she said), Betsy is a community diva, Carol is creating a brand new cancer social network.
We want to open this up and have everyone talk, how many of you are involved in online communities - raise your hand (whole room).. Shout out your questions - laughter.
What are the keys to success for launch of a new community?
- After, how do you keep them engage?
- Community too large?
- Online safety
- Rules
- Too much competittion between communities
Carol is talking about losing her husband to cancer, handling that, walking into the newsroom (CNN) and not talking about it everyday but focusing on her job and coming back to work after his death and having a different perspective to her work at CNN. So, she was looking at the boldface "what do I have to offer a greater community - vertical content you won't see on traditional media." The world has changed, having a platform with an experienced journalist and having a safe platform to discuss this in a new way. "Did this exist before you?" - she says no... (personal question, isn't she wrong about that? I believe so...)
She asks herself how this benefits other people, not just her... People say "you're not a doctor, why are you talking about cancer?" Outreach... her test page has brought in great story ideas and she thinks every news room should give visitors opportunities to provide story ideas.
Aliza - started because of a personal passion. Webgrrls International was started out of personal need, looking for women's websites - she always found guys or guys posing as women. She finally found legitimate women with websites and started meeting them. Six women at an internet cafe in NYC, she posted about it and Betsy wanted to join and start "one" in Seattle- Aliza said start what? She didn't start out with this planned.
Betsy now - she wanted to join the Seattle chapter of Webgrrls and Aliza told her she had to start it - so Betsy did. By 2000 Betsy says 3000 Webgrrls in Seattle. "I'm a woman, web professional, where are the other women?", you're embarrassed to ask the guys at work 'cause they won't think you're technical enough. She wanted info and made it happen for other women because there just wasn't anything out there.
Jane - "How important was the face to face thing?" Aliza said important. Being able to have women mentoring women online and then moving to face to face was important. Online to offline communities have extra glue, something more than straight online or straight offline communities.
Jane - "What about anonymous activity." Aliza says, "It's important to be visible. Showing your face is powerful. Betsy is real person. Having a monthly meeting f2f helped them more than being anonymous." Carol says "accountability is important, particularly when focusing on health care." She networks with major cancer centers so there's credibility and knowledge - find a balance between asking for minimum info about members but not too much info. Being careful about members who provide harmful information. So she needs more information from members "making an eharmony commitment - willing to fill out the form means you're serious."
Credibility is important - Betsy has sponsors. She modeled this after Cnn, she'll have code of conduct, standards of practice. She's recommending Organized Wisdom's mission statement. She comes from CNN where people knew her... she has credibility, she's working on CNN and her platform is based on HER journalistic integrity.
Aliza says Carol is starting a brand new business and has a plan but some communities are built organically - without being planned. Before you know it, you have this huge community and you have to get to work and get serious. But sometimes doing this, taking money
