Before I started this class, I thought a blog would be a great addition to some training -- a way to sustain discussions after the class had ended, a way to keep in touch and keep the message alive. Once I got into blogging, I discovered it wasn't the pandora's box I had hoped for. Blogging was more of a guided discussion -- the leader has to continually post new things and followers can't bring up new topics, at least not very easily.
I wanted a blog where anyone could post ideas or questions and everyone could respond to anyone's ideas. That doesn't seem possible, at least not with the free blogging software.
Then a co-worker introduced me to bulletin boards. That's what I was looking for.
The person who establishes a bulletin board can set up topics as an initial structure - much like a wiki. But once the board is up and running, the members can add topics and create postings just like the owner. The board grows and evolves based on the members knowledge and interests. A couple of boards we looked at had "General" or "Misc" pages where people could bring up topics not even related to the purpose of the board. We were looking at a Science Fiction board and there were "General" posting about Hurricane Ike, the World Series and the Presidential election. People on these boards go there because of a common interest, and once they bond with other members, their friendships expand to areas beyond that one common interest. Nice!
If you want to see what a bulletin board is like, check out the Armour Archive and StarDestroyer boards. These were obviously started for people with a specific area of interest, but just look at all the things they share and talk about. They even teach each other how to make armour -- yes, the kind they wore in King Arthur's time!
I could see this being very valuable as follow-up to some training classes. I'm currently working on a cultural change initiative. Obviously, this is not a one-and-done thing. We are very dependent on leaders keeping that message alive. We're asking them to do things that they aren't used to, so they're not sure how to do it. No matter how hard we try to anticipate what leaders will need so we can cover it up front, the reality is that once this gets rolling, leaders will come up with questions we never dreamed of. They will also see successes that are worth sharing. They will have ideas that we didn't. A bulletin board would be a great collaborative forum to sharing all of this and creating a supportive community of leaders.
Too bad our IT "security" isn't buying the whole bulletin board concept yet.
Guess we'll just keep trying.
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