How Can We Get Back the Magic?

[Michele Martin]

OK my friends, as we head into the third month of the BBB community, it looks like we're starting to lose a little steam. Just wondering what ideas you all have for rejuvenating our community. I've noticed that participation in challenges has been falling off (I'm guilty of this myself), so maybe we need to take a break from those.

**Any other ideas for activities or projects you'd like to work on?
**Questions you want answered?
** Issues you want to discuss?
** Do we need to attract more members?

I'm open to any and all suggestions. . .

[Cammy Bean]

Well, lots of food for thought in all of these posts.

My participation has dipped of because I'm too darn busy. Like Simon, my blog posting in general is way down. In fact, I wrote about my blogging apathy here awhile ago. It's hard to sustain when you've got a whole life of work and family out there....

I think Eklavya has a good idea, but I'd rather keep my posts on blogging to the BBB community (where we can each have a personal blog) and rather not post them on my external blog. Like Kate, I get tired of reading everyone's blog posts on blogging. Enough meta-blogging already! I

[Christine Martell]

Simon,
Work got out of control for me too, and my blogging has suffered all around. I'm sorry my business also corresponded to your idea of trying to get another community blog going, and although I was interested in the idea, I didn't have the time to help.

I do think encouraging new members could be quite helpful. Here is the overview of our stats for the last 2 months......we aren't growing!

[Ignatia]

hi all

BBB is very motivating! Although I did not post anything recently, I did get a lot out of earlier posts in the BBB community. The last couple of weeks I have been rethinking my blog. Thanks to you girls and guys I came up with a couple of ideas I will try out the next couple of weeks:

- an interview (monthly) with one of the experts in my field of interest (eLearning): I will try to make it a streaming video, but if that does not work it will be a textual one;
- a set of links that I will publish ones every two weeks (also on related topics in my professional field and social media);
- a blogging philosophy topic, also to be published every two weeks. This will be a more humoristic approach on certain blogging thoughts, I made the first one on 'blogging is competitive';
- the inspiring eLearning torch: a short list (of tools and tips of eLearning people that point to other specialists in the field and pass down the inspirational torch.
And the regular posts on eLearning that I was writing, but even these posts got more spirit in them because of the combined knowledge in BBB.

So all of these ideas emerged from reading posts on BBB and looking at related links. Even though no visual activity has been taken place, the brain activity was well energized by BBB.

[Sue Waters]

Thanks Ignatia for your post. And before anyone yells at me and says well Sue you could have check on members profiles, let me comment that is a lengthy process - what springs to mind reading your post Ignata is that you blog about elearning. I also blog about elearning and mlearning. You like me probably did not realise this. I know some of the other community members also blog on this area as well but without reading this post it did not click that Ignatia also posts on this same niche area.

Perhaps we need to have a simple mechanism for letting each other what we each blog about so we can connect community members easier? Perhaps a page broken up into sections for each niche area - where we can add the members name, blog address and a short bio? Perhaps there is a better way of doing this?

[Christine Martell]

I wish there was a feature like that too. I don't feel like I know what the range of interests are here, and it sure would be interesting and helpful to know.

[Christine Martell]

Ignatia,
I agree. Even when I am not actively participating, I do think about what I have read here. I just don't have the time to instantly implement all the ideas, but I don't forget them. They do inform my next steps, even when there can be months between the reading and the getting to make the changes.

[Christine Martell]

Danielle,
I'm trying to see if I can help just by commenting and responding to others. I don't think it will end, we may just need to collectively learn how to let the community go through the natural ebbs and flows, and to figure out how to revive it again when it quiets for a while.

[Suzanne]

As I read all these posts, and on other communities about sustainability and involvement, I wonder what it is everyone expects to get out of such a community. As I have mentioned before, my glass forums are extremely active and I have formed strong friendships and learnt a lot. I check them several times a day, every day -often staying for substantial amounts of time, as it is like visiting with friends and colleagues. So, I wonder what my forums have that these Ning communities don’t. A few things that I can think of...
*Large numbers - so that if the 1% rule is true, there is still a lot of traffic
* different areas for socialising, learning, sharing etc. There are 'rooms' on the art forums for just having a chat, and other rooms for posting tutorials.
*Searchable archives of previously posted resources
*exchanges, games, discussions that promote the forum members as 'real' people outside the virtual world
*value of the forums as a marketing and critiquing tool.

Not sure what all that means...but there might be some aspects that we could utilise?

[Michele Martin]

These all sound like good suggestions, Suzanne. I'm hoping to start working on some of these kinds of things in the New Year, so any advice/thoughts you have on how to do these things would be excellent!