An increasing number of people have found a link between technology and larger groups of people who have their common goals. It seems that all of us are in the throes of a revolution. Technology is changing how we do business, discuss some certain topic, chat with each other, participate in government, organize our workplaces and conduct our schooling. (Wahl, Jeffers,2000) Such as blog, Yammer, Instagram, Facebook group and google+ community, to name a few. Actually, it is altering our concepts of time and space. It feels like no one could escape from the change and most of the communities start to consider that what role technology should play in their work or in their communities, and how to create a successful community by using their resources. Some negative impact of the change from technology also will be a challenge as well.
To start with, identify the goals of community clearly is the most significant issue when community-based organizations are going to build their communities by using technology. The makers should think deeply about what is the purpose for using technology and to what degree the technology issues effect people in their community. For example, if someone would like to create an online schooling community, the purpose probably will be improving the learning efficiency. They may be would consider the technology, such as google+ community, will help to provide more learning resources, motivate students get to share with each other and also participate and contribute in it. If the makers define their purpose for connecting with others, people will find their community and join in if they have contents that are accurate, clear, and unpredictable. (Seymour, 2014)
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In addition, it is also important to think about who will participate in the community and what they might want to get involved in. the maker maybe need make their community member feel at home. Because some people perhaps will feel they don’t understand technology well enough to make reasonable judgments or decisions. They would worry about it will not make any positive effects when they study in a community with technology. The makers maybe would educate different sectors of the community about the issues of technology access and provide some online support for sharing these insights and implications across groups (Wahl & Jeffers ,2000 ). Besides, putting out the welcome mat to create safe, open and fulfilling environments would be another good choice (Cohen,2008). The community should not always sending too much email notifications, maybe make people feel safe and allow them pick their own preferences would make them feel more comfortable. Since the community based on people, the manager should more focus on how to make technology benefit all of the members, instead of just using technology.
What’s more, a successful community still need a few ground rules to help to establish a well-organized communication platform. They would never set a hard rule if a guideline will suffice. They need allow people to speak freely, but not just approving every post or stifles conversations. Setting clear standards of conduct up front is important. For example, maybe the manager could not consider all of the legal and free speech considerations here, but in particular, be sure that community has clear standards for when messages are to be deleted — such as use of profanity, slander, and breach of privacy, copyright violations, or inappropriate promotions. (Cohen, 2008)When users do breach protocol, correct them immediately and firmly, but kindly. Also, users always value communities by whether it’s easy to separate the highly useful from less useful postings. More feature-rich community could empower people themselves with voting rights to help make message moderate. Such as rewarding good postings and reporting “inappropriate” postings. If the community is large and have lots of uncontrollable factors like “moderators” cannot catch all of the bad behaviors, voting will be a useful approach.
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By the way, there are several roles that represent people who have different behavior when they participate to the community. The maker should choose the technology that allow varied permission levels for all sorts of types of participants. For instance, community maybe have a small ,active, group of “Super-Users”: people who login daily and account for the vast majority of community activities — writing, commenting, adding events, posting photos, voting, etc. There are also some people mostly read or do not even register, who would be lurkers or browsers. Actually, most of the community member would fall between the Super User and Lurkers. (Cohen ,2008)Because these varied levels of participation, the community could make clear the additional benefits if the members are more active, which will result in them more enjoy at high level of engagement and more contribute in their community. Such as CSDN.Net always give their members who always share their resources with others lots of additional privileges.
To sum up, the impact that technology has had on modern-day communities can clearly be seen: it has made things faster, more efficient, more accessible and more comfortable and has provided many new options and ways of doing things.(@SkwirkOnline, 2011) However, it also seems like the makers have little control over the direction or impact of the changes from new technology on community. Therefore, we need clearly identify the role of technology and try to make the best use of these new tools.
Reference:
Wahl, E. & Jeffers, L. (2000). Getting Communities Involved in Addressing Technology Access, http://cct.edc.org/publications/getting-communities-involved-addressing-technology-access
@SkwirkOnline, (2011). Technology and the community,
Seymour, K. (2014). How to use Technology to Create a Real Community http://www.kurryseymour.com/how-to-use-technology-to-create-a-real-community/
Cohen, A. (2008). Characteristics of Successful Online Communities , http://www.idealware.org/articles/characteristics-successful-online-communities
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Image 1: http://tech2ipo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/TNW_community.jpg
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Cynthia's world 
