Communication

[t!b!]

Private, internal, and external communication. Let's put some order in
the way we communicate...

When should we use social media (LinkedIn, SICU, Facebook, Twitter
etc. ), our central forum (this forum) or our personal email to
communicate?

This is how I personally see it:

We engage in social media conversations among ourselves and with other
people, for general discussions, to get feedback on initial ideas, to
brainstorm, to enroll other individuals and organizations into our
project, to tap into the wisdom and knowledge of the crowd, etc.

We exchange through this forum when we feel that the information is
only relevant to our group, specific to our activities, or very
important for us. Our forum, which has search capabilities, is the
place where, through our exchanges, we deposit valuable information
for this organization. For example, one can find information about a
given procedure, how to do it, how to do it better, the mistakes were
made in the past and how to avoid them, etc. We also use the Forum to
announce important information to the working group.

We engage in personal conversations, using our one-to-one emails,
including some CC and Bcc, to exchange very specific information, to
avoid polluting our forum and to avoid annoying our "friends" on
social media with details. For example, if Kate and I are working on
the infrastructure and we want to solve a specific technical problem,
we are going to exchange in private. BUT, if an important conclusion
of general interest in reached during private conversations please put
it on our Forum in a proper category, or even propel it through social
media if you find appropriate.

Sometimes I see discussions of general interest going on privately,
and I know that one day we'll need to come back to them and we'll be
desperately searching for it in our Inbox. The problem is that our
inbox contains all sorts of discussions, relevant to our private life,
to our professional life, to our projects, etc. It is much easier to
find something relevant to our Africa Project if it is properly
deposited in our forum or documents. Before you engage someone with
something please pause for 2 seconds to chose the best channel of
communication.

All our tools have Google search capabilities! Let's be more diligent
to deposit information in the proper places, it is just going to make
our lives easier in the long run.

[Kate Nkansa]

Good points Tiberius,

I'd also add that we need a strategy to attract people onto our
facebook page and twitter account.
These conversations can't take place without people on our pages
following us" or "liking"our page.
I've been logging on from time to time on Twitter and Facebook to try
and create some interest on our page.

But we'll definitely need some sort of marketing strategy to get the
write people viewing our pages and interacting with us.

Any thoughts on a strategy?

[t!b!]

You can now display our FORUM in the NEW Google Group format. 

Google updated their Google Groups. They made it easier to manage all your discussions on different Google Groups in one place. Take a look at it, get used to it. Once you learn how it works you'll understand its value. 

We need to stay updated with the new tools of communication collaboration and coordination. This is what makes us effective in the new economy. 

Technological literacy is the key to success nowadays!  Stay updated!

[t!b!]

Once you are on our forum find the "view this forum in Google Groups Discussions" to try the NEW Google Group format