I’ve been posting some about the March of Dimes “Share Your Story�? online community, and there will surely be more soon. Nancy and I are working on a case study/story about the birth of Share (pardon the pun).
For now though, I want to point you to what is surely the most interesting aspect of the community to me – the member-created blogs. Since the new Share went live on July 26th (3 weeks ago), members have created 58 blogs.
We've been surprised by the number of blogs, but also the great content. The members seemed to jump right in and use the blogs as they were intended- as a way to share their story on an ongoing basis. I was surprised that we didn’t get more questions like “Why would I have a blog when there is a message board?�?
It will be interesting to see how it all plays out in the long run. We’ve already seen some cases where members have used blog entries to ask questions to the community. While it is certainly their prerogative, I wonder if the blogs will eventually centralize content (discussions) that could benefit the larger community via a message board? Fascinating stuff to observe.
Of course, I’m excited to see something I’ve written about actually working in practice. :)
Also, I want to send some link love to the folks who've been writing about and linking to Share over the last few days:
Hill and Knowlton, Community Mobilization, The Rhetoric of Me, Mitch Arnowitz, Tuvel Communications Indsight, Learning the Lessons of Nixon, Fund Raising Technology. And of course, Nancy's recent posts.
Updated: Also, see the article about Share in PRWeek.
Tags: marchofdimes, shareyourstory, onlinecommunity, socialdesign