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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 12:28 PM |
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Hello everyone,
Hopefully in the next week or so we should see an influx of new users. I think now is a great moment to consider the different roles and responsibilities that different members could take on in the coming months.
One of the keys to working well as a group is understanding how each of us as individuals is contributing to different aspects of the project. It is not necessary that we all do the same thing (in fact we definately shouldn't). Instead, I believe that we each need to work with the abilities and personalities that we each have.
What is important though is that we work together towards a real goal and try to create a group dynamic that supports real advances in the project.
I'd like open up the discussion to thinking about the different roles that our members could take. To start us off, I've got a few suggestions for the roles that we could use (no particular order):
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ROLE 1: Reader
This may seem like a strange role, but it is a role none the less. For the book to make sense, we need members to go through the texts and offer their honest feedback.
ROLE 2: Author/Writer
The writer is responsible for offering synthesized texts and for the formation of cohesive sections within the book. Their job should be to explore the disperse ideas presented in the wiki and forum and work at converting the ideas, themes, and examples into a reader friendly format.
ROLE 3: Client User
In the case of this project, the client is the end reader of our book. The business professional that will be using our insights and examples to make his/her business grow. The client is responsible for offering us insight into what currently works and doesn't work with traditional methodologies so that we can gain a better understanding of the ways in which communties are different. The client is also responsible for ensuring that the content of the book is relevant and clear.
ROLE 4: Researcher
The researcher is responsible for looking into examples that support the challenges and themes of the books. They should not be concerned too much with how the case study is written in so much as identifying examples. Examples could be stories from personal experience, or more structured case studies. It depends on the context of the researcher.
ROLE 5: Facilitator
In many circumstances, we may all share the same drive to participate, but it can sometimes be difficult to identify how to do it. The facilitator is responsible for helping others realise their own responsibilities. The facilitator is not meant to control other, in so much as offer them guidance and help to ease them through difficulties that they may be having.
ROLE 6: Administrator
The administrator is responsible for ensuring that the community is running smoothly. This can range from offer help for the use of the site, to responding to doubts about the structure, goals and methodologies being employed in the site.
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These are just a few initial ideas. I'd love to hear what you guys think and for you to post here any other roles that you think are important and could be helpful to the community.
cheers,
joe |
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Oldedit
Posts:12
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| 11/16/2006 12:39 PM |
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Joe,
Good start.
I think you might describe the roles of the editors/copy editor(s) who will give the book, if not the wiki, the final tone and polish that is needed to make it feel consistent and professional.
You also might want to describe the role of the editor who will make final decisons about what goes into the book. Somebody will do this so the product meets Pearson's editorial standards and is marketable at a profit. At what point will the wiki end and the editing into a finished book begin?
Publishers have a role in the project. What is it? Who is the publisher? This may be in the overview, which I haven't bothered to read. If so, sorry. |
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Oldedit
Posts:12
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| 11/16/2006 12:42 PM |
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Joe,
I'd also be interested in exactly who the "reader" is?
Professional experience?
Education?
Title?
Size of organization?
American, European, global, or what?
And is it possible several books will come out of this project? I'm thining that if this one sells, others will follow. At what point do we split the project into new books, if competitors haven't already launded their own wiki book ventures? |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 12:44 PM |
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i was hoping you'd write that one actually ;)
but what would that look like...mmmm...
ROLE 7: Editor
The editor is responsible for maintaining consistency between texts and helping authors organize their thoughts into clear and concise content. This may range from spell checking to sentence structure to logica progression among others.
As Isaac has mentioned in the past, there will be future phases of the project in which the content will fall into the hands of Pearson's editor for the final polish and preparation for publication. Perhaps I'm not the best person to speak on this.
Isaac could you go into a little bit more detail regarding the planned editing process.
cheers,
joe
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 12:47 PM |
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"I'd also be interested in exactly who the "reader" is? "
I don't know, what do you think it should be?
Remember that you are now a member of this community and believe me, right now there are more questions than answers. Don't be afraid to be prescriptive and tell us what you think they should be. Things are wide open for suggestions and ideas. |
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Oldedit
Posts:12
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| 11/16/2006 1:00 PM |
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To me, this appears to be a book on building and using communities throughout relatively large organizations.
So it may be more of an organizational devcelopment and management book than a "business" book, wiki?
Who wants to build and needs to build communities?
CEOs want communities, but they're not going to build them.
There will be a chief community manager, or chief workforce manager or what?
Taking from today's ranks, I'd say this book will interest:
1. Professional facilitators, focus group leaders.
2. Trainers.
3. Human resource managers
4. Marketers, market researchers and sales executives
5. Organizational development academics, students, researchers, writers.
6. Politicians and political consultants.
7. Scientists and managers of research departments within large organizations.
8. Entrepreneurs who want to use communities to develop and market new businesses.
9. The military.
10. Media executives.
Just for starters, off the top of my head.
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 1:54 PM |
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ROLE 8: Firestarter
The firestarter is responsible for shaking things up and injecting the community with ideas. She offers multiple perspectives on subjects and is looking for alternatives, however strange they may seem. |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/16/2006 2:04 PM |
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Another role, and in my book an indispensible one, is the Practitioner! You know, the person who speaks about their experience in working in, living with communities. They may not necessarily write directly themselves but may be invited to contribute ideas or be interviewed.
Oh, and then there is the Resident Fool. This role is akin to Court Jester who could speak truth to power and be heard! It needs to be an outsider and stronger than Reader. They should have a stake in success of th undertaking though. So, perhaps the Pearson may suggest someone for this role. |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 3:16 PM |
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Lilly,
do you think the Practitioner is different from the Researcher idea? I guess one is living it, and one is looking for it.
Should we replace one for the other, or just expand on them both? I don't think there are problems with having similar but parrallel roles. |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 3:17 PM |
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| The "Resident Fool" idea is good, it's like the local "Critic". They offer criticism to the community and help it identify holes in the thinking. It's also a lot like the "Devil's Advocate" idea. |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/16/2006 5:35 PM |
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Joe,
guess it is a matter of terminology re Researcher vs Practitioner.
My objective here is to try and keep us focused on the readers rather than on us as producers.
Of course, ideally, the two communities would be highly overlapping. However, it is unlikely here. |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 5:43 PM |
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Ok, I understand and agree on the importance of the reader in this process, but in relation to this thread (which is about roles and responsabilities of the members of the site), is the Reader an external entity or can we incorporate her into the process? I mean, how do we (or should we) distinguish between those that form part of the community in order to contribute to the book and those that are clearly the end reader of the material?
I personally think that we need to have real reader participation (ie. first hand knowledge) in order to allow the writers amongst us to better understand the challenges laid out for this book and put them down into words. |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/16/2006 5:51 PM |
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Joe,
totally agree. All roles you have identified are Active in the production process. I think we can have a dual name Practitioner / Researcher for role no.4 and need to define Role 9: Critic.
I suggest we stop at 9! |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 5:58 PM |
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In looking over the roles, i think that the Practitioner is actually the same idea as the "Cliente User". The end idea is we need input from the end user/reader. Which is actually similar to the first role (Reader) so, we can strip this down a bit to the following list (in no particular order):
1. Practitioner
2. Author
3. Researcher
4. Facilitator
5. Administrator
6. Firestarter
7. Critic
8. Editor |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/16/2006 6:05 PM |
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So, distinctions need to be clear.
Guess Researcher gets Practitioner input on the sientific basis?
Let me try this: there are basically 3 groups here
1. Ideas people
2. Producers of end result
3. QA
Group 1 are roles 1, 3 and 6 (above)
Group 2 are roles 2, 4 and 5
Group 3 are roles 7 and 8.
Any other essential roles missing? |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 6:11 PM |
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we're covering, the thinkers, the doers, and the managers. It seems pretty complete, although I'm sure that there can we work done on the semantics.
Now that we've identified a starting set of roles, how do you think we could go about integrating them? I'd almost like to see a sign-up list somewhere, where people put there names on lists for the roles that they would be most interested in. |
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JeanH
Posts:6
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| 11/16/2006 8:00 PM |
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| How about something like coordinators or facilitators, subject matter experts, and readers for roles? Most people in a community situation fall somewhere in there. The coordinators / facilitators keeps things moving and organized; the subject matter experts provide the content; and the readers provide feedback. One could be in any of the roles at any time. |
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hjbarraza
Posts:11
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| 11/16/2006 8:48 PM |
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Jean "Most people in a community situation fall somewhere in there."
Well i think not only members fall in one of them but in several, we could easily combine, your ideas with joe's and lilly's to help us define what roles could we (each member) take in diffrent areas of collaboration opportunities.
For example i could be a writer of a chapter, and researcher for facts in a second. |
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hjbarraza
Posts:11
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| 11/16/2006 8:51 PM |
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regarding the reader role:
we could take a look at the member profiles we have here, for my surprise we are a business conformed community, rather than what i thought there are more business related members than academy and researchers.
This should give us a rough idea of what kind of readers will be intrested in the book, since most of members are still readers and haven't yet started to contribute, (because eventually everyone will right guys ?) |
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datruss
Posts:13
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| 11/18/2006 1:31 PM |
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I think that constructing 'Roles' actually locks people into the old paradigms and disregards the fluidity that community run organizations has to offer. The fact is there are two roles... Contributor and Reader, and it would be my hope that the all contributors were also readers.
The more important aspect to consider is Rights and Responsibilities. For example:
-The Right to having a voice and not having others bulldoze over you.
-The Right to Disagree and the Responsibility to do so without getting personal.
-The Responsibiltiy to post so that you add value (rather than to complain- constructive feedback), etc.
As I mentioned in a previous post (somewhere??? - again this goes back to me request that there be some sort of tagging to make this more contributor friendly) Editing/The Editor Role is something that needs to be clearly defined before the real need for this occurs. Will the community self edit? Will the Administrators help or do it all? Imagine putting your heart and soul into a section of the book and having it removed... (a decision made by how many?) at the 11th hour before publication. Is this responsible to the community members?
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I feel like I am flogging a dead horse here, but even the discussions are getting too overwhelming to stay on top of, much less the chaptes.
***The structure needs to be more like other sites that allow tagging and voting***
I am losing interest here because I can't find 'my place' in this community... and isn't that why people join communities and add to them in the first place? (Another chapter topic in and of itself!) |
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