I’m on a listserv that isn’t very useful.  We all have a common professional interest, but we have all joined at different times, and the list has devolved into a more social hodgepodge than a true professional community.  I’ve been thinking about online communities at work, so I used my broken list as an opportunity to think about what true professional community entails.  I just wrote to a friend about this.  Here’s what I had to say (information that would identify the list has been edited or removed):

I think our listserv is broken.  I think it is is irreparably damaged.

Well, obviously not, right?  It’s very active, and participants from a variety of backgrounds send messages regularly.

However, the list is dominated by just a few individuals who have been active participants for quite some time.  Very few posts come from participants who have joined in the last two and half years.

A healthy list would have more broad participation from a wider variety of voices.  But most of my peers, the people who joined recently (I have quietly surveyed, but obviously there’s small sample size, unrepresentative sample, and confirmation bias, all at work here) have expressed that the reasons they don’t use the listserv are:

• The volume of messages unrelated to our professional topic is too high.
• They end up deleting most everything because they don’t want to sift through the unrelated stuff.
• Not very many discussions are directly related to the professional topic; those related to it are often tangential and focused on employment or “meta-”topics.
• The listserv seems to be dominated by a few “power users.”
• There’s the perception that there’s a lot of in-joke-iness that isn’t welcoming to new participants.
• There’s no sense of shared vision on how the listserv is used.
• There is no mechanism for knowing who the posters are.  (Other than their e-mail signatures.)

Part of my job recently has been looking at virtual communities, including professional learning communities.  At heart, I believe that’s what the listserv was designed to be.  But the barriers to entry keep it from realizing its full potential.

So, my early brainstorming around the issue has led me to a series of steps.  Keep in mind that this is all still a braindump.

Fixing the listserv requires a dedicated group of users to:

1. Identify the power users.
2. Convince power users that there is an issue and building consensus that it can be fixed.
3. Find out what power users want from the list.  Figure out how that is different from what new users want.
4. Devise and offer an alternative venue for power users.
5. Make sure that the alternative is somehow more appealing than the listserv.
   • The alternative must have clearly stated, shared values and principals which anyone can access at any time.  (community norming… those norms must remain negotiable)
   • The alternative must have some directory function so that people can find out more about who they are talking to.  (encourages new users)
   • The alternative must fulfill the social needs of the power users which are currently prevalent on the listserv.
   • The alternative must separate purely social discussion from discussion of our professional topic in meaningful ways.
   • The alternative must support and encourage shared and reflective practice of our learning goals– our true, core professional topic.
   • The alternative cannot be more demanding technologically than e-mail.
6. Engage the power users in making (and promoting) a shift to the alternative.
7. Recruit more casual users to the alternative, which should reinforce its value to power users.
8. Repurpose the listserv so that it serves a more discrete purpose.
9. Enjoy the benefits of increased  engagement and a more robust community of practitioners, as well as an inbox that isn’t so crazy.

What do you think, dear reader?