eCommunities
eCommunities are a powerful medium for sharing information and facilitating collaborative working practices between groups and individuals regardless of their location. For many organisations, eCommunities already play a central role in their day to day operation for example enabling global project teams to work together or helping senior managers keep track of their team’s progress.
Some businesses also view eCommunities as an important marketing tool. Specialist articles or knowledge sharing opportunities offered via eCommunities can be the ‘first hook’ that draws a customer into the business.
Project leaders, BTC Group have provided feature-rich and functional eCommunities for large and small organisations around the globe. The Engaging Diversity Project presented an opportunity to establish eCommunities and investigate the conditions required to make them successful in bringing value to their members and organisations.
For example, an eCommunity was developed for the project’s transnational partnership (with partners in Portugal, Poland and Slovakia) and was vital to the success of the partnership. Within this eCommunity, the discussion board became the main vehicle for communication, taking over from e-mail. The wiki (editable web pages) feature enabled reports and recommendations to be composed jointly. The use of video conferencing (online voice and video calling) provided live communication which replaced the telephone.
Some of the most important factors that determine the success of eCommunities include recruiting skilled moderators, providing fresh content regularly and making it easy for members to contribute and participate. More details of our findings concerning best use of eCommunities can be found within our conclusions and recommendations report in the reports section of this site.
If you would like information about establishing an eCommunity within your organisation, click here.
