Connie Bensen

Early yesterday afternoon I put together a compilation of links to information on Gustav that @WayneSutton had started. It was intriguing to watch volunteers come together using social media tools to prepare for the hurricane.

Andy Carvin set up a ning & started coordinating the volunteer efforts. His ning became the Gustav Information Center. There was a discussion as to whether the Katrina wiki should be used. That information would be three years old & it would be lost. So a decision was made to create a new one using the same wiki software to make it easy to port over the structure.

Yesterday I wasn’t connected with Andy Carvin, but ChocoNancy follows both of us put this up on Flickr.

Hosting needs for the wiki were generously provided by Network Solutions (whom I work for). Deanna Zandt is handling the technical aspects of the Hurricane Gustav Wiki. Once the wiki was installed, volunteers went to work copying over the info from the Katrina wiki. Today, less than 24 hours when this initiative started volunteers are checking links & updating them. At this rate, the effort will probably be done before the hurricane makes landfall.

The wiki will serve as an incredible resource for those affected. It’s amazing to watch people using & aggregating information from Twitter, online sources, Craigslist, mainstream news & then offering it to be read in a number of formats.

If you don’t have computer access

I’m wondering if the national emergency organizations should take note & have templates set up ready to use for various natural disasters. What about having their staff trained to utilize the various social media tools & engage the power of volunteers? There have to be lessons that can be learned here. What are your thoughts?

I was doing some things in MyBlogLog.com and saw Wayne Sutton’s collaborative effort towards building community around those preparing for the hurricane. He is using Twitter but it’s being broadcast in his MyBlogLog stream which allows me to read it as a set. (I have 1500 people in Twitter & the noise level is high.)

• There’s a ning for hurricane info – join & share information
• On Twitter they’re using the hash tag #gustav
• Live Twitter tracking by @jazzychad
• And a ref librarian at Jefferson Parrish put up Yahoo pipes tracking tweets.
• And Wayne is using his FriendFeed account to post all links.
• *Update – Margaret Saizan is blogging updates at
  • www.hurricane-katrina.org
  • & has a community at http://beyondkatrina.ning.com/

People are commenting on Twitter that @RedCross is giving out more up-to-date info than the mainstream media. (My question is it really the Red Cross – after the Janet @Exxon deal. But we can worry about that after the hurricane!).

I hope that helps connect people in some small way. It’s great to see these tools utilized quickly to hopefully save lives.

I’m in Minnesota so quite a ways from the storm. I did see a request on Twitter asking for help & to email her at beyondkatrina@gmail.com

This list of links proved to be popular. I missed last week so this will be a mix of items I’ve gathered over the past while. Hope that you’re all staying busy & have a safe holiday weekend!

Salesforce shares their hierarchy for gathering ideas from their community. Click on the graphic.

Some excellent guidelines if you’re Planning a community

Cadence community is gaining momentum

A good article but I don’t care for the term Internet Police

Penny Power talks about establishing tone/atmosphere in a community

List of Top 50 social media blogs

Some ideas that make for a great blog

Education/Networking

CNN had an article on Online student-teacher networking

Does gender matter? should it?

In the blogging world whenever the topic of gender comes up I don’t get involved. I ignore it because I’ve never felt that. In fact quite the opposite, I’ve always felt welcomed, mentored & supported by everyone (no matter their gender). That being said I think that a community manager requires a much broader range of skills.

I first had a conversation on this topic with Stormy Peters. She was preparing for a presentation on the topic. Since then I’ve been thinking of the reasons why women excel in this capacity. The recent study found that 55% were women.

Here are my ideas. Women are:

• focused on relationships
• taught to be nurturing
• multitaskers
• detail oriented
• experts at compromising & mediation
• traditionally keeping the home fires burning (not sure I should go that far back!)

This isn’t to say that men aren’t good community managers. I think that anyone that’s creative & willing to experiment will do a great job in this role. My prediction is that that percentage will shift more towards 50% as the field matures. There are many men that will find the position gratifying too.

What are your thoughts? Do you think women have a different skill set & are raised with different expectations? Is that changing now as we raise our children? Are the ‘traditional’ roles becoming less defined?