Comments on: From listservers to forums/communities https://effectivedatabase.com/from-listservers-to-forumscommunities/ Making data management a revenue generator Tue, 28 Apr 2020 19:42:45 +0000 hourly 1 By: Kent Hughes https://effectivedatabase.com/from-listservers-to-forumscommunities/#comment-1203 Tue, 06 Sep 2011 18:50:03 +0000 http://effectivedatabase.com/?p=3630#comment-1203 Our experience with 80 trial lawyer associations is that a Web-based or on-line forum is not a push technology and simply has much less participation because members have to login. The fact is that a list server message, while old school, works on every single device. We’ve tried hybridizing the list server with an online component — and search clearly wins out as the online tool most utilized online. But we find professionals are twelve times more likely to utilize the list server, be engaged (in their face), and participate on a list server. 65% percent of professionals on average in all of our associations are connected to list servers and don’t want it to change. Perhaps if you have a more techie audience, they might prefer a true forum, which is common in technical fields.

]]> By: Wes Trochlil https://effectivedatabase.com/from-listservers-to-forumscommunities/#comment-1202 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:52:23 +0000 http://effectivedatabase.com/?p=3630#comment-1202 In reply to Jay Karen.

Jay, thanks for sharing your experience. My experience through my clients is similar. Pushing the discussions to email is still critical for broader participation. But smart move on your part to push the digests to everyone.

]]> By: Jay Karen https://effectivedatabase.com/from-listservers-to-forumscommunities/#comment-1201 Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:10:29 +0000 http://effectivedatabase.com/?p=3630#comment-1201 Yes – we moved from listserver style to online forums about 6 years ago, and I was thinking about moving back to listserver style about 3 years ago. Online forums require members to stop what they are doing and log into a forum to participate. I was concerned not enough members were doing that – it required an “active” form of participation. A listserver enabled “passive” participation – magically showing up in the email in-box, requiring little work to observe the discussion, and only requiring one to hit the Reply button to participate. Once we started sending a daily forum digest to all of our members this summer, participation in the online forum has tripled. Our technology doesn’t allow someone to reply to the forum digest by email (yet), but the passive folks like reading the summaries of yesterday’s discussion, and the active folks like logging in to participate. We use YourMembership.com, BTW.

]]>