What is the best way to monitor and document our experience with online forums?

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I set this forum up so that we could maintain a running record of this experiment with online forums. If we don't embrace the technology ourselves, can we reasonbly expect our clients to?

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000

Answers

Kara's comments are preceded by a ">". (I hope this system preserves my formmating...)

>We should keep a close eye on who is contributing to the forums, >including looking them up in our database, investigating what >they get from Cutter, do we know them, etc.

Sounds like gathering business intelligence. Is that a sales or marketing function?

> Perhaps we should publish forum comments in the issue, like a letters to the editor type thing.

You'll need to get permission from the poster, or add some language to the disclaimer.

> If we choose one that has banner ads, can we put one of > our own up there?

Yes, if we pay for it.

> Perhaps we should set up a list of pros and cons, and what we > hope to achieve with these forums?

Documenting objectives is a very good idea.

> How do I spell check this?

The old fashioned way, unfortunately.

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000


Joe, regarding documenting our experience with online forums; *We should make sure they're not too much work for the amount of return. *We should keep a close eye on who is contributing to the forums, including looking them up in our database, investigating what they get from Cutter, do we know them, etc. (sensible practitioners vs. anarchist weirdos). *Perhaps we should publish forum comments in the issue, like a letters to the editor type thing. *We should make sure people are using the forum and encourage all subscribers to take part. *We should periodically print out the forum comments -- I think we'll appreciate having them in the future. *We should have someone monitor the forums. *If we choose one that has banner ads, can we put one of our own up there? *We should have links from our Web site. *Perhaps we should set up a list of pros and cons, and what we hope to achieve with these forums? *We should identify the benefits to the subscribers. -- How do I spell check this? -Kara

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2000

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