Social Network for RSA Fellows

New experiment, please suggest FRSA related websites

Hi folks, I'm looking at fun ways to present the range of RSA Projects, FRSA networks and Fellows own websites. This is part of a series of experiments we'll be trying on the RSAde group over the coming months.

Please join in by telling me what you like, or don't like about the Pearltrees visualisation shown below. I'd like to know about any other sites you think should be added (and why), comments about the layout, tips about other services and so on.

The RSAde working group will be testing different ideas about how we might design the future of our social networks and 'digital ecosystem' over the coming months. We value the contributions of all of you who have signed up to this ning group in support of a digitally engaged Fellowship.

Thanks in advance,

Roxanne

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matthew Kálmán Mezey on October 27, 2011 at 15:56

Hi Roxanne,

Thanks for making this - it looks kind of cute. (I'll play around with it more once I've sent this e-mail...).

I don't know Pearltrees - it sounds like the user must provide the links, rather than Pearltrees itself finds the connections for you, right? Aha, do I remember sending you a doc with lots of these URLs in, a week or two back? Maybe it's all beginning to make sense... ;-)

As you know, I'm trying out Dipity myself, to see if it really will make a nice timeline of key RSAde group milestones. (If so, perhaps it could be used elsewhere).

Speaking of milestones - the RSAde group has broken the 100 member barrier, without me noticing. (I thought I'd been keeping an eye out!).

We're currently on 102! :-)

I'm also trying to pull together a Netvibes dashboard of RSA-related online activity. It can pull in anything with an RSS feed, basically. Blogs, Twitter, video, Delicious etc. (Annoyingly enough the big boys, well Twitter anyway, are starting to remove their RSS feeds - as I guess they want to focus on their own ecoystem, not on encouraging the open web).

I'm also making a feed of Fellows' blogs. If you are a Fellow, with a blog you want to share, please send me the URL :-)

Do you plan to have a go with Storify? I'd love to see the result, if you do :-)

Have you got any particular tools lined up to try?

BTW, people might be interested in this short video clip I made with Roxanne (and there are 5 other ones too) - talking about what it's like being a social entrepreneur: http://www.rsablogs.org.uk/2011/10/24/social-entrepreneurs-videos/

It was great to discover that we'd both been very involved with Nicholas Albery's Institute for Social Inventions - though I'd left my job there before Roxanne got involved.

Matthew Mezey
(RSA Senior Networks Manager - Online & International)

Twitter: @MatthewMezey

Permalink Reply by David Miller on October 27, 2011 at 15:57

I thought I'd upload my Twitter Trilogy here, if that's all right. There might be another suitable home for Miss Brodie's Adventures in Twitterland. But she might be permitted a rest here for now ... The LSE has asked for a blog post about the use of the films to engage the wider RSA, so it would be useful t have some comments from Fellows who have viewed Miss Brodie's journey and found it useful. Hope to hear from Fellows soon. And thank you (and Roxanne) in advance :)

Permalink Reply by Paul Nash on October 27, 2011 at 16:14

Hi Roxanne

Like Matthew I haven't used Pearltree before but I have used Debategraph which works in a similar way. I think this is a good idea for bringing together the range of web based activities in one place. I think connecting to Fellows web sites could be interesting but I'm not sure how manageable that would be. The other thing that springs to mind is the potential for subscribing to alerts; you can't keep scanning all of the web sites, even just your favourites so is there the potential for changes at some level to be sent out to subscribing fellows - just a thought.

I look forward to seeing this develop.

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on October 27, 2011 at 16:17

Great contributions guys, using this thread to share and discuss digital toys and tools is a good idea.

@Matthew, automation is handy, but ultimately good digital curation takes the human touch. Services mutate and decay rapidly. I've used Storify but not yet for RSA. It will be a great tool when we muster our social reporting Fellows and further empower the regions. There are loads of tools to try - I'm sure our experiments will stimulate others to join in. We need to reflect all the 'real life' and online activity and support the growth of a largely self-supporting digital community. It's a long journey :)

@David Wow! Please suggest where they might be placed in the Pearltree and keep us informed about the blog post.

Permalink Reply by Matthew Kálmán Mezey on October 27, 2011 at 16:30

Hi Paul,

> "I think connecting to Fellows web sites could be interesting but I'm not sure how manageable that would be"

One plan of mine is to gather Fellows' blog posts and simply make a merged RSS feed of them all - to put on the Netvibes dashboard, or wherever people want to put it.

I think seeing Fellows' blog posts all in one place is... well.... powerful, interesting etc!

It's pretty easy to do, as well. You just use Google Reader to subscribe to the feeds, give them all the same tag, and make the tag public. I've already made a start, but only with few blogs so far. I need to go through Roxanne's list of RSA tweeters to harvest all the blogs they mention! :-)

Have you got any Fellow blogs you'd recommend?

Matthew

Permalink Reply by Adrian Ashton on October 27, 2011 at 16:31

great idea that neatly shows the various projects and routes 'in' and 'out' of the RSA;

as a fellow, I'd be very interested in seeing how we can link fellows' own sites into this map, but given that some of us have a thematic rather than geographical focus to our interests, perhaps the Fellowship 'hubs' should also be thematic as well as area based?

Adrian

www.adrianashton.co.uk

Permalink Reply by Susan A. Bennett on October 27, 2011 at 16:36

You may want to include these FRSA sites :

http://rsafellowship.com/group/williamshipleygroupforrsahistory

http://williamshipleygroup.btck.co.uk/

Permalink Reply by Matthew Kálmán Mezey on October 27, 2011 at 16:40

On the 'testing' front, something else I plan to try out is the use of NodeXL Social Network Analysis (SNA) software to analyse things like the characteristics of the network of FRSA tweeters.

Is it mature and connected? Or something else...

I already made one SNA map... but didn't understand it!

But I've borrowed a book from RSA's Projects team - so should be more clear about how to interpret things soon.

Matthew

Permalink Reply by Roxanne Persaud on October 27, 2011 at 16:46

@ Paul - Would you be able to throw together an RSA-based example of Debategraph? I particularly like the editorial aspect. Pearltrees is not good for that, or the thematic approach which Adrian suggests.

@Matthew - I think it would be nice, if a bit old-fashioned, for us to keep a master list of FRSA blogs here on the ning. Then people could add to it and also use it for their own curation experiments. Could you start a thread?

@Susan - I'll add the website into the Fellowship networks tree but not the group as it is a subgroup of this main ning. I appreciate that might be confusing. We are thinking and working hard to help simplify things, as you can see from this thread!

p.s. If the Pearltree hasn't changed, refresh your browser (press F5 on Windoze) and it should update automatically.

Permalink Reply by Paul Nash on October 27, 2011 at 16:53

Roxanne

Happy to throw together an RSA based example of Debategraph but off to sunny climes for a week so will pick it up when I get back - jealous? I should jolly well hope so :-)

Permalink Reply by Paul Nash on October 27, 2011 at 16:55

I find David Wilcox's blog useful, Dave Briggs is a must and so is Tessy Britton

Matthew Kálmán Mezey said:

Hi Paul,

> "I think connecting to Fellows web sites could be interesting but I'm not sure how manageable that would be"

One plan of mine is to gather Fellows' blog posts and simply make a merged RSS feed of them all - to put on the Netvibes dashboard, or wherever people want to put it.

I think seeing Fellows' blog posts all in one place is... well.... powerful, interesting etc!

It's pretty easy to do, as well. You just use Google Reader to subscribe to the feeds, give them all the same tag, and make the tag public. I've already made a start, but only with few blogs so far. I need to go through Roxanne's list of RSA tweeters to harvest all the blogs they mention! :-)

Have you got any Fellow blogs you'd recommend?

Matthew