Prototype: Clickable Dummy

HESTIA Clickable Dummy on Prezi

Facebook: Group or Page

facebook's groups and pages cannot be combined. 

The article of O’Neill (2010) on the page allfacebook.com shows the differences between both:

For the internal communication of HESTIA a group is the better solution. With membership restrictions the administrator can control, that only HESTIA members join the group. Mass messaging allows to send a message to all members. If the limit of 5,000 members will ever be reached HESTIA will have enough resources to re-structure its media solution.

With the “event inbox messaging” the group members get direct information what is going on in the group. That is important to encourage them to get involved and take part in discussions. A page is designed to read and consume, whereas a group is made for a real dialog, where every member has the same publishing rights. But the administrator can delete comments if it is necessary. Another important function of a group is the group chat, which allows life conversations between the members when they are online.

The advantages of a page, targeted updates and stream posts, promotional widgets and vanity URLs are not needed for the internal communication. Those elements are very useful for marketing and advertisement to reach a huge audience. The facebook page could present the club to an external audience.

Facebookgroup: HESTIA’s club pub

Most elements which are provided by facebook are already included in joomla! or moodle. The facebook group should be used for the unofficial conversations. Compared to a normal club the facebook group could be seen as the club’s pub, where to members meet after the official events. If a member decides to don’t use facebook it can still participate in all official activities, but is excluded in the private exchange. 

Interview Jason Brower

Here you can find the Interview with Jason Brower, club member in the Dungarvan Rugby Club.

This time I interviewed an active player to get a different perspective. For Jason, the social aspect, chatting before and after trainings and matchs is more important then the sport as such.

Also interesting: He didn't came to the club because he was activly searching for a rugby-club, but because a neighbour invited him.
HESTIA should give a possibility to invite new members with an advantage for both, inviter and invitee.

Difference between Group, Community and Club

Before starting some definitions and terms need to be made clear. Especially the question, why HESTIA is a club and not only a community should be answered in the next passage.

Definition Group

Encyclopedia Britannia defines (social) groups as “set of human beings having some interrelation with each other.” (Benton, 1974, p. 245). This excludes a common interest; it could also be the same background like family or living in the same village.

Not an activity makes you a group member, but the background. If someone joins a group (like on a social network) he/she can stay passive.

Definition Community

The Encyclopedia Britannia from 1974 (no online communities existed in that time), defines a community as “a group of people with common characteristics and interests living together within a larger society.” (Benton, 1974, p. 47) 

The current definition of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia defines “In biological terms, a community is a group of interacting organisms sharing a populated environment. In human communities, intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks, and a number of other conditions may be present and common, affecting the identity of the participants and their degree of cohesiveness.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community, 2011)

Internet communities are only mentioned in the small sentence “To a growing part of people the meaning of the word "community" indicates a smaller or larger group of internet users signing up to become members of a community page/system on internet.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Community#Internet_communities, 2011), which leads to the conclusion that online communities are per definition not different from offline communities. 

Compared to a group the members of a community are active, the work for the community.

Definition Club

A Club is defined by the Cambridge Encyclopedia as “an establishment where people associate to pursue social, political, or sporting activities. In the US, country clubs and women’s clubs are well-established. In London, clubs for men developed in the 17^th-c from the taverns and coffee houses where men met to do business. These clubs (…) were used by members of the aristocratic and professional classes, and excluded women. Some have relaxed their rules, most continue to provide meals, library facilities, and overnight and accomondation.” (Crystal, 1990, p. 272)

This definition mentions three important facts which distinguish clubs from communities. First, the clubs are only opened to a certain group (in the definition men of the aristocratic and professional classes). HESTIA fulfills the same, by being only opened for project managers (or future project managers) working with virtual teams.

Second most of the clubs still have rules and structure. HESTIA will be a closed group, which gives advantages to its members. Also a structure will be developed in chapter 5.3 Structure.

Third clubs provide accomondation. Whereas communities (especially online communities) are spread all over the world clubs are very often locally based, with a club house, pub or hotel. In that case HESTIA seems to be more like a community, but with the online portal the club house of HESTIA moves into the internet. In the media solution will happen, what usually happens in the club house, decisions will be made, current topics discussed, but also private exchange.

A club allows members to be either passive (by joining to club and support it with money) or active by campaigning for the club.

Definition HESTIA

Following the definitions HESTIA is defined as a closed business society of project managers associated together for social intercourse and for the promotion of finding better ways to deal with virtual teams. 

Note: The detailed sources will be delivered with the thesis.

Conclusion Platform

The platform analysis showed, that non existing platform fulfills all needs of HESTIA.

Facebook seems to be almost perfect, but this is mainly caused by the combination of groups and pages, which is not possible at the moment. But facebook is the most common network worldwide, which is important for the international perspective of HESTIA. And it allows mobile access from almost every mobile phone and tablet device.

Furthermore it is the platform which performs best in the field of communication, which is an important factor in the virtual club. Also it enables the members to get to know each other beyond the business context by sharing profiles, pictures and common interests. With groupchat (in groups), instant messaging, messages and the wall it is predestinated for the real-time and almost realtime-communication.

Beside that it is important to have to possibility to organize and save knowledge in a secure place. Therefore moodle performs best. With plug-ins like wikis, forum and glossaries, which can be edited by every user, the collective intelligence of the club-members can be stored and found again very efficiently. Moodle is a closed system, which allows only members of the club to see the content and archive.

Finally beside the closed facebook-part and the closed moodle part an open platform for non-members is needed. The CMS joomla! will be the webpage of the club with representing the club for outsiders, providing information about the club and how to become a member and it is the entrance-portal to the closed sections of facebook and moodle.

Platform-mix of HESTIA

 

Interview Gearoid

Here the video of the interview from Thursday.

For more information about Gearoid O'Dolain visit http://www.dolain.com/

Current State Presentation March

Here you can find today's presentation about the current state:

2011_03_04_CurrentState_oblaender