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Boagworld is the blog of web strategist Paul Boag who lives in the heart of rural Dorset (hence the cows). He produces a weekly podcast with UX consultant Marcus Lillington on building and running websites. They also run the web design agency Headscape.

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Podcast 58: Community websites Part 1

Posted in Podcast on: Tuesday, November 21, 2006 by Paul Boag

This week a somewhat jetlagged Paul discusses virtual communities with Marcus. In particular they focus on the tools available to community builders and the business benefits of social participation.

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Well, I am back from the Refresh 06 web in Orlando and feeling somewhat jet lagged. As a result this week’s show is far from coherent. However, I do get the opportunity to make Marcus envious so I guess it’s worthwhile.

Actually it’s a pretty good show despite everything. We discuss the benefits of meetups and conferences as well as looking at some of the upcoming events such as a North East Meetup arranged by our very own Dan Cave, and the BBC Backstage Christmas Bash happening in London.  

The more conferences and meetups I attend the more convinced I am of their value. If you fancy getting more involved in these kinds of events I would highly recommend upcoming.org.

Our main subject this week is online and social participation. It is a subject I have been promising to cover for some time and one I am particularly passionate about. As a result I have too much to share for a single show. That is why this week we focus on the at your disposal and the benefits of communities. Next week we will move on to look at setting up and growing your community as well as motivating and managing your .

Finally, we also manage to squeeze in a of Twitter.com and take a quick look at the issue of sites (although this is something I would like to return to in the ).

What did you think about this post?

5 Comments

Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email

  • Tim says:
    21/11/2006 at 8:01 pm

    Hi guys,
    There are internal business benefits to online communities as well, particularly in large companies spanning multiple sites.
    Online communities can be a key component of lots of good organisational stuff like blended learning, information sharing and open problem solving or “crowdsourcing ” (good definition in Wikipedia too).
    Great to have you back!
    Tim

    Reply
  • Paul Boag says:
    21/11/2006 at 8:04 pm

    Good point Tim. I hadn’t considered the internal benefits. Nice to be back!

    Reply
  • Dave Redfern says:
    22/11/2006 at 2:17 pm

    Nice podcast, looking forward to next weeks.
    i was one of those plebs who go on the normal tours at NASA! we aren’t all celebs lol.
    i was suprised how small refresh was, i thought it was hundreds.
    did you fly first class? lol

    Reply
  • Iain says:
    23/11/2006 at 9:52 am

    Good podcast as usual but fancy no mention of the UK’s great grandaddy, CIX. CIX has been around since 1983 and is still going strong with both OLR and web access to the conferences. There is a reasonable Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIX). It was also where the UK’s ISP industry started with a conference called the tenner a month club which provide the initial funding to go and buy a Unix server for what became Demon Internet.

    Reply
  • Patrick Haney says:
    29/11/2006 at 6:32 pm

    Thanks Paul, for pointing out my Twitter obsession to the world. Cindy gets a nod for being an organizational leader and I get one for being a dork. Nice.
    Anyway, it was great to meet you and talk shop. Hopefully my MacBook Pro comments convinced you to make the switch. You’ll be glad you did.

    Reply

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Additional Information

Produced by Headscape

Boagworld is produced by the web design agency Headscape founded by Marcus, Paul and Chris Scott. Headscape also has a number of other talented guys who blog. Check them out.

  • Craig Rowe is one of our amazing developers and writes some superb posts on everything from .net to AIR apps.

  • Ed Merritt is a Headscape designer who's blog contains examples of his work and a number of free Wordpress themes.

  • Dave McDermid is a Headscape developer who has an excellent blog. He blogs on everything from AJAX to security.

  • Rob Borley is one of our project managers and blogs regularly on client and project management issues.

  • Leigh Howells is our multimedia design guru (whatever one of those is). He blogs on a mixture of design and music.

Paul elsewhere

Paul just can't shut up. He publishes regular audioboos, has a personal blog and is addicted to twitter. He also writes and speaks regularly. Check out the most recent below: