yunus
Macroeconomics is dead; long live microeconomist alumni of Yunus
In 1976 4 people began a socila action whose networking maps may yet sustain the world. Dr Yunus co-founders offer open source solutions to almost every crisis that threatens community sustainability locally and worldwide including: banks for the poorest and to sustain job creation health clean energy mobile/internet media for the poor- ending digital divide ...learn more
GROUP DETAILS
Created: Nov 20, 2008
Updated: Sep 07, 2009
Membership: Open To Apply
Semi-Private
Clarify distinction/relationship between organizations and groups
Problem
When I began becoming acquainted with the WE site, I quickly got confused on the WE distinction between an organization and a group. I did not see the WE pros and cons between these two, or if the difference was academic or substantial in some way. Of course, much of this information is on WE, but it is not readily visible when the new user needs this information.
Suggestions
- Create an article to make clear the WE distinction between an organization and a group. Also, make clear any relationship between the two. For example, many people view an organization as a group of individuals. So on WE, can an organization have a group, or multiple groups? Or, can a group have one or more organizations? If these relationships are allowed in WE, how are they created, represented, and viewed?
- On the organization creation page, http://www.wiserearth.org/organization/new_pre, provide a link to the article in #1, above, to clear up any confusion a user has BEFORE he or she creates a new organization.
- On the group creation page, http://www.wiserearth.org/group/action/new/about (which I think should have a group search requirement like the organization creation page does), also provide a link to the article.
- Make "organization" and "group" entries in the WE glossary: http://www.wiserearth.org/article/Glossary
- Perhaps make a reference to this article from the General FAQ and the WiserEarth Help Desk.
Related Information
In suggestion http://www.wiserearth.org/article/ca8d34557d9ac7fdd3264f94ceef0440, Bowo wrote:
- I do agree with your idea on providing a better explanation upfront to new users on the different type of entities, and when to use which.
- Organization representative can create a group for their organization. The organization page is for directory listing purpose and serve as an informative page on organization info, the latest reports on progress made, and to map connections it has to people, resources, events, etc. The group page is for communication and collaboration between organization staff, volunteers, supporters.
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/62bbcccf080b3addae05d52d9343e011
- Groups are "focused communities of people"
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/b20e4d4787fbd81e1bdecb9f65d6b866
- Groups are "where people engage in discussion, post and share resources, and collaborate on projects."
http://www.wiserearth.org/article/b00063d1815429d1ba584d9f70d58e93/group/WECT#usewe
- I want to use WiserEarth for my organization beyond listing it. What can I do?
- You might want to consider using WiserEarth's groupware for your online outreach, organizing, networking and collaboration needs. It is an excellent tool that also encourages cross-groups sharing and collaboration.
Other pages:
Comments (1 - 6 of 6)
|
|
Bret, Angus and me just finished crafting this page --> Distinction Between WiserEarth Organizations and Groups
|
|
|
Fantastic. Let's do this!
|
|
|
Word (I agree on all your comments). I think once we write the article for #1, it will make things more clear as to what, if anything, we should do regarding suggestion #5. I'll get to work on that article probably sometime today.
To a wiser earth! |
|
|
Wow! You've been busy digging all that up!!!
I like all your 5 suggestions to remedy the situation. Here's a wiki in the Help Desk on this. Let's co-edit. http://www.wiserearth.org/article/843e3f5d137d12718ef78138349bfc19
We should also link to this page from Organizations FAQ page, and Groups FAQ page.
I wonder what the new item on this in the General FAQ page should be? --> "How can my organization use WiserEarth?" ?
Let's elaborate further. |
|
|
I think it is a good suggestion. :)
|
Yea! Suggestion point #1 has been accomplished. Also, thanks to Bowo, point #5 I think is done too, because he added a link to the new wikipage from the group and the organization FAQs, which seems to be even more appropriate solution than the suggestions in point #5.
Can somebody implement point #2? (I don't have the permissions to do it.) I would put something like the following line just before the "Which organizations are included in the WiserEarth directory?" question.
What is the distinction between WiserEarth organizations and groups? Click here to find out.
I think point #3 is difficult to implement right now with the current new-group-creation page. If someone has an idea, go ahead and do it. However, I made a suggestion to make this page similar to that for creating new organizations. When this suggestion is implemented, I think point #3 would be automatically handled, so I don't think this point absolutely needs to be dealt with right now.
For point #4, since I don't have permission, can somebody please add something like the following glossary definitions.
Group Page
A WiserEarth group page is a shared workspace for a focused community of people to communicate and collaborate. It can be used not only to share information but also to connect with WiserEarth organizations, groups, people, resources, solutions, jobs, events, and wikipages. For the distinction between a group page and an organization page, see this article.
Organization Page
Besides just being a directory listing for an organization working towards social and environmental justice, a WiserEarth organization page can share information and connect with WiserEarth organizations, groups, people, resources, solutions, jobs, events, and wikipages. For the distinction between an organization page and a group page, see this article.
And I think that would be it...