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Tangler is a host of discussion forums with a difference – it acts more like an instant messaging platform than a traditional forum. Looks a cool way of getting discussion groups together quickly.
Month: November 2007
Zoho’s CRM
I have been looking for a cheap, quick to implement and eay to use CRM (customer relationship management) system to use while a long term solution is identified. This led me to have a play with Zoho’s offering, which is a real gem. Not only is it pretty fully featured, but there is also the ability to customise fields, and add your own. This is invaluable as the service is pretty heavily sales-focused.
Add to this that the system is free for the first 3 users, and only $12 (about £6) a month for any additional users, it’s a real bargain.
Another option within this space is 37 Signals’ Highrise, which isn’t as fully featured as the Zoho effort.
There are downsides of course – I’m not sure, for example, what the data protection issues are for holding large amounts of other people’s personal data online are, especially for a public body. But in terms of features, ease of use, customisability and price, this is a real winner.
links for 2007-11-07
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HiveLive is another service to use to create your own social network. Very useful for creating niche or sector specific online communities. There are a growing number of these available, keeping a track of them, and which is best for which situation, is g
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Great little interview between Beth Kanter and Heather Cronk, who is involved with Pledgebank, a MySociety project which aims to pull people together to achieve social goals.
Gordon Brown loves Countdown
It’s a fact:
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mHOAtgMqr5I]
Thanks to Simon Dickson for pointing out this oddity. I suppose it’s a difficult line to tread, but this definitely falls on the “has he nothing better to do?” side of things.
BarcampUKGovweb
Am very excited about the forthcoming BarCamp for UK government web types. In fact, I think the remit is probably going to expand beyond government into all areas of not for profit web work.
Jeremy Gould, of the Whitehall Webby blog, seems to have kicked things off with his post:
My proposal was to run a barcamp event, where those who want to participate in developing ideas, sharing their expertise and swapping tips can come together as a community. For those not familiar with the barcamp concept, check out the wikipedia page. The key point is that you come if you have something to offer and you participate, rather than simply observe.
I’m delighted to report that they agree, so I’m pleased to seed the message here that we aim to have the event run across the last week of January 2008 (Saturday 26th/ Sunday 27th). I say ‘aim to have the event run’ because it will only work with the input, energy and enthusiasm of the participants. We have suggested a proposition and date, we’re hoping that enough people will want to be part of this to come along and also to help organise the event.
The story was soon picked up by David Wilcox, who describes it very well, with Jeremy
inviting us to help transform government by sharing expertise in the use of social media tools.
As well as the traditional BarCamp wiki (hosted on the excellent, and free, PBwiki) today I set up an event on FaceBook and a Google group for mailing list discussions. Hopefully more social media tie ins will be possible once photos and videos are being taken at the event – they can be shared through the common ‘BarcampUKGovweb’ tag and maybe some groups and channels.
One of the cute things about Barcamps is the fact that every attendee is expected to present. I’ve put the hugely vague topic of online social tools, community building, using social media to improve engagement down as my area – lord only knows what I’ll actually say. Any suggestions, let me know.