This was raised (see below) by one of our @nz-ciln members after the last get together in Hamilton. Our email lists and Yammer forums are valuable, and many of us have invested significant time and effort in them. The problem is that we silo our (conversational) data and dilute our energy.
What I’d like to know from you all is whether this is worth addressing. There are a few ways it could be tackled.
In a nutshell - yes please!
Well I’m only a member of this one so can’t comment. I don’t want to be inundated though…
Hi Nathan,
I may not be the most avid poster here but I do read the Discourse posts regularly and find them very informative and a great way to collaborate and see what everyone is doing. I prefer this to Yammer which I find less easy to engage with personally. I certainly would prefer one medium as it is easy to get alert fatigue as Erin notes.
Thanks for being so open and responsive.
Kind regards
Karen Shaw
Hi Nathan,
Certainly find the multiple platforms a challenge and do get alert fatigue when trying to sift through what is pertinent. Can see the pros and cons of the various platforms but would advocate for just one going forwards.
Thank you @rowena, @karenshaw, @Ruth_Large, and @Srgurr for your feedback.
I believe that it is possible to adapt Discourse to provide the elements of Yammer that are popular with our crew, whilst also reaping the benefits of consolidation onto a single platform. The superpower of Discourse is its open source nature, which enables this sort of customisation and evolution. It would require a bit of work (and some money) to achieve however.
@jon_herries, @matthew.strother, and @BeckyGeorge - you have a good feel for the advantages of Yammer as it is being used. Would you be willing to comment?
as commented privately - the threading ability is more apparent in yammer. some of this is governance (e.g. establishing smaller interest groups withing the overall organizational structure) some of this is software (more logical flow, UI lends itself to the grouping) .
I find it hard to keep up with all the various information sources for sure.
My understanding is that Yammer is approved for use by the MoH, so they will continue using that platform. Personally I’m a fan of multiple channels- they all have their advantages and purposes.
HI Everyone,
Just restarting this conversation as its timely to look at how we communicate with each other. We have a few different formats available and we’d be interested in finding out if there is an interest in a “bigger picture” of potentially HiNZ and CiLN moving to the HFNZ site and making this a community for like minded Clinical informticists and any one in the field or interested.
So open to you all for discussion!
Well, I’m delighted to report that HISO have decided to move their community space from Yammer to Health Forum NZ, which is occurring on 2021-05-02T12:00:00Z. This is due to the increased features and flexibility of Discourse as a community platform, and the potential to be engaged with the wider NZ digital health sector more effectively.
This was vastly preferable to moving here into the Digital Health Networks, which is by design (appropriately) UK-centric and controlled by a UK based company. Maori data sovereignty is another aspect that can be much more easily addressed by being NZ based, and the ongoing support of HiNZ a clincher.
Health Forum NZ requires some work to pivot from an ‘All of NZ Health’ scope to an ‘All of NZ Digital Health’; this is well underway.
It does raise another question:
Moving CiLN over to HFNZ is technically pretty easy as they are both on the same platform. There is always pain with a digital move, but it shouldn’t be too bad. The learning curve will be flat, and the labour would be donated (don’t you love volunteers?). Bridges will be left back into the DHN to enable straightforward engagement with the UK digital health community.