The enormous amount of work required to make an online community work

This article absolutely nails the realities of what is needed to make an online community (like the eHealth Forum) work:

Much of the work is hidden, and often not appreciated by those in governance roles. It is also very difficult to get the staff of an organisation to do this kind of work, unless it is clearly directed from the top - and of course appreciated and remunerated.

This has been the dynamic with HiNZ and the eHealth Forum for many years, but it isn’t unique to us. Rather, it is the challenge to be managed / overcome for us to be successful as an online digital health community.

As we look toward formally moving the eHealth Forum into HiNZ’s new platform over the coming months, this will be a key part of how things shape up going forward.

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You really are the MVP of ‘Community Managers’ @NathanK - thank you for all you do in this space!!

I think I should clarify, I mean MVP as in Most Valuable Player (not a minimum viable product!) :rofl:

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Thank you Olivia; it is super nice to get some genuine encouragement!

Going forwards we really are going to need some keen people to help us settle into the (up and coming) new HiNZ website. The @STAHDigital and @NMI committees have kindly offered to get in early and push it around; and we’d love some more volunteers to help us craft it into a really great asset for our NZ digital health community.

Anyone up for this?

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We’re excited to see how the new platform looks and support you! It will be a huge task so multiple volunteers is always appreciated.

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I’d be happy to help :slight_smile:

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Thank you both!

We are currently working on the design of the site and readying the eHealth Forum for migration.

Hence there are a lot of moving parts and sharp bits at the moment, but it should soon settle down to the point where it is ready to play with.

I’ll put out a formal call once it is at that point.

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As always, Nathan, you’re doing an amazing job. Not sure what I can offer in terms of support but you know how I can help, so call out when you need to.

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