Locals June 9, 2010

Hi everyone

Like Jeff Smith I am making my first post to this group.

I am new to e-democracy, but not new to online groups. I am assuming (perhaps wrongly) that I know what you mean by Forum Manager (i.e. someone who helps an online group to function effectively). This is something that interests me because of my work in Dadamac, where I introduce people (mainly UK-Nigeria) and then help them to do useful stuff together. This means that I am interested in helping people from different cultures to communicate and collaborate effectively.

I agree with the contributor who mentioned the need for a Forum Manager who asks questions. This helps to move the discussion on. It can also help to avoid confusion, and feelings of belonging or not belonging.

Jeff mentions city government and neighborhood advisory councils. I suggest that they may have slightly different cultures. See
what I learned from Stephen Musgrave about this.

In my experience many online forums are cross cultural in some way and when that is so you need someone as Forum Manager who has an understanding of both of the cultures that will be represented. This means they will stand a good chance of recognising where areas of misunderstanding may be about to happen, and can make sure that confusion is averted. It may be, for instance, that there are different cultural expectations of "how things should be done", or that a word is used in a very general way in one culture and with a more specific meaning in another. There are all kinds of tiny differences and assumptions that can creep in unnoticed and cause problems later.

A simple example from  a UK-Nigeria online discussion illustrates the point.  I remember someone in rural Nigeria referred to their  "library". (I thought immediately of a Nigerian village I know and the opening ceremony of its new, much appreciated, library. That one was a reference library and consisted of a public room with a single, partly filled, small bookcase, and nothing that could be taken off the premises.) In the UK the word usually refers to a library, with various sections and plenty of books (and other resources) some to  borrow, and some for reference. The fact that a specific Nigerian project mentioned its "library" made it likely that UK people would think the whole Nigerian project was much better resourced than was in fact the case. A few questions clarified the situation and avoided wrong assumptions. 

In a UK example I remember working with two different organisations - both of which had "AOs". In one group "AO" referred to a senior position, in the other it was near the bottom of the ladder. It helped to get people to actually say "Area Organiser" or "Administative Officer" to avoid confusion.

These examples are simply for illustration. Sometimes details are much more important. As the saying goes "the devil is in the detail". Wrong assumptions can lead to confusion, disappointment and bad feeling. When two cultures are involved people who know both bring something extra to the role of Forum Manager.

Pamela