How to Connect Global Communities Online Around History

How to Connect Global Communities Online Around History

• AJ- Purpose to build a platform/ find some way that they can learn from one another
  • Presently working on project about Frederick Douglas for Bicentennial events
  • Trying to figure out how social media platforms work together
  • How does this work behaviorally? Do you need a website before you have a social media presence, or can you build presence on social media
• Patrick- there is a paradoxical trap worried about
  • All of these sites and groups would be in their own solis and starting another one runs the danger of creating more of the same trap
  • Looking at aggregation tools, making it all about the aggregation
  • To make sure the primary mission is doing the aggregating, not adding another site.
• AJ- original idea is aggregation
  • Other people said they needed to have an event that this will take off
  • Place the reading in a place where passersby will stop and be able to take part in the meeting
  • Hopefully, the one event will interest others, ways to combine
  • Are there specific places for aggregation
• Patrick
  • Zotero can be used for aggregation, maybe create a Zotero group where, when people see these events, they can share them.
• Jen
  • The issue with the platform can depend on who you want to reach
• David
  • Finding some way of you not having to do that labor or going out and finding these events
  • Building a site that has some time of form capability (possibly wordpress)
  • A place for “Do you have a or know of a Douglas event? Enter it here”
  • No Anthologize
  • Press Forward as a platform
  • WordPress is decent at RSS
• Patrick
  • The utility of facebook/twitter is to make people aware of and get them to the aggregator site
• Jen
  • Platform infrastructure, but also the reason why they should contribute.
    • A newsletter, other things to keep people informed and share the information.
• AJ- what an RSS feed is? Is it similar to a google alert?
• David
  • Need to manually set up the sites you want to monitor and what you want to know what its for
• Patrick
  • Press Forward manages these feeds.
    • Helps you sort through the different information in the site.
  • RSS is a format for machine readable versions of a website
    • Sharing content that the machines can do in the background
• Jen- what is the overall strategy
• AJ
  • Success would be our project emerging as the place of aggregation for all things Douglas.
  • Create a group of Douglas interest
  • Hoping that is we can establish a beachhead so that when you do Douglas everything
• Jen- is GW putting funds into it to help sustain?
• AJ- no, but there is a possibility
  • There was a lot of interest, but the kind of “call me when you get something starting?”
• Jen- do you want to bring people who know and want to connect Douglas more tightly or reach out to people who don’t know much about Douglas?
• AJ- I wanted to do both
  • The more of the site has thing happening in different places, the larger the audience it can draw.
  • Way for Douglas interest people to see what other Douglas interest people are doing.
  • Black Lives Matter was a way of connecting people who combined and movement building through smart use of Twitter and other virtual connectors.
• David
  • Lincoln Bicentennial Committee may be a more useful connection to Douglas bicentennial
• AJ
  • Lincoln Bicentennial Commission was created by the president, had government funding and support.
  • Douglas is a reputation washer
    • People want to be involved, but may do other things in Douglas’s name.
    • Doesn’t want to go to the politicians yet
  • Thought “when I have an ask that big layers of government can do that we can’t do, then we will ask them”
  • If we are the education people, the park service, etc., the politician would come to us as the people to partner with.
  • Lincoln was defined by government sponsorship and private money, my vision is a democratic ones.
    • People have said that they will provide money if they can control the site.
    • Wanted to build something to be that people would provide funding, but be one of many.
• Jen
  • This is a maintenance issue.
  • Reach out to teachers, state historical groups, just so they know about it, even if they can’t fund it.
  • It’s one thing to build it, but it’s another to have people coming back to it.
• AJ
  • Has some networks with the Smithsonian, Parks Service, etc.
  • It’s the order of steps, don’t know how this will be maintained
  • This is the first phase
  • Had hoped that as we become the place where you can find the event information, then the people who fund them will support.
• Patrick- the resources are more about people then the money
• David
  • Thinking of this infrastructure, decide what you want to do best, the one goal
    • If the goal is to be the aggregator, focus on that, to connect the people doing these events and the people who want to participate.
• AJ
  • That was the idea, names the “Douglas Bicentennial Community,” but hasn’t used the word “aggregation”
• Patrick
  • Community says to me that it’s about connections and conversation
  • Aggregator say that you provide and combine the information
  • “What’s the one thing?” is super important because you can slip back in forth in what you want to do.  
  • The aggregation can be the first demonstration of usefulness, then maybe build on around the edges can bring in the communication.
• AJ
  • Wants to pull in the art angle
  • There are lots of other groups doing the education work, i thought bringing them together to show that Douglas is bigger than the classroom.
  • This could serve the teaching mission, what the past has to teach the present
  • Wants to showcase Douglas’s presence and how it lives on.
    • Sees these goals at combined and not separated.
  • Most things that people see will be either partisan or for-profit, that or a million tiny things that are harder for people to learn about
• Jen
  • recommendation is to design a beachhead to allow people to find you
  • get started with the open materials
  • can always change it
• AJ
  • Has the website, but it’s password protected because it looks like a third grader built it and was afraid that the website would not look like a viable place
    • Interns presently working on making it better
  • Will be pitching again to the DC Douglas Interest
• Patrick
  • It’s going to be a while that you are on the first page of google results
  • If you open it, people won’t really be finding it, except google.
    • By opening it, it allows google to become familiar with the content and things so they come up on search engine people.
• Jen
  • Build your ally base (state humanities, smaller groups)
  • Do a soft launch, so other people can possible help.
• David
  • Talk to ASLH, who is an aggregator of the smaller places, and they could probably help.
    • Seems that you are focused on the smaller, local historical societies.
    • Smithsonian and Parks Service doesn’t need the extra exposure.