David Terrar has the full story. IT Counts won in the category of Best New Web 2.0 Initiative at the Web Strategies conference, held in London last week. Ironically, both David and I were in Boston for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
This is an especially proud moment for me, largely because of the back story. Having spent several years beating up on ICAEW and its general dopeyness, I got the chance to help start building the community that’s IT Counts.
There’s nothing like eating your own dogfood. You get to test your theories, find out what doesn’t work and why, rinse, repeat and move forward.
Here’s a few stats as at the time of this post:
- Users: 3,190
- Posts: 167
- Comments: 391
IT Counts is supposed to appeal to the 16,000 IT Faculty types. What we’re finding is that people are coming from all parts of the profession. The fact we’ve registered some 20% of that universe is a terrific start.
There is a core of about a dozen people who are working incredibly hard to keep the momentum going. Some of us are paid for our contributions but that reflects the reality that this is a professional community that has to operate according to professional standards.
The quality of conversation and the learnings that are being surfaced seem to work very well. I’m learning more about the issues these people face in their day to day life and adjusting content accordingly. The fact there is an average of 2.3 comments per post is gratifying and a decent start for an organization that doesn’t have a high ’social quotient’ as Steve Mann would say.
As someone who is more concerned about what users and buyers really want rather than buying into the hype of all things 2.0, I’m coming to the conclusion that with the right approach, communities really can add value. It is hard to measure and it is not always apparent. Sometimes it seems almost ephemeral. That doesn’t matter. What really counts is that the emerging collaborative networks are working. IT Counts is one example and I am very pleased to be associated with the project.
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