Nancy White:
can you imagine using something like the spidergram to have conversations with those interested in technology in your communities and networks?
I started out being very excited about the application of the spidergram and I still am, but in a different way. Initially I was thinking of using the tool in a very comprehensive way to identify a whole range of technology tools that matched the activities of a community, but felt myself getting overwhelmed. More recently I have begun to think about using the spidergram in a more focussed way--doing a general mapping of community acitivies, but then applying that mapping to a specific project, in my case, website development.
For several months I have been leading a group of staff members in examining our current website to identify and implement a variety of improvements to our site. Though we call the project a website re-design, that is a misnomer in that our current site is part of a state government content management system which has some well-defined look and feel standards within which we must operate and some limitations on the tools available. We are not so much re-designing as we are trying to achieve an optimal deployment of the technology tools and services available to us.
The challenge is that with this less than comprehensive approach to redesign, we have had trouble focussing on the big picture. We get caught up in specific tweaks and changes to specific pages or content areas, but do not look at the overall picture.
At the moment, I am thinking of requesting an opportunity at our next full staff meeting to work through the spidergram activity and then start using the spidergram as the focal point of every activity and project related to our website--looking at the changes & updates we plan in relation to where it falls or how it supports the activities mapped in the spidergram.
Anyway, that is where things are in my head, but I have a long way to go to think through the actual implementation.
sheila
