Website Wednesdays - Discussion Groups

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature of NAFCM's website worthy of your review. By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site. Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: Discussion Groups

[NEW: Join the Conversation in Four Easy Steps!]

For over a decade, NAFCM has hosted the national community mediation conversation on our listserve.  We've had thousands of voices join the often lively e-chorus which readily shares resources, support, and wisdom with colleagues throughout the field.  Today, the list has over 700 individuals representing all aspects of community-based conflict-assistive services.  It's hands down the best, most broadly focused listserve for those seeking to engage the community mediation conversation.

Today, we're pleased to announce some exciting new changes to how you and the community connect.

ENHANCED EXCHANGES

First, we're moving NAFCM's listserve to a new, more robust platform.  Our current listserve is limited in how participants can engage content and how managers can customize the overall experience.  NAFCM's new listserve platform, hosted by Google Groups, is a feature-rich platform that combines traditional listserve functions with the interactivity of an online meeting space. Using this new system, you will retain the convenient direct-to-inbox messaging you've come to enjoy, and gain more easily customized message delivery preferences, informative participant profiles, accessible conversation histories, and many other features.  The of breadth of these new features will help ensure our community's conversations not only continue, but flourish!  

DIRECT DIALOGUE

As our e-dialogue expands with the latest technologies, we're pleased to announce yet another exciting addition.  NAFCM is now hosting a wide range of discussion groups.  From topical focuses, such as Transformative Mediation and Restorative Practices, to targeted geographic groups such as our new state-level lists, you can now join the specific conversations of greatest interest to you!  Using the same accessible Google Groups platform as our national list, you can now easily connect with colleagues across the state, around a topic, or along professional roles. These new focused lists are great places to connect with your closest colleagues, support counterparts, share local resources and training announcements, and advance your specific corner of the field.  With over 60 targeted discussion groups already open and more on the way, you can find your niche and get connected today!

CUSTOM CONVERSATIONS

Finally, we are pleased to offer the ability to create your own custom discussion group.  Using our simple online form, you can begin working with us to create and hold your own tailored e-space. Connect your program's volunteer mediators to your own custom listserve.  Create an online working group to advance a new service area.  Or propose a new topical area to expand our conversational horizons ever onward.  Whatever your focus, we'll work directly with you - providing the platform from which you can create new communities.


How you Benefit:

• Get Up-to-Speed & Stay Up-to-Date.  As colleagues' and your own interests and roles change over time, these new community conversations will be continually archived to ensure new participants can get quickly caught up on group history, interests, and priorities.  This is especially important for custom lists connecting your state's Executive Directors or other groups with regularly changing memberships.
• Engage How & What You Want.  Using NAFCM's new discussion platform, you can customize your experience to satisfy your specific preferences.  Choose to receive all messages immediately or in a convenient email digest format, or keep your inbox free by reading group messages directly online.  In addition to delivery preferences, you can choose to engage only the specific conversations in which you're most interested.
• Access Collected Wisdom...All of It.  Discover what's been shared before, easily restart and update conversations, and find exactly what you're looking for.  Archives of each group's members-only discussion archives are indexed by Google's powerful search engines, allowing you to access the collected wisdom of our field no matter when it was shared or when you joined.

Ready to Start? Join the Conversation in Four Easy Steps!

We're thrilled to offer so many exciting outlets to further connect our field.  Enjoy the conversation!

In community,
Justin R. Corbett
Executive Director, NAFCM

Website Wednesdays - Social Networking

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature of NAFCM's website worthy of your review.  By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site. Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: Social Networking

NAFCM's gone social!  Over the past seven months, NAFCM has been taking the hopeful message of community mediation to the masses using a number of popular social networking outlets.  From Facebook posts to bite-sized Twitter updates, videos and podcasts, and even this very blog, we're spreading the news that community mediation is here to help.

On the left panel of every NAFCM.org webpage, you can visit each of our current social accounts by clicking on their respective logos.  We've also created easy-to-remember short links directly connecting you to these services:

                    Go.nafcm.org/Facebook

                    Go.nafcm.org/LinkedIn

                    Go.nafcm.org/Twitter

                    Go.nafcm.org/YouTube

                    Go.nafcm.org/ADRhub

                    Blog.nafcm.org

                    Groups.nafcm.org

However you access our social activity, you'll quickly see there's a lot more happening than hits the listserve or makes our homepage.  For example, our Facebook Wall allows fans to ask questions and promote helpful resources.  Our Twitter account features a convenient list of community mediation programs using the service.  Our YouTube Channel features hours of community mediation videos viewed by thousands of visitors and subscribers.  On LinkedIn, we've created an open discussion group for all to join and contribute.  And on ADRhub, the social networking service designed specifically for conflict professionals, we're keeping community mediation squarely on the ADR field's broader radar.  

Each of these outlets allows us to spread the news about community mediation to different and increasingly wider audiences.  It also allows us to customize our message to these diverse audiences.  We keep it buttoned up for our business-minded LinkedIn discussions, and then to kick up our feet for Twitter updates like how community mediation can help cool red faces after too much green beer.

Wendy E. Hollingshead Corbett actually started us moving in this direction in November 2009 when - as our then Jr. Co-Chair - she created and administered NAFCM's Facebook page.  That first entree into social networking taught us a lot.  We learned connecting online is an increasingly meaningful, educational, and powerful experience, not entirely dissimilar to the personal connections we daily encourage in our work as conflict professionals.  We also learned that online social networking is becoming a key source of information for those in need of local offline services.

With this new appreciation in hand, we want to encourage more community mediation programs explore their own online social activities.  Getting set up with many of the most popular services is incredibly easy, and regular account maintenance can be as simple as a couple minutes every few days...though your investment obviously influences your returns.  If you're looking for inspiration, take a look at NAFCM Board Member-Elect Joe Brummer's activity for Community Mediation, Inc.  You can also check out the regularly informative "Tip of the Day" videos uploaded onto the Virginia Conflict Resolution Center's YouTube Channel.  

Once you've taken the plunge (or if you're already posting and tweeting away), NAFCM wants to amplify your online voice.  We've created a simple online form for you to tell us which social networking or other online promotional services/activities you utilize.  As you tell us what you're up to, we'll use our own networks to encourage folks to fan, follow, friend, and support your online activities.  This is yet another way we're supporting your important work and spreading the community mediation message.      

Be heard, be seen, be social with NAFCM!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Website Wednesdays - Community Mediation Search

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature of NAFCM's website worthy of your review.  By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site. Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: Community Mediation Search Engine

Do you Yahoo?  Do you Google?  Do you... Community Mediate?!  You should!  NAFCM has scoured the Internet to discover and aggregate hundreds of websites directly related and of greatest interest to our field.  You can take advantage of this extensive directory directly from NAFCM's website.

Using the power of Google's Custom Search Engine, we've created a search tool that only indexes community mediation and related websites.  You can access this new tool on the top right corner of every NAFCM.org webpage.  Simply click the downward arrow next to the "Search this site" box to reveal a "Community Mediation Search" option.  (The above picture demonstrates how to access this option.)  By selecting this option and then performing your search, you'll receive the fastest, most targeted, and useful information you've ever experienced online.   

For example, if you perform a regular Internet search for "intake form", you'll receive thousands of results from accountants, attorneys, counselors, doctors, schools, and countless other professional contexts which have nothing to do with community mediation.  Using NAFCM's new "Community Mediation Search Engine," however, this exact same search will provide you instant access to dozens of community mediation intake forms located on colleagues' websites.  No clutter, no useless results, no wasted time.  You get exactly what you need FAST!

To constantly improve your results, we are regularly adding new URLs to be indexed by our custom search tool. As programs around the world launch new websites, we're quickly adding them to the directory.  You can ensure your own website is included by completing our simple online form.  Once your site has been added, your resources will become quickly accessible to assist colleagues near and far.

Once you give it a try, you'll likely find yourself Googling...er "Community Mediating" more and more!  Use NAFCM's custom search engine to find sample forms, compare volunteer requirements or mediation costs, or, amusingly, "Community Mediate" yourself or a co-worker. Whatever you search for, we're confident you'll love the results!

SEARCH ON,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Website Wednesdays - Community Mediation Calendar

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature of NAFCM's website worthy of your review.  By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site.  Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

  

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: Community Mediation Calendar

Community mediation happens.  NAFCM has it scheduled.  

Need to promote your next event?  Planning your conference schedule for the year?  Interested in comparing your program's training rates and PR materials with those of colleagues?  NAFCM's Community Mediation Calendar is your new resource for all this and more.

Visiting NAFCM's new website will quickly get you connected with the latest events happening across your state and around the globe.  Whether its an international or regional conference, basic or specialized mediation training, volunteer mediator in-service training, teleseminar, fundraiser, call for proposal, or other community mediation related event, you can discover and promote them all using the field's new Community Mediation Calendar.  

This resource truly is the community's calendar.  In just over one month since launching, the Community Mediation Calendar has grown to over 40 events representing 20 different community mediation programs in over a dozen states.  We're working hard to ensure all events sponsored by or of significant interest to those working in community mediation are featured.

Now, we want to promote your events, as well!  If you are planning, presenting at, or simply looking to further promote a community mediation related event, share the details with the entire world by sharing them with NAFCM.

Adding your community mediation event is as easy as sending an email to events@nafcm.org.  In your message, be sure to include the event's sponsor, title, location, and a flyer or website where those interested can learn more. If you have PR or registration materials but haven't yet uploaded them online, we'll do that for you and add them directly to your event listing.  And to make this calendar accessible for all, we're offering this service to our community for FREE! 

Get involved.  Get noticed.  Get scheduled using NAFCM's Community Mediation Calendar.   

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Introducing NAFCM's "Website Wednesdays"

This week, we're pleased to launch a new feature on NAFCM's Blog, entitled: "Website Wednesdays."  

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature on NAFCM's website worthy of your review.  By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site.  Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

  

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: News & Resource Feeds

With over 400 community mediation programs throughout the U.S. and hundreds more internationally, our field definitely moves and shakes.  Trying to stay on top of it all can be an incredibly difficult and time consuming undertaking.  As a result, many of our colleagues only have time to learn what's happening at nearby programs or, for the ambitious, around their state.

Now, community mediation programs, their staffs, volunteers, and Board members can easily plug-in to the entire field directly from NAFCM's website.  We've created a single page titled "News & Research" containing up-to-the-minute activities and resources from Washington state to Washington D.C., Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and all points in between.  

We've scoured the web, subscribed to countless feeds, and set up dozens of alerts that capture and notify us of everything from newly published research to realtime tweets.  Using this system, roughly 20 items of note cross our desk each day.  (This number will continue to grow as we further build upon and refine our notification system, and as more community mediation programs expand their online activities.) Once notified, we personally vet each item and link only the most interesting, noteworthy, and otherwise helpful information to be featured on our website.  

In just the first month of our new website going live, we have featured over 100 items, including 20 job  announcements, 20 links to the latest research, over 30 national and local news stories, and links to 30 social updates, all specifically related to community mediation.  (Of course, if you find we're ever missing anything, please don't hesitate to let us know.)  Regularly visiting NAFCM's website will give you access to all these updates without having to wander the web alone.  With so many updates added daily, staying on top of community mediation is as easy as NAFCM.org!

We hope you enjoy this new feature!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM