|
CU Village recently developed the Web site for EECU using our Content Management System. Take a look by clicking on the image above!
|
Product Announcement: CUCampus
CU Campus is your online destination to network with your credit union peers and collaboratively find solutions to your needs. You’ve heard about the power of social networks—and that is exactly what CU Campus is for the credit union system—plus a whole lot more. CUCampus will be launched in the near future—but you can get a sneak preview now! Simply log on to http://community.cuvlearning.com/awh@mcul.org/weblog
Social Networking: Participating in a Colleague’s Blog
Networking has been a part of the business culture for decades. Whether socializing at a work-related dinner, a convention, or an educational session, we mix and mingle to share ideas, promote our businesses, and meet with people who can help us professionally.
Networking has come a long way and its latest iteration has moved into place rather quickly. But such is the age in which we live—information at the click of a button, instant messaging, emoticons and abbreviations.
The latest method of networking for business is the blog. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines a blog as “a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.” You might already be using a blog for personal information exchanges related to your hobbies and interests outside of work.
If you haven’t joined the blogging community yet, chances are your kids or some of your peers have. And in time, you’ll probably start blogging, too. After all, it’s an increasingly popular way to share information with colleagues and strangers.
Why post on a blog?
What’s the point of spending your time composing comments for colleagues and even strangers to see? Consider the nature of the blogging system. It’s actually a tool for sharing best practices, collaborating on projects, and networking with other credit union professionals. In these days of the seemingly endless commute and the almost-daily meeting, the blogging system offers a space that allows you uninterrupted time to compose your thoughts and a forum in which to share them.
Because blogging is delivered in an interconnected public space, it allows for interaction and further development through discourse. Others will read your thoughts and may comment on them with their own insights, providing a forum for conversation. But even if no one comments, your thoughts become the seeds for others’ thinking.
What do you have to add?
You’re a knowledgeable professional, so you have something to add to the discussion. Consider a blog that centers around Human Resources best practices. You have a few courses of action when you encounter this blog. You can:
Just reading the blog means that you’re participating in the new community or network that you’ve found. If that’s all you do, no one will ever know that you’re gaining a bit of knowledge or advice. And that’s okay; no one needs to know. After all, the blogger posts the information with the knowledge that many other people might read it—or no one might.
Sharing the URL is a good way to extend the network. You might have minimal use for the information that you’ve found, but you know that a certain colleague, an HR professional for instance, will benefit. so you pass along the URL. Now, that person has a choice to read, comment, or refer—or some combination thereof. And so the social network grows.
Posting comments on the blog allows you to become an active participant in the social network, and for many people, it’s the best way to get something out of the blogging experience. Why? Because if you post a comment, and someone responds, then the discussion grows and the network is extended just a bit more. Blogging offers many opportunities for networking with your peers and gaining information and insight.
How to post: technology
Posting a comment is simple. You’ll usually be asked to provide an e-mail address, and you might be asked to agree to the terms of the blog (e.g., no use of profanity). If you think you’ll be posting a long comment, type your comments in a program such as Word® so you can easily check the spelling before you post. Typically you can preview your comments before they’re posted to the site.
Many blogs ask you to fill in the “CAPTCHA” field. According to Webopedia:
CAPTCHA is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human. "CAPTCHA" is an acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University. A CAPTCHA involves one computer (a server) which asks a user to complete a test. While the computer is able to generate and grade the test, it is not able to solve the test on its own. Because computers are unable to solve the CAPTCHA, any user entering a correct solution is presumed to be human.
You probably encountered CAPTCHA if you’ve purchased concert or sporting event tickets online. If you’ve had to type the characters or word that you see (which are usually in wavy letters on your screen) then you’ve come across CAPTCHA. The goal of using CAPTCHA in the blogging system is to prevent automated (i.e., non-human) posting of comments. After all, people want an authentic exchange of ideas.
To preview the social networking opportunities that blogging provides, click here and view our blog.
Next month, we’ll offer tips on creating your own blog.
|
| |
Let the Information Come to You
Does your daily routine consist of checking your regular news sources? First, you go to CUNA’s site, and then to the NCUA’s site and so on.
Why not use RSS feeds instead? According to Webopedia, RSS “is the acronym used to describe the de facto standard for the syndication of Web content…and its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web.” Just think of RSS as “Really Simple Syndication, and you’re all set.
Consider this: RSS is the technological equivalent of having the newspaper delivered to your doorstep rather than making a daily trip to the newsstand or corner store.
Who Provides RSS—and Where You can Put the Delivered Content
Many Web sites, especially those that offer information that changes regularly, offer up information as an “RSS feed.” When the information on one of these sites is updated, the information streams out to subscribers automatically through its feed. Anyone who has subscribed to that feed via a “feed reader” or “RSS aggregator” gets the information delivered directly to them.
On the flip side, of course, you have to have a place where your news and information can be delivered, and this is known as a “reader.” Free sources are available through Yahoo! and Google and several other sources.
If you want a site that offers more than just reading capabilities, our latest product offering, CU Campus, is one such “feed reader” or “RSS aggregator,” meaning that you can subscribe to Web content and have it delivered automatically to your CU Campus profile. So now you can bring your favorite Web content to you!
Podcasts: Statistical Reports
How many people are listening to your podcasts? With the statistical reporting that’s available with your podcasts, you’ll know how many people listen, when, and how often.
You can run the reports the way you prefer. Quick Stats let you get this month’s, last month’s, or this year’s stats with one mouse click. Or you can also run a report by a custom date range. Reports provide the following information:
- Feed Title – Title of podcast
- Published – Date the podcast was placed on your site
- File Type – This will usually be RealMedia or MP3
- Feed Size (MB) – Size of the podcast feed
- Times Accessed – The number of times people accessed this podcast
- Bandwidth Used (MB) – How much bandwidth was used to play this podcast
- Total for Times Accessed – To help you track how many times each podcast was accessed
- Total for Bandwidth Used – To help you keep track of how much bandwidth has been used
For information about podcasts, contact your CU Village.com business consultant.
|
September 2007
