You might be someone who jumps right in and gets stuck in there and
learns by winging it. Or you might be a little more cautious and
assess all the bits and pieces first and then get going, knowing that
you have some formal guidance to help you along the way. Then there
are those who prefer to seek some help and advice from others and find
out how they got on with it, and perhaps learn from their experiences
before trying it out for themselves.
As with most things there is no one size fits all and you might take
a combination of these approaches. There is no real right or wrong
answer and it comes down to you and how you best learn, the time you
have available to learn it within, and ultimately why you are learning it.
So, bringing this back to Knowledge Hub (and online facilitation
of course), we are the first to admit we have a lot of guidance to
help you get started (i.e. the fittingly named ‘getting
your group started’ help section). This is just because with the
range of collaboration features you get, there is so much you can do
within a Knowledge Hub group to help support your work. Our support
materials have been created in a way that shares our tips,
experiences, and good practice from over the years in the form of
infographics, FAQs, video walkthroughs, e-books and checklists. We
want to make it easy for you to dip in and out, as and when you need
it. Plus, we like talking about Knowledge Hub, digital collaboration
and community management.
When you are setting up an online group and your role is to
facilitate and manage the group, of course it would be great to take
the time to read through all the relevant guidance. But we know that
this is not always possible, and at the same time we want you to get
your group off to the best start and help you achieve what you set out
to do. Instead we ask that you set aside some time (even if it is just
30 minutes) exploring your group and familiarising yourself with the
features it has to offer – before you launch your group and invite
colleagues to join.
A thought-out engagement plan is one of the most important factors in
creating an online group where you want your members to get involved.
There is no value in inviting members to join if they do not know what
to do when they get there. The same applies to your co-facilitators –
make sure they know what the plan is, what their role is and how the
group is intended to support your work. Do what you can to make sure
your group’s content and activity reaches your members in the right
way and at the right time.
For those that do like to read instructions, we thought it would be
helpful to highlight a few of the “if you can’t read them all, then
just read these ones” guidance:
You'll find lots of other useful guides in the Online
Facilitators Community - request to join if you're not already a
member and go to the 'wiki' to access our Community
Managers Guide.