PubPart: A tag for participation?

February 8, 2008 by Tim
Filed under: Transfered 

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'nptech' stands for 'Not-for-Profit TECHnology'. In the last year, these six characters have probably led me to discover more extermely interesting stuff, and more extermely interesting people than I've discovered through all my wider reading, web-surfing and (albeit limited) conference going put together.

Why? Because nptech is used as a shared 'tag' across social bookmarking and blogging websites by an active community of people interested in not-for-profit technology in the UK. And it's possible, using an RSS reader, to follow all the blog posts, links and other interesting things they are sharing as they are shared – making a daily dose of the latest new ideas, insightful reflections and helpful resources easily available.

Each morning I use NetVibes or Google Reader to skim read the 30 or 40 links that have been posted with the nptech tag on the del.icio.us social bookmarking website since I last looked, and I might follow two or three links to read more. It usually takes less that 5 minutes – but it's 5 minutes well spent.

A tag for public participation?

So, after a conversation this afternoon with Alice Casey and Edward Anderson from Involve – I'm wondering if we need a shared tag for those working on public participation and youth participation in the UK? (Or is there one already that I'm missing?). Involve may even be pursuaded to take on putting together the type of weekly digest of tagged content that Beth Kanter creates and that makes the nptech tag work so well…

I was thinking about 'Participation Exchange' – but in tag terms that became 'PartExchange' which I'm not so sure about. So Edward suggested the tag: 'PubPart' for 'Public Participation'. What do you think?

Any other suggestions for a suitable tag? Or shall we get started with 'PubPart ' and see where we get?

(Not social bookmarking of blogging yet? It's really easy to get started – particularly with social bookmarking. Check out this video intro, and this one page guide to get the basics and get up and running in under 15 minutes…)

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Comments

6 Responses to “PubPart: A tag for participation?”

  1. James Mullarkey on February 11th, 2008 3:07 pm

    Hi Tim

    This is a great idea as I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I’ve subscribed to “PubPart” and will see how it goes. I’ve just been using “participation” but it would be good to get something more specific. I’m also very keen to get people using sites like delicious as they often have seen things on the net which I haven’t and it would be great to bring all these sources together.

    Thanks

    James

  2. Tim on February 11th, 2008 3:30 pm

    Cheers James :) I was thinking if PubPart works well, we may branch ‘YouthPart’ from it… but that might be after there is some volume in the PubPart tag…

  3. Simon Berry on February 11th, 2008 4:26 pm

    We are on the same wavelength here Tim. In our co-design of ruralnet|online we’ve asked those who cannot join us on the website to attach the tag ‘ruralnet’ to things they are writing elsewhere that they think we might find useful. This is what has resulted: external items tagged ‘ruralnet’.

    Regards

    Simon
    11/2/08

  4. Nick Booth on February 12th, 2008 12:49 am

    I’ll give it a go when things come my way.

  5. Alice Casey on February 14th, 2008 11:43 am

    I think the pubpart tag is a great idea – will be spreading the word and using myself. Also I will be exploring this and other ideas for connecting participation people on my blogsperiment – Cased. http://cased.wordpress.com/
    Thanks for providing the inspiration on this Tim!

  6. Alice Casey on February 14th, 2008 11:43 am

    I think the pubpart tag is a great idea – will be spreading the word and have been using myself.

    Also I will be exploring this and other ideas for connecting participation people on my blogsperiment – Cased.

    http://cased.wordpress.com/

    Thanks for providing the inspiration on this Tim!

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