Nancy White and Matt Moore emphasised the importance of this in their workshops – it will drive the design. Keep returning to it or risk losing your community. (More on online communities here at Nancy’s wikispaces.)

Some other useful ideas:

• There is no greenfield in online community
• It is best to find existing offline communities and start with them – they will already have a shared interest.
• ‘Build and they will come’ is probably a recipe for failure.
• People need rewards for changing their practice and building online community into their lives – they are too busy just to add it to their daily lives
• Start the technology where people currently are, be that email and sms, start small and take small steps
• The platform is not the community
• If you co-design the technology with the offline community, they will own the online version.

Nancy also emphasised the difference between network and community:

• Network – large numbers (150 upwards), members may be anonymous, join and depart without being noticed
• Community – probably <150 people, identity will be known, missing members will be noticed.

For people to change and take part in an online community:

• It must be worth the effort – what is the value?
• I must be able to do it – What skills do I need?

Providing relevant resources is a good way to engage people – especially video.

A recent Sydney Morning Herald article by Andrew O’Keefe quoted studies that ’suggest one in seven boys (aged 12-20) believe it’s all right to force a girl to have sex if she was flirting. One in three boys believes most violence against women occurs because the woman provoked it. One in three year 10 girls who’ve had sex, have had unwanted (i.e. coerced) sex. These girls are our daughters. These boys are our sons.’

What can be done to change these attitudes? Various councils and sporting clubs are establishing programs to ‘educate’ boys in their attitudes to girls.

Can they work I wonder?

I spoke to a friend in his fifties the other day. He was beaten regularly as a child and he and his brother were both sexually abused. His mum kept the family together, then when he was ten his dad committed suicide.

Samuel had a rough life as a young man on the streets of Broken Hill. He got into fights, got the tattoos and rode the motor bikes. But apart from one incident very early on in his first relationship he has never been violent to women.

I asked him why not. ‘I discovered animals’ he said. ‘I love dogs’.

And he does. Sam has two dogs and I tell you what, if I was to ever come back as a dog I know whose house I would choose.

‘Dogs give you unconditional love’ says Sam. ‘No matter what you’ve done wrong. They have taught me a lot, you should get one’.

Maybe I will.