civic participation, social media, virtual communities, conference
Abstract
Participation was the overriding theme at the 4th International Conference on Communities and Technologies (C&T 2009) held at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania at the end of June. We can design and deploy technology to support a community, but how do we truly engage that community and motivate its members to participate? The approximately 125 attendees presented and discussed a number of ways to encourage greater participation - especially civic participation - over the course of the 3-day conference (and the preceding day-long workshops). This article reports on some of these participation strategies and lessons learned.
