One of the main reasons that members join your association is for the networking amongst peers. Take advantage of the expertise of your members by starting an online discussion group—often referred to as a "listserver."

Simply put, an online discussion group is just a collection of email addresses of people interested in a particular topic. A message sent to the central discussion group address is automatically forwarded to all group members. If someone has a question about a particular topic, she posts that question to the discussion group, and other members reply to the post—and that reply is also distributed to the entire discussion group.

Online discussion groups have many benefits:

• They facilitate networking between members.
• They enable the experts in your membership to share their specialized knowledge with others.
• They can help to quickly disseminate news and other important information to a wide audience.
• They foster a sense of community around your association.
• Members can join the list either with their work email address or their home email address (or both). Participants can review the discussion group activity when they have time.

Just like email, free services exist to help you start your online discussion group quickly and easily. Sites such as eGroups (http://www.egroups.com) provide a free, easy-to-use interface to set up your group. You simply follow the prompts to set up your list. Such services fund themselves with short advertisements that appear at the bottom of each message sent to the group. For more robust functionality, you can purchase software packages, such as Lyris (the package ASAE uses to manage its discussion groups). These packages generally start at around $500 and allow more robust group management.

Online discussion groups have some drawbacks:

• Members must have an email address to participate. Fortunately, as PCs become more and more widespread, and with all the available free email services (such as Yahoo and Hotmail), you’ll probably find that most of your members have an email address.
• You can’t just set up your discussion group and let it go. You’ll need to dedicate some resources for ongoing list maintenance and monitoring (see below).
• Just as you are liable for the content of your printed publications, so too might your association be legally liable for messages posted to the discussion group. For trade associations, there are anti-trust/price collusion issues to consider. You’ll need to establish strict rules and carefully monitor posts (more on this next month). Consult legal counsel to get more information on legal risks.

If you want to create a discussion group, you’ll have a few things to decide before you start:

• What will be the overall theme? Will you have one discussion group for your entire association to discuss general topics, or do you want to restrict discussions to a particular area (for example, legislative issues affecting your members)?
• Do you want to use a free service or purchase software? A free service is a good way to "get your feet wet" without spending a lot of money, but purchased software provides more functionality.
• What will the list rules be? You’ll need to set guidelines for proper usage of the list. For example, you’ll want to establish standards of etiquette (i.e., "no personal attacks") and rules on what types of messages aren’t allowed, such as sales messages. (More on this subject next month.)
• Who can join the list? You can set up your list as "public" (meaning anyone with an email address can join), "approval-required" (meaning you, as the moderator, must approve all subscription requests), or "private" (meaning you, as the moderator, must enter new subscriptions). Private lists are more work for the moderator, but they ensure that only legitimate individuals can subscribe to the list. Many of ASAE’s listservers are private; the moderator ensures that the requestor is a member of ASAE before subscribing him to the list. Many list management packages allow you to define addresses that should be banned or that always require approval.
• How will individual messages be handled? Discussion groups can be "open" (i.e., any email sent to the list is automatically sent to all members of the list) or "moderated" (i.e., you, as the moderator, must approve all messages before they are sent out to the group). Moderation is a lot of work for the list owner, but it ensures that only legitimate messages are posted. Most software packages allow multiple moderators, so you can split up the load.
• Who will monitor the list? Once you’ve set up the list and enrolled your first batch of subscribers, you have to keep an eye on things on an ongoing basis, to make sure that discussions stay on track and subscribers are following the rules.

Once you’ve made these decisions, you’re ready to set up your list!

Next month, I’ll cover in more detail the various options for discussion group maintenance, such as open posting vs. moderation, setting list rules, and monitoring ongoing discussions.

If you have any questions about online discussion groups, please email me at lbray@satx.rr.com