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All Weblogs are not created equal… (notes)

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Daniel Mosquin from the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden talked about the botanical gardens blogging and discussion forum initiatives. They are running a Moveable Type blog (since 2003) featuring a botanical “Photo of the Day”. The photo shows a plant in the garden, some scientific information about the plant as well as a linked [...]

Daniel Mosquin from the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden talked about the botanical gardens blogging and discussion forum initiatives.

They are running a Moveable Type blog (since 2003) featuring a botanical “Photo of the Day”. The photo shows a plant in the garden, some scientific information about the plant as well as a linked resource (either botanical or photographic). He pointed out an effort by blog authors to cross post to the discussion forums and an effort to cite contributors to the blog and forums by linking to their site. This give people an incentive to contribute because they are recognized for it.

Mosquin pointed out several times that the garden was engaging with different non-botanical communities. As an example he pointed to their participation in the Flickr community and the Delicious community as well as several blog carnivals.

The biggest take away I had from the talk was for an organization to identify new communities and learn how to be a part of them. By looking toward new communities some surprising connections get made, for example punk rocker who makes botanical OSX widgets.

  • Daniel Mosquin says:
    March 23, 2006 at 3:36 pm

    Thanks Eric, couldn’t have written a better summary myself!

  • Sarah Schultz says:
    March 23, 2006 at 5:53 pm

    Thanks Eric. We should figure out how to leverage these ideas with our own blogs which is obviously your point in posting. But mainly I just subscribed to the Plant of the Day and feel great about it.