Julie, thanks for your comments. I think you’re right re Memberspeak and Buzz being used for different purposes. My impression of Memberspeak is that it does seem to be a place for getting questions answered rather than conversations: few topics have threads in double digits.

I think the beauty of eXchange is what it may do for stimulating discussion and connections between members, where the way in which that happens and where it goes will entirely be up to individuals now that IABC has provided the framework.

Equally interesting will be to see how the overall eXchange concept develops, eg, into an actual social network.

So I’ll be staying tuned! Well, and writing now and again in my new eXchange blog

Thanks for taking a look at eXchange, and giving your readers your assessment of it.

You have raised the question about what will happen to IABC Buzz and Memberspeak. We will be evaluating usage of both of them to see whether we should maintain them, but for now they will stay.

Actually, I see them as having two different purposes than eXchange. The Buzz was conceived as a place for members to share information about job changes or awards or even life changes. Our model was the last page of a college alumni magazine. Of course, we could also start a group on eXchange for sharing that kind of information.

As for MemberSpeak, I see its value now for the one-off kind of question, where the member wants an answer to a question, but does not want to continue the discussion on the topic.

But both of those views are mine. The future of The Buzz and Memberspeak will be determined by IABC members, not its president.

Stay tuned.

Julie

There’s one thing I’m missing (and maybe it’s there and I have literally just missed it). IABC needs to have some sort of eXchange home page that not only explains to the outside world what eXchange is, but acts as a promotional/discovery tool for members’ blogs. The new system seems excellent, but decentralized to the point that short of emailing my blog URL to other members, there’s little way for them to discover my blog. Having some sort of Huffington Post-style landing page featuring various eXchange blogs would be fantastic.

Otherwise, I’m very impressed.