The New CILC

Today I attended the first webinar on “The New CILC.” If you’re really into VC and you use the CILC site, you really ought to attend. There are a bunch scheduled in the next two weeks, and I’m sure CILC will schedule more if needed. Here are some initial thoughts & comments about the new format.

Communities of Interest (COI)
One feature of the new Premium membership is communities of interest. This has serious potential for networking and sharing with each other. But only if you come share! I’ve been asked to assist with moderation of the K12 Education COI. Two of my other good VC buddies who also blog, Paul Hieronymous and Scott Merrick, are also moderators for the new COIs. I’ve just posted a bunch of interesting questions based on conversations we’ve had here, on the phone with many of you, and from my online classes. I think we can get a really good profitable conversation going. So there’s one benefit of Premium membership. ($25 introductory pricing).

Learning Times
I was really curious about the new online community tool CILC is using: Learning Times. I’ve looked at this before & dabbled in online conferences, so I was interested to see what that was like. I haven’t decided yet what I think of it as I haven’t used it enough.

Other Premium Services

  • There’s a calendar of events. Members can post events that are free to share with everyone else in the community.
  • There are spotlight session webinars for premium members.
  • There will be discounts on the conferences CILC will be offering – including Keystone coming back next fall after a year’s hiatus.
  • Access to CILC research and literature reviews, etc.
  • The collaboration center will become a premium service only starting in January. Hmmm.

The COIs are the main attraction for me. You can subscribe to get the interactive discussions in your email or in RSS. I’m still working on figuring out the RSS feeds. This is a huge feature though. Online communities die out quickly (or never get off the ground) if you have to go to the website to read them. With this one, you can get it daily in your email, by message in your email, or weekly digests. Plus the RSS that I’m still working on getting working for me.

So I hope that gives you some info to help you decide if you will “upgrade” your CILC membership.

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