The Conferencing Bookstore

Contents of this Page

• Virtual Teams (Online Collaborative Work)
• Online Communities
• Online Classrooms & Distance Learning
• Cyberculture

The first major book aimed at businesses who are looking into using web conferencing. Covers most of what you'll need to know, including required equipment, service vendors, IT requirements, making the business case for web conferencing, teaching employees how to use web conferencing, security issues, and using web conferencing for telecommuting from home.

Knowledge Management is an increasingly common buzzword in the corporate world, for the simple reason that companies that can make the best use of their employees' knowledge have a competitive edge over those that don't. "Communities of practice" open channels of communication between those who share common problems and concerns, so that those with practical knowledge about specific issues can easily share it with those who most need it. This book is a practical guide to creating and sustaining communities of practice within an organization.

Instant Messaging is no longer just for teenagers. It's rapidly becoming an important tool for business. This book explains IM's business applications, describes available products, and covers technical topics important to business users such as standards, configuration, and security.

This slender volume is a good nontechnical introduction to intranets, aimed at executives and managers who are considering building an internal network for their organization. It explains what an intranet is, how it can be used to further organizational goals, and practical issues such as budgeting, staffing, and training. The emphasis is on use of the technology to support interaction among people who need to work collaboratively. If you're planning an intranet, the hour or two it takes you to read this book will be time very well spent.

This downloadable e-book is a simple "getting-started" guide for novices looking to set up a forum and capitalize on the attention it draws.

Web logs, or "Blogs", have caught on big time in the past year, and they're even being used by businesses now. This book explains the basics of blogs, reviews popular blog tools, and shows how to build an active community around your blog site.

This book looks at commerce-based communities from both the business side and the customer side, explains how a community can be of value to both. It describes strategies for creating customer loyalty and managing a customer community cost effectively.

A text showing how to design a Web site, keeping in mind the idea of creating and encouraging virtual community. Features interviews with leaders in the industry, explaining their solutions for fostering positive Web communities.

From Amazon's description: "Amy Jo Kim is an expert at teaching how to design sites that succeed by making new visitors feel welcome, rewarding member participation, and building a sense of their own history. She discusses important design strategies, interviews influential Web community-builders, and provides the reader with templates and questionnaires to use in building their own communities."

This is the most complete "how to" book I've seen on the subject. Topics include a taxonomy of online communities and their differing needs, choosing software, facilitating discussions, building relationships, and revenue models. The author knows the territory extremely well, having played a key role in developing communities at The WELL, America Online, and Salon Magazine. If you only read one book about building online communities, make it this one.

This book focuses on the issue of software design for online communities. Jenny Preece has a strong background in software usability. Here she combines academic research with practical advice to provide valuable insight into how good software infrastructure can help an online community to succeed.

Nineteen experts write about the rhetoric and reality of online communities. Explores how they are created, how they function, grow, and develop, and what their participants expect from them. Covers leading models and key lessons for organizers of online communities.

This book focuses on the task of creating a sense of community among learners. The authors share their insight into what it takes to foster feelings of safety and a sense of shared learning among students and faculty involved in computer-mediated distance education.

Winner of the University Continuing Education Association's Philip E. Frandson Award for Literature in Continuing Higher Education.

Originally published in 1993, this book is still one of the best descriptions available of the dynamics of online communities, the social interactions that take place within them, and the relationships that develop as a result.

How the convergence of mobile communications and computing is driving the next social revolution, transforming the ways in which people meet, mate, work, buy, sell, govern, and create. Rheingold predicts that the coming techno-cultural shift will be as dramatic as those created by the personal computer in the 1980s and the internet in the 1990s.

Additions - Comments - Suggestions - Corrections