“Given the feverish hype surrounding all things Web 2.0, you might think that virtual
community is something new. It’s not.”

That’s the intro to a new Beaconfire study of 64 environmental email listserves. Its point is simple, and worth repeating a zillion times — for most progressive groups, low-tech tools like interactive email lists are still more powerful than flashy 2.0 communities like Digg, de.licio.us and YouTube. (Reminiscent of a recent rant I authored for NTEN, The Myth of the Bleeding Edge.)

I should take my own advice. One mistake I still kick myself for in ‘06 was not establishing an email list for my John Hall Hometeam callers. This was a group of about 200 volunteer phone bankers, spread out over 15 states. The out-of-staters stayed connected to the campaign almost exclusively through me — personal emails and phone conversations. That was both inefficient and top down, and didn’t do much to foster a community. It would have taken me 15 minutes to set up, a few hours to seed, a working email list. Who knows what might have come from it? Probably would have yielded more total calls, as the Hometeamers got more drawn into each others’ lives and the life of the campaign.

Ah well, shoulda woulda coulda. Hindsight is 20-20, especially when you won!