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AdvancingWomen.com

Community on the Net has a transcendent role as , simultaneously, the beginning, means and end product of networking and the development of community, specifically women’s communities.

Back in 1996 when AdvancingWomen.com was one of the first women’s sites on the Net, joining the scientists, engineers, government workers, and a few bold pioneers, we were just entering a whole new world and a new era, and much like the dinosaurs crawling out of the swamps, when we saw the light, we must have blinked.
I remember writing articles to explain to women what “Cyberspace” was, what emails and chat rooms were, and how to use them. But, since then, in our new networked world, we have all gotten up to speed and gone on to become prolific users of YouTube,  Facebook, Tweet and the entire blogosphere and  social networking panorama.
I look back and see how remarkably prescient some of those early  articles were.  Somehow we knew “As consumers grow familiar with the Net, their appetite for real time information, delivered in the most convenient and accessible way will continue to increase voraciously. People will want news, weather, the ability to order books or cars, to get a map, access a how-to site, or ring up a sale on an antique listed on eBay, all from their cell phone, Palm Pilot, Blackberry or even their watch.”
Probably it was Bill Gates or possibly Steve Jobs who foresaw that future, even then.
But, even then, AdvancingWomen.com knew two important things:

1. There are unique characteristics of the Net which make it an ideal vehicle for community formation and networking

2. Women’s communities on Net in could play a pivotal role in establishing a electronic networking structure to support other women.

The quintessential experience on the Web is the formation of communities of common interests. This capability of the Net to break down masses of people into communities of interest is a critical factor. AdvancingWomen.com believes it is important that a meaningful part of content on the Net be shaped and produced by women and offer new paradigms to support women in their attempt to advance. The Internet has empowered us to become a nation of citizen journalists,  sending in our videos of hurricanes to CNN, and writing on our blogs about what matters most to our communities of interest. The Net today, particularly with its new, free communication platforms such as Workpress, and the many automated blogging and social networking tools available, opens up the potential for an historic landmark in serious communication. It advances women’s hope that women around the world will accept this challenge and choose to use the advantages they have been blessed with — their education, talent, abilities and determination — to advance women everywhere.
Our first task is to foster a sense of inclusive community among women’s groups with many different agendas and ideologies because that is the catalyst which will drive open communication among them and form the foundation for both networking, and its further evolution into a support system. Ideally, a support system requires cohesiveness. A group with common goals can build on a shared history, shared experiences.  We do not have to share all our beliefs and ideologies.  We just have to share the belief that there is still work to be done for women to advance, and share our binding common commitment to that goal.
To achieve women’s advancement in many areas – business, law, politics, academia –  we need a critical mass of women and women’s organizations to share their knowledge and strategies. We need ” to use more of what (women already ) know, to create opportunities for private knowledge to be made public and tacit knowledge to be made explicit” . Communities of interest foster teamwork, nourish social forms of learning and provide a means to capture, synthesize and formalize knowledge, to marshal its use into action plans.  All of this can be captured and put forth on the Net.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the Net are the new communities being forged with new perceptions, new alliances, new agendas and a focus on communication as a means to achieve their goals. Site by site these women’s communities are forming a nucleus of a women’s support structure on the Net, not just to address a single issue, but to support women in all their multi-faceted challenges, from careers and education to seeking family friendly legislation and more women legislators.
AdvancingWomen.com is one such community, which fuses the power of the Net, as a communication, networking and information tool, with the compelling agenda of women seeking the most effective means to advance their careers or business.
The New Agenda , a non-partisan women’s group, seeks to bring about a systemic change in the way women are treated in the media, by the government, at the workplace, and at home, working towards parity in the government and in the workplace.
There are  many such women’s groups working on the Net to advance women.
But there is much which remains to be done. The Net is not a passive experience in which you are fed news or entertainment; the Net is an interactive medium which encourages participation and response and features two way communication, forums, group discussions, debate, voting. You can get on the Net and , by participating, help shape it into what you want it to be.  You can choose to harness the power of the Net to make progress for women so their voices will be heard and they will have equal access to pay and power and benefits. The Internet is very much like democracy in that ,even if you are entitled to vote, you must still get out and do it yourself. You can’t assign it and you can’t delegate it . You must do it yourself.
As an old proverb says, you make the path by walking on it. And you put the Web to Work for women by networking on it. Who better to shape the future of the Net, than you?

AdvancingWomen.com

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