Who comes to LCB?

What's your impression of the audience LCB draws?

• Super brains or mere mortals?
• Techies or average joes.
• New to learning or been around the block a few times?

Is the audience we're attracting the audience we should be attracting?

The impression I get is that it tends to be experienced practitioners mixed in with conceptual SMEs. But I have no idea who is lurking in the silent majority. I think this is the audience we want to attract, certainly if we have any hope of generating a more productive community that can actually go out there and make change happen.

(Godfrey Parkin)

I'll get wonky here and suggest that we're potentially sitting near the top of a community of practice (see liked; self excluded), and the way others get enculturated is a) practice and b) listening to others. What we can be doing is providing that discussion that others can listen to (and we need a channel for them to get in, but I'll ask that it not be completely open so we have some corporate memory). So whether they're Super or average, they can get what they want out of it but it's a chance to move up the knowledge path. It may not be perfect, but it's *an* approach.

(Clark Quinn)

Your question made me curious about the medium. I compared audiences in blogs, WIKIs and threaded discussions. Blogs in general, including the LCB blog, tend to provide the Answers From The Expert rather than the questions. I think that intimidates people and drives them into the Lurkers Cavern. The blog approach seems to be unidirectional, good for teaching or reporting and passively reading, any participation coming mainly from other experts. WIKI's seem to be popular yet multidirectional. They invite a somewhat more diverse audience WHEN there's a reason for everyone to participate (wikipedia), or a question that a lot of people share an interest in answering (emacswiki). Threaded discussions seem to be omnidirectional and user driven and the audience ranges from Newbie to Guru depending upon the question to which people are seeking answers. It's user's asking questions that drives people to get involved, and any question is answered by many people from beginner to expert. So I believe the answer is each medium attracts a different audience.

(David Grebow)

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