MYIT COMMUNITY: BUILDING COMMUNITY ACROSS ORGANIZATIONAL AND GEOGRAPHIC BOUNDARIES

Session Speakers: Kevin Morgan, Connie Welch

As in many large organizations and institutions, there exist pockets of expertise and knowledge. Locating those resources and creating a forum to share that knowledge is a challenge. One tool we have developed is a community site where technology users can share ideas, challenges and frustration. Our mission statement "My IT Community is to foster communication and collaboration within the Penn State IT community. This user driven venue provides tools to share IT ideas, projects, challenges, information, questions, and help." Due to the pervasive nature of information technology, the community is not restricted to traditional IT staff, but available to all Penn State University faculty and staff. This discussion will follow the five major stages of development and deployment of the community: initial concept and platform selection; development of first prototype; focus groups and adjustment; final site design and deployment; and gathering support, building of the community, and feature enhancements.