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Should we make some changes to the online community for the IET Women's Network?

Hello Women’s Network!


We’ve noticed that this online community isn’t as active and engaged as it once was so we’d appreciate your thoughts on how we can turn that around. Why do you think that it’s not very active? Is it something about the group itself or the technology that stops you from participating? 


The team and I, along with Jo Foster our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager, have had a few ideas and suggestions that we’d like feedback on so please have a read through and let us know which of these ideas you think we should implement. Or of course if you have any suggestions of your own please get in touch and let us know.


We could:


1.    Close the online community group for the IET Women’s Network and move the discussions to a new overarching category on the theme of diversity and inclusion hosted in our site-wide public forum space. The new category would also include discussions from the LGBTQ+ group and other existing groups that also come under the banner of diversity and inclusion. Conversations in the new forum category will be visible to the general public and therefore have the opportunity to attract a wider audience and increased engagement. 


2.    Keep the group exactly as it is but be more active within it. Currently the group is a public group within the online community so all discussions etc can be read by the public but as they are within a group, you only find out about the discussions if you visit the group itself.  


3.    Keep the group but change it to a private group (so you need approval by an admin to join it and content within is only visible to members of the group) So you can discuss topics etc that you’d prefer not to be visible to the public but then have a site-wide forum area as well for topics that you don’t mind discussing in public. We could also restrict access to the private group for ‘Women Only’ if preferred. 


We’ve also created a poll on the group homepage for you to indicate which of our suggestions you’d prefer. 


Happy to take private feedback either by PM,  via my email address of Lmiles@theiet.org  or by reply to this forum post! 


If you have any questions at all then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.


Lisa

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  • Would there be scope for an "Ask Calvin" style anonymous session for women in engineering to ask questions that they may not be comfortable posting publically or for wider diversity issues?  I feel like a top level discussion forum would see more traffic, and locked down areas don't tend to get footfall required but this may provider a safer space - could also be used by those scared to make a faux pas in diversity settings to ask questions that they can't ask in a general office space - thinking things like how to ask someone if they have preferred pronouns, how to deal with neurodiversity etc.
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  • Would there be scope for an "Ask Calvin" style anonymous session for women in engineering to ask questions that they may not be comfortable posting publically or for wider diversity issues?  I feel like a top level discussion forum would see more traffic, and locked down areas don't tend to get footfall required but this may provider a safer space - could also be used by those scared to make a faux pas in diversity settings to ask questions that they can't ask in a general office space - thinking things like how to ask someone if they have preferred pronouns, how to deal with neurodiversity etc.
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