Knowing how: a case study

I spent a week in Cyprus earlier this month, at the International Association for Forced Migration conference ('forced migrant' being more-or-less a word for 'refugees'). I wasn't attending, my husband was - I was more tagging along, being helpful where I could.

The thing to remember here is - the attendants were Very Clever People.

One attendant had an idea for an ongoing discussion group. She floated it, but immediately hit a snag - Geography. Some people are in England, some Australia, some Malaysia, Ghana, you name it. How can you possibly have a discussion group across so many countries? The crew at our table agreed it was a doomed idea.

Me, I was mentally banging my head against the wall and weeping softly.

Long story short - I promised to make them a website where they could talk and share work.

When I got home, I contacted a friend who had made a similar-ish site to find out how he did it. I had a bit of a go on square space, before realising that it wasn't right for the project (actually I don't think it's much good at all, but maybe that's just me). Then I thought of Ning. I had a look, decided it was fit for purpose, and started building. Then I set up a drop.io for document sharing - not an elegant solution, but good enough.

My friend wrote back to recommend Ning, confirming my conclusion that it was the best on offer at the moment (for free, at least.) The whole thing took about an afternoon of my time.

SO:

Could my brilliant friend, who's idea it was, do this?

The first answer is obvious: 'of course she could. It's easy, isn't it? And she is clever.'

And it's true. But I maintain that my brilliant friend could NOT have done this. Not because she isn't clever - she is - or knowledgeable - which she really is. She couldn't have done it because of pre-existing knowledge.

The knowledge required was:

1. You can have private discussion groups online

2. Those groups can be nice to look at

3. They're free

4. There's a good one called Ning

5. Ning is recommended by someone I know whose opinion I trust

...aquiring that knowledge from scratch, even if you were to dedicate a month to it, would be incredibly difficult because you wouldn't know what you were looking for in the first place. Not knowing what to look for would be a deterrent. Not knowing that the thing you needed even existed is more than a deterrent - it's an unjumpable gap.

The group isn't up and running quite yet, as various contributers have been doing inconvenient things like getting married and migrating (I'm looking at you, Alice), but the point remains: it can be done.

And the question also remains: How do we make it so more people know it can be done?