This month's ActiveRain challenge is called "Ask not what AR Support can do for you - but what can you do for ActiveRain?" Specifically, the question to be answered is what can we do to help make ActiveRain even stronger?
I struggled a bit with this question, because I can't think of anything new I personally could do to assist making this site stronger. I write posts (although not as many as I have in the past), I comment on other's posts, I welcome new members, I participate in the AR Zoom calls, I help find speakers for the AR Zoom calls (although not as many as I should perhaps), I... hmm, I may already have my answer of what I could do better!
Of course, my thoughts then went to the actual platform. Is there anything that can be done there to help improve the quality of posts, interactions and member involvement?
I think the site has been working very well in terms of being able to post and comment without error messages. We have had times in the past where that simple functionality was flawed. It isn't now. And whenever changes are made in a system, there is the potential for other things to not work. So I wouldn't suggest any big changes be made to the actual ActiveRain system, but I have one suggestion for what should be a very small tweak.
Feature Photos
The only posts that are currently featured are those with a feature photo. If the featured photo becomes a requirement, perhaps some of the new members who actually write interesting posts would be featured. That might get new members more interested in sticking around, and would result in more conversations with different people. That's the only system related change I would suggest at this time.
Use of AI
One other thing I'm struggling with is the use of AI in ActiveRain posts and comments. When ~50% of the posts are all written in the same format, with the same typeface, and the same bulleted list formats and the same tone, posts become boring. And if posts are boring, fewer people will interact with them. In addition, if AI is writing the posts, who is the writer? Part of the benefit of ActiveRain has been hearing the voices of those who were members. What is their area truly like? What excites them? How do they treat clients? Getting to know the person behind the post disappears when the members aren't actually writing their own posts.
Further, when people use AI to write their comments, that also takes away from the interaction here. Some of the time, even the instructions they provided to AI when asking AI to write a comment are included in the cut/paste response. In my opinion, that makes the comment no better than a drive-by comment where you know the person didn't even read the post they're commenting on.
I'm not saying people who write on ActiveRain shouldn't use AI. If a writer is using AI to edit/make suggestions on something they already wrote, that's one thing. Or if they're using AI to suggest topics to write about, that's fine. But if giving AI instructions like "write a comment that sounds like me regarding this post," and then cutting/pasting the entire post into AI and then cutting/pasting the result, that's not cool. Same with posts. And if all of your posts or comments look and sound the same, that's not doing anyone any favors.
And that's not what ActiveRain is all about. It's about the personal interactions, building relationships, getting to know who people are, learning new things about your area and your business. That doesn't happen when every post sounds the same.
Summary
So to wrap this all up, in terms of what I can do to help ActiveRain, I will make a point to write more posts and to find more speakers for our Zoom calls. And I will continue to help in any other way I can.
As for my vision for the actual platform, I would make the feature photos a requirement of posting, and I would suggest we find a way to eliminate the overt use of AI to write entire posts and comments. I don't know the answer to that latter suggestion in terms of how to do that, but there's got to be a way.
Make ActiveRain Stimulating Again (#MASA).
Thank you to Debe Maxwell, CRS and Lew Corcoran for hosting, and Patricia Feager for the idea.
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