xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 1, Winter 1998
Editor's Column: Making Community
In the next few months, we should be taking a further step with the launching of a new AACP Web Site "The Virtual Community Psychiatrist." This site, which in the language of the web is "powered by" Eli Lilly Co., Poppe-Tyson Interactive (a company that designs web sites) and the University of Pittsburgh Department of Psychiatry, will bring information about the AACP to anyone who has access to the World Wide Web. What's more, as we work to embellish the site we see it as the way for the membership and other concerned individuals to be able to facilitate interactive communication. If we do our job right, this site will be vibrant and anything but static. It should both bind us together even tighter and expose us to a much wider world.
This is an unprecedented opportunity. For the past twelve years the AACP has largely been a function of its board with some chapters or organized nodes in states across the country. This board has met three times a year and has been highly successful. Over time members who are not on the board have been able to contribute in some small measure but for the most part there was little activity between meetings or among non-board members. That began to change about two years ago when most of the board developed e-mail capacity. It became highly unusual for board members to go a day without receiving e-mail from someone else on the board. The development of the list serve two months ago has given us the capacity to reach over 290 of our members. Its a number which is likely to continue to grow as more of our membership becomes aware of the list serve and more of our members enter the internet age. The web page obviously opens us up to even far larger numbers.
For the last eight years the main instrument of the AACP to communicate with its membership has been our newsletter. Produced in runs of 1000-3000 issues, we have been able to disseminate information about the AACP far and wide. Wes Sowers' work as the editor has truly been exceptional. One of the things that makes the Web Site possible is that the core of the newsletter will be able to be posted on the site. But good as it is, the newsletter only offers minimal interactive capacity. The Web Site is going to change that.
The new web site is a test of our understanding of the idea of community. What is community? How do you foster community involvement in depth and over time? These questions really should not be too foreign to us. I suspect that many of us are experts in this arena, but may not realize it. Any of us who have struggled to develop community supports for our patients know what it is to try to build a community. We know what it is to advocate for resources to try to pull people together to address a common problem. We know how to articulate the dreams of individuals and groups. We know how to value and work with differences and diversity. We know the value of inclusion.
How can we use this knowledge while we construct our own community in cyberspace? The interactivity of the web site and the listserv should allow all of us to participate in guiding our efforts. We (speaking for all the AACP, if you will allow me) look forward to your contributions.
Kenneth S. Thompson, MD
Webmaster
Back to Winter 1998 Table of Contents