Dear Elizabeth 
That would be brilliant, I wonder if the choice would be whatsapp as many I know use that.
I even use it in my official address, because humanitarians travel in and out so frequently that Whatsapp allows   us to stay in touch 
thanks for the offer.
Hadia Nusrat (MPH)
Senior Gender Advisor to Humanitarian Country Team, South Sudan
Deployed with HC office, Hosted by UNFPA Juba Office
Whatsapp +923008545262
SS Cell: (0) 924939332
Skype: Hnusrat

Dear Shobana,

Can you elaborate more about the GDPR Regulation for the sake of forum users that might not have an idea what that is?

Would a forum moderator such as myself and Paresh managing such a group still fall under the Secretariat umbrella? I would rather suggest that perhaps Secretariat start a post about the GDPR highlighting some key issues that users should be aware of.

Regards,
Chaiwe

Dear All, 

 An official group at this point might be difficult giving the GDPR regulation. Informal groups are always welcome provided that some one take lead in managing it to prevent spam. An official telegram, zoom or Slack account does not unfortumately conform to the security regulations for the Secretariat to manage such a group. 

We are not allowed to share any information that members have provided during registration process.

Best regards,
Shobana 

Hi,
    It will great, if it would be possible for all to be in Social Group for quick response & update. 

Regards,

Hi Kris and Paresh,
I agree with the advantages you have mentioned for Telegram over Whatsapp. However, I see further advantages with Slack in the fact that the search functions are better, and threaded replies can be used. Kris: was there a particular reason why you dismissed Slack?

The overall purpose of having an online chat channel (in parallel to the forum) would be - as Chaiwe pointed out in her starting post - "As one way to increase and improve engagement for users". To spell that out a bit more, I foresee its purposes as this:

It could be used

1. ... for "social" messages; messages that are not meant to be preserved forever.
2. ... to draw some attention to new forum posts that are particularly important and are in danger of being overlooked. 
3. ... for informal, quick questions or announcements.
4. ...by novices who feel they are not qualified enough yet to make a "proper" forum post, and who want to test the waters first.

Are there other purposes that I haven't thought of yet?

I don't think it's a problem to install another App. We all have so many apps on our phone, what's one more app... You could decide if you wanted push notifications from the App or if you just wanted e-mail notifications.

Thanks for the inputs so far, please keep them coming. We're still in the brainstorming phase.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Kris and Paresh,
I agree with the advantages you have mentioned for Telegram over Whatsapp. However, I see further advantages with Slack in the fact that the search functions are better, and threaded replies can be used. Kris: was there a particular reason why you dismissed Slack?

The overall purpose of having an online chat channel (in parallel to the forum) would be - as Chaiwe pointed out in her starting post - "As one way to increase and improve engagement for users". To spell that out a bit more, I foresee its purposes as this:

It could be used

1. ... for "social" messages; messages that are not meant to be preserved forever.
2. ... to draw some attention to new forum posts that are particularly important and are in danger of being overlooked. 
3. ... for informal, quick questions or announcements.
4. ...by novices who feel they are not qualified enough yet to make a "proper" forum post, and who want to test the waters first.

Are there other purposes that I haven't thought of yet?

I don't think it's a problem to install another App. We all have so many apps on our phone, what's one more app... You could decide if you wanted push notifications from the App or if you just wanted e-mail notifications.

Thanks for the inputs so far, please keep them coming. We're still in the brainstorming phase.

Regards,
Elisabeth

Hi Elizabeth, Our platform enables knowledge management, communications, smart help desk, Document management, events, tasks... What you see on TheWater Network is how we have configured it. It is open access and all posts in all public groups are discoverable by google and can be read by anyone. Each community can be configured for the use case you prefer. So please recognize that the points that you make are not valid for our platform. In order to understand it best is to have a 30 minute demo.

Hi Trudi,
Thanks for reaching out. I'll check with Finn Staack (SuSanA secretariat) if he wants to make an appointment to receive a demo from you.
However, I think our two systems are not really very compatible. Looking at the link you provided I see mainly a news feed that looks similar to Newsfeeds from Linkedin. Secondly, I see something that is probably like a discussion forum but it requires a login for reading. Even if the login is for free, this would go against our grain: we've always said we want the posts on this forum to be findable with search engines; a login system for reading would prevent that.

I am impressed as it seems you have found a workable business model where you don't rely on an external funder but generate your own income. This is something we have not yet achieved with SuSanA (the bulk of funding for the SuSanA secretariat has been from the German ministry BMZ since 2007). See also my post about future funding here . 

The SuSanA network will probably never grow as big as yours. After 13 years, we have now reached nearly 14,000 members (for stats see here ).  I would see an online chat tool as something that might appeal to perhaps 5% of our members, so let's say 750 people. For that, Slack might still be workable. The idea would be that it would go hand in hand with the discussion forum. 

But the jury is not yet out, and I think we need to collect further brainstorming inputs. So thank you again for your post!

Regards,
Elisabeth

With so many members from around the world a real time chat space is not a good solution. I have been operating the largest knowledge sharing platform in the water sector with over 115,000 members for over ten years at TheWaterNetwork.com . Slack is appropriate for small teams that are actively working on  a project together, it gets expensive fast if you want to scale and does not have a good content management engine or good Q&A. I would be delighted to provide SuSana the same platform that we use for The Water network. It is highly configurable so does not need to be as complex and comprehensive as the water network without sacrificing functionality. Let me know to whom I can give a demo.

I think we need to first decide the central purpose of such a move. If the purpose is to make it easy for people to make and read posts, contribute to ongoing discussions, then the most popular of the platforms should be used. As a member of the 'Poo Crew' Whatsapp group pointed out, they are able to participate in the discussions on WA as they can do it passively. In that sense, getting people to add another application that they otherwise do not use is asking too much. 

To add to Kris's list of advantages of telegram,  unlike Whatsapp, old communication is visible to newly added members. This is a big advantage for a dynamic group like ours. I don't know if slack offers this feature. 

Regards
paresh

I am personally not a big fan of these mobile channels, but I think Telegram would be the better option.

It is available in countries that block other options and the clients are open-source and thus available in countries that block the Google Playstore. It also does not require a phone number to be shared (which is quite vital for privacy of the users). It can also be used on a PC without the need to link a mobile phone.

Last but not least, it can be relatively easily integrated and bridged to other services, which might be interesting in the medium term.

SUSANA members are most welcome to join The Sanitation Conversation on Clubhouse.

For those not familiar, Clubhouse is a free audio only app that allows users to talk and listen in real time.  The app brings together anyone and everyone with shared interests in ‘rooms’ managed by Moderators. This allows anyone who wants to speak to do so.

Clubhouse is only available on iOS for iPhone at the moment, although an Android app is being trialled in the UK Google store. That will expand in due course.

PM me if you would like an invitation.

www.joinclubhouse.com/club/sanitation-conversation