Monday
Mandala ProjectsGetting IT: Shambhala Network
The Shambhala Network is a new website that connects the Shambhala community through email, groups and friends. As the communications system for the Shambhala global community, the Shambhala Network enables the user (you) to make announcements, search for friends, join groups and discussions, as well as chatting with people.
Introducing the brand new Announcement page on the Shambhala Network and the new Discussions page! Cameron Wenaus, of Blue Mandala Communications, shares his excitement about the new pages he has developed on the Shambhala Network, which is your portal to communicate with the larger Shambhala sangha.
With new one-stop-shopping on one page you can see:
Shambhala News Service – announcements from Shambhala International
Sangha Announce – where you can easily post your announcements and tonglen requests
Regional Announcements and Classifieds – which gives you a bird’s eye view of every possible announcement from your local center, region, and beyond.
My Local Groups – where you will see posts from all the groups you have joined on the Network
Just look for the big conch at the top called Announce, and get involved!
The other exciting new page on the network is the Discussions page. Again, on one page you can see the current discussions that are happening in all the groups that you are part of. Sorted by meditation groups, administration groups, and social groups. Included in this is the new Shambhala Talk, which is a global discussion group, offering a place to chat about anything under the Great Eastern Sun. You get to see everyone’s photo as they chat and make comments as well.
So, check it out – the Shambhala Network is there for YOU to engage with and utilize.
Brought to you by your friends in Shambhala IT…
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Cameron Wenaus is the chief project manager for Blue Mandala. He has extensive experience in marketing and data mining. Cameron holds his MBA in marketing informatics at Dalhousie University.
Feb 11, 2012
Reply
The Shambhala Network is not intended to replace local center’s websites. It is intended to replace and expand the functions that have been previously provided by Sangha-announce and Sangha-talk and the other list-serves.
The Network lets you choose how you want to relate to the information on the groups you are following — so you can choose if you want to see every post as it’s made, or get a daily or weekly digest, or even see them only when you check in.
Centers can set up their own list-serves using the network; as can mandala wide or center-level working groups. There’s a lot of possibility for how to work together.
As for programming calendars, centers and groups can manage those using the Shambhala Database — just enter the information there, and it appears on Shambhala.org, the local website — both on the calendar and on the page and on the rss feed if you set it up!
Feb 9, 2012
Reply
shambhalanetwork.org looks pretty cool although it is (at present) quite slow. Is it intended to replace or to augment the current individual centers’ web pages (e.g. southshore.shambhala.org)? If the existing centers’ web pages are going to be retained there may be some duplication (e.g. calendars) which should probably be addressed so that everyone can see the same info, no matter how they get to it. Keep up the good work!