About Place4Us and the Virtual Community Centers

Services and Spaces on the Place4Us

Place4Us offers a number of services available in many places within and outside of the individual VCCs. Internal communication between individual participants or within groups of participants are within Confab, which can be used for chirps from a sender to several recipients or for chirps within a Confab group. Confab groups can be set up within an individual VCC or comprise members in different VCCs. Participants can store an ensemble of files on Place4Us and use this files in many locations. A powerful tool for work management are sets of action items, and MAI is a tool to manage action items in all different entities on Place4Us.

Place4Us also has several spaces for activities that are not located within individual VCCs or clusters of VCCs. These spaces allow activities that involve many Place4Us participants and also provide services to reach the members of many VCC and the public.

Confab: The Place4Us Direct Messaging Channel

Confab is the Place4Us messaging system. Currently, there are two main modes within Confab: Single Chirps and Group Chirps. Notification of single and group chirps sent and received is currently still by email. It is planned to add a Confab app which would facilitate notification on, e.g., smartphones.

Single Chirps: Chirping between Place4Us participants

In the single chirp mode, a Place4Us participant can send chirps to members of the VCC the participants is a member of and currently in. Additional recipients can be added to a chirp and these can include persons who are not registered on Place4Us. Chirps currently do not allow attachments, but this facility will be added soon.

A participant can view chirps in all VCCs they are member of independent of the VCC they are currently in. However, to chirp to members of a VCC they would normally go to that VCC and chirp while in that VCC.

Group Chirps

Groups can be set up with members of a single VCC or members from several VCCs. Thus Confab groups are a means for a dialog between topical groups within are across VCC boundaries. Confab groups can be initiated at the VCC level by VCC administrators. At Place4Us level, they can be initiated by the system administrator. It is being considered to extend this to other participants with selected authorities. The owner of a group can add new participants at any time. A participant who is added later to a group has access to the full dialog in this group, including the dialog before they became a member.

Logged in participants see all groups they are a member of when they enter the Group chirp mode. They can select a group to see the full dialog or to chirp to that group.

MyFiles: Store, manage and use your Files

MyFiles is a facility that enables participants to develop a repository of files they might want to use in many places on Place4Us. These files could be, e.g., images, videos, documents and data files. A participant might want to make a few bocks available in the bookshelf in their personal room or their expert room. These books would have to be uploaded in the MyFiles area and would then be available for inclusion in bookshelf. The full concept for MyFiles and the use of these files in other objects (such as chirps, remarks in Deliberation rooms, personal and expert rooms, exhibition booth) is still under development, but eventually almost all files used in different locations will be in a MyFiles area.

MAI: Management by Action Items

MAI is a management tool that provides a number of functions for setting up of Action Items (AIs) and for the following up of these AIs through reporting and direct messaging to those engaged in an AI. Dependencies between AIs can be specified and AIs can be attached to other objects, such as, e.g., meetings and workshops.

The Place4Us Town Square

The Town Square of Place4Us provides a number of spaces for platform-wide activities. All the individual activities in the Town Square are initiated and sustained by individual VCCs or groups of VCCs. The activities range from publishing in the Bark Corner, organizing public actions in the Roar Corner, alerting society at large about circumstances or events that require urgent actions in the Scream Corner, and getting support and help in the Heal Corner to the demonstration of successful projects and planning of next steps on the Stage. In most of the corners, Confab provides a means for efficient communication between the groups by chirping between individuals or withing groups.

All activities in the corners of the Town Square are open for contributions from the public. They all aimed to increase awareness and activate the public.

Bark Corner: Publish your Work

The Bark Corner is the place to publish a range of publication types, including journals, books, stories, videos and blogs. Participants who have editor authority at the platform level can intiate new journals and book projects. In general, initiating new items will require a proposal to the Town Square Committee (TSC) before the projects can be started. For videos, there will be topical channels or indivdiual videos. Here, too, opening a channel or publishing an individual video will require a brief request to be submitted to the TSC. Story projects can be initiated by groups after a request to the TSC has been accepted.

Particiants will need to register as bloggers at the platform level before they can publish any of their blogs in the Bark Corner. Being a blogger in a VCC does not imply the right to blog at the platform level in the Bark Corner.

Roar Corner: Plan and Execute your Actions

The Roar Corner provides tools and functions needed to develop and organize direct actions in the real world. Eventually, the corner will offer templates as well as information on regulatory requirements for legal actions. Means to distribute information on actions, and places to document actions will be made available. Individual and groups who plan actions witll have to submit a brief request to the TSC before they can establish the action project in the Roar Corner. These request will be responded to with a very short (24-hours) reaction time.

Scream Corner: Scream at it

The Scream Corner is a place to flag emerging threats and on-going emergencies. These threats can range from local threats to, for example, a group of mature trees to regional ecocide or violence against people, to activities amplifying the global emergency. Screams are meant to raise the awareness of the threat or emergency, and Screams may trigger actions in the Roar space. Individuals and groups who would like to Scream will have to send a brief request to the TSC before they can start their Scream. Requests will be considered by the TSC with highest priority.

Heal Corner: Get Help to Recover and Heal

People and groups who are in challenging situations due to, e.g., recent disasters caused by natural or anthropgenic hazards, or are exposed to environmental or social threats can come to the Heal Corner and ask for help. Often, others have already gone through similar situations and can provide advice and help for recovery and healing.

Stage: Show your Projects and Work on the Next Steps

The Place4Us Harbor