Community Features: Overview

Awareness communities combine four essential sets of capabilities into a unique model in which the whole is greater than the sum of the parts:

• User-Generated Content. Members can post content in a blog, edit a wiki, participate in a discussion group, share photos or videos, etc. All content in an Awareness community is managed in the same way because of the Awareness Uniform Content Architecture.
• Social Networking. Members can find each other, build people lists, maintain online status, locate experts, participate in Groups, etc.
• Profiles. Members maintain their own profiles, which are customized for the different needs of each community, and they can change dynamically over time.
• Enterprise Security and Control. Ensure each user has the right permissions, the content meets your standards, the community integrates with your systems, etc.

The integration of these four areas provides practical benefits:

• A member can find a piece of content (e.g., a blog post, a discussion reply) that has value to them and quickly determine who provided that content. Is the contributor an expert or a novice on the topic? What is their background on the issue? This adds context to content.
• A member can locate another member based on their descriptive information (e.g., name, location, title, job history, background, affiliations, etc.) and immediately see their participation history (e.g., what content have they posted? What photos or videos have they shared? How did they vote?) This provides a full 360-degree view of a member.
• A member's privileges and participation can be controlled to ensure that they only have access to certain information and can participate in appropriate ways. This allows you to mix audiences into one community while still maintaining security and control.