REALNEO transition and transformation have begun

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Tue, 07/18/2006 - 04:08.

It is time for major transformation and transition for REALNEO, and I invite you to help make that happen. REALNEO is a free open source software (FOSS) social computing environment developed by a collaboration of members, and they own their information, and maintain a copyright in all their postings on this site. At this time, there are 100s of members and 1,000s of postings, and 1,0000s of comments, representing significant intellectual property of lasting value  on the Internet and to this community, in every context. I launched REALNEO in October, 2004, and many people have been instrumental in developing value here. It has always been the understanding in this community that REALNEO would reside in the public domain and operate as or within a non-profit entity. At this time the ownership of the tradename REALNEO must be transferred to the public, and it is well past time for REALNEO.US to move to a sustainable technical and social platform.  I am open to all partners interested to lead future development of REALNEO, and there are many reasons this will be an exciting process.

In very short time, the current team that has been supporting the technology of REALNEO, which runs the Drupal Content Management System, must be supplemented with additional technical resources, as the current REALNEO platform will be upgraded to the latest version of Drupal, and enhanced with other FOSS, and that offers a world-class technology learning experience. The new version of REALNEO will challenge many users, as it is much more powerful and complex than before. That means we all need lessons on how best to use the evolving REALNEO technologies, so we must start having orientation and training sessions.

Further, this is an excellent time to expand the role of the NEO community in the REALNEO community.  The more voices for change in this region the better. A first step is to increase the number of active members and to encourage growth of the value of the content created. As has been the case all along, some people will choose to become very active in posting information to REALNEO, and that role should be empowered with a more direct and strategic role in developing this environment, including expanding knowledge of and competency with the technology, to the extent that interests members.

To begin the process, I have made some changes to the current REALNEO site to better empower all members. You are now able to create more types of content, including polls, and all your postings will be added directly to the REALNEO home page. As we upgrade the technology further, members will have significantly great power and control of your intellectual property and the technology itself. If you are interested to take on a more active role, with the technology we use and/or building this community, please express your interests as a comment here or email me at realneo [at] inbox [dot] com