WHERE ARE ALL OF THE PROFESSIONALS ONLINE?
Volunteers Wanted!
September 1, 1996
As I come back from a month filled with professional conferences
and symposium, I can't help but wonder out loud where the heck
are all the professional are online. Sure, there are thousands of us
here, but you wouldn't know it from browsing the Web, that's for
certain.
Every week I receive a dozen or so requests to add links to the
Web Pointer. Nine or 10 of those 12 are from laypeople or organizations
which have put together usually pretty amazing and outstanding resources
on specific topic areas. The other 2 or 3 are from professionals and
most of the time, the professionals are adding nothing new to the
Web. Little content, little information, often times just an
advertisement of their practice or interests or the like. And hey,
I think that's fine and all... But professionals within the mental
health field need to do much more online.
One response to this might be, "Hey John, that's great for people
like you who spend all of your time online. But for those of us
trying to keep our heads above the water with managed care,
I just don't have the time to do it!" Well, I don't spend all of
my time online (contrary to popular belief) and put together this
very page while I was hard at work on my internship. Sure, I had
some free time on my hands, but since then, I rarely do. And yet
still find time to try and update this and keep it fresh, unique,
and contributing to the overall knowledge of the online world.
You should too.
So I'm imploring professionals who read this, who get online now,
to go beyond their colleagues' Web pages and make a real
mark and contribution online. Many others have done so and
it not only reflects very well on the type of person you are,
but that you realize the potential for online communication is
much more than just a billboard.
Help!
I'm now looking for interested volunteers to help me out with a
project. I used to maintain a set of Usenet newsgroup files which
essentially replicated the Pointers found here on this Web site.
Due to the work involved in maintaining this separate set of
files, I haven't updated them or posted them to the newsgroups
for a few months. Since they take a different format than the
Web files, it's not just a simple matter of copying new links
into them... Every one has to be reformmated, which is quite
time-consuming.
If you'd like to help out the mental health community online and
have the time and committment to do this, I would appreciate
a volunteer or two to begin maintaining these again. Usenet
newsgroups often reach a much different audience than the
Web and I feel it's an important audience to reach out to. Please
write me if
you'd like to help out. I imagine it would take about 15 to 30
minutes of your time every 2 or 3 weeks or so. And an hour or
two to initially bring the old files up to date.
And this is probably a good time to thank my assistant,
Tammy Segraves, for all the (indirect) work she does in helping
me maintain these pages and keep them current. She definately
deserves a great deal of credit for it.
If you're a Prodigy member, check out my weekly mental
health chats there in the Health n' Fitness area in the Psych Central
room, Sunday nights, 9-10:00pm EST (-5:00 GMT).
If you want the whole shi-bang of over 10,000 separate resources that have to do with psychiatry and mental health online, then you might want to visit Psych Central. It's the largest and most comprehensive site of its kind in the world and we're looking to build upon it in the upcoming years, acting as a super guide to mental health online. If you didn't find what you needed here, look there next!
That's it for this time... As always, keep in good mental health!
Last reviewed:
By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on
27 Jan 2007
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
-- Turkish proverb
