What to do with groups?

As part of setting up the initial content for this community, we should discuss groups - what are they for, why would somebody want to create a new one, why join one, etc. Should we create groups first and see which ones attract attention or let the number of groups remain small and hope that others find them useful enough to start creating more?

We have a few groups now and that is good. Hopefully, this discussion will get us to think about creative ways to use this feature. There are at least 4 types of groups: industry, interest, geography, and function.

Industry groups focus around the type of business such as tourism, government, or research. Geography groups can be broad or very specific but are all about where people are and can be used to discuss issues specific to certain locales. Interest groups can be almost anything and we have seen a few examples of this type already such as Careers in Aerospace Entrepreneurship. Function groups span industries and companies such as scientists, sales, or engineers.

Can anybody think of more? Having a good understanding of what groups can do and what purpose they serve is the first step in making sure we create good and useful groups.

For anybody who has tried to reply to a group discussion, the first thing you will discover is that you must be a member in order to reply. You do not need to be a member to browse group content as long as the group was created with public security. Yes, there are some simple security settings that the group creator can set. Even the site admins need to be a member of a group in order to reply although admins are allowed to browse the contents of private groups. Other than the technical benefits of joining a group, you also get the benefit of being associated with the group which other members can see. For example, you might join a sales group if it existed and other members would then know that sales was something you are interested in.

After reading about what groups are and why anybody would want to join, hopefully, you will see a need for a new group and create one. We debated if we should create a bunch of groups first or let others create groups and decided it would be better to start off the site with few groups and let members create groups as they saw a need. This way, not only do we get a diverse set of group creators, but each group created should have at least one person who was interested enough in the idea to start the group. I have been to many sites where there are lots of groups with only one member which is ok except when it is the same member in every group. This just gives a false sense of activity about a community.

Ok, this is getting to be a long initial post. Let's see what ideas we can come up with for groups and start making use of this "not so obvious" feature to build a great community.