Proposal Stage Planning Guide

• Writing a proposal message
• Posting your proposal message
• Recruiting participants
• Acknowledging participant responses
• Building a participant list

Writing a proposal message

• The subject header
  There are lots of project proposals circulating around the network, so a message with the subject "My project" won't attract much attention. You should have a short, descriptive but catchy subject header. 
• The first paragraph
  People looking for projects on the network have a lot to look at in a short time. Like a newspaper article, your project proposal should contain the most important information in the first paragraph of the text. Make it concise but descriptive. What will the participants do in your project? What will the participants gain from your project? How much effort will be required for them to participate?
• Audience restrictions
  Some people have suggested being quite specific about who you want to participate. However, if you specify that only fifth grade gifted math classes can participate, you're likely to attract many fewer participants. We have found that networks support much more diversity among the joint participants than face-to-face interaction, and you can gain from that diversity if you are open to it. Instead of being restrictive, give some examples of who might participate and what they might gain from their participation.
• Time line
  Network educational projects tend to stretch out over time. Don't try to pack too much into too short a time. Also, be open to the possibility that things will take longer, and make your timeline loose enough to enable this.
• Details
  Don't make your proposal too long. Aim for one screenful. Instead, offer to send more details to people who indicate that they're interested. This makes an excellent "acknowledgement" message to send back to those who respond to your proposal.

Posting your proposal message

• People you've participated with in other network projects
• Friends and relatives
• Email reflectors
  • any relevant groups to which you belong
  • any lists from previous projects
• Listservs
• Newsgroups

  Web sites

Recruiting participants.

• Check with your friends (local or network), colleagues, and family to see who might be interested.
• If you see requests for "penpals", you can often interest them in your project since people seeking penpals often don't have a well-structured notion of what they want and are often attracted to a good network project.
• If you've participated in other people's projects, then you've built up an informal obligation credit that you can use to recruit those others to your own project. Or you can explicitly make an arrangement with others that you'll participate in their project if they'll participate in yours.

Acknowledging participant responses

• Thank them for their interest
• Provide more details about the project
• Tell them what the next step is
• Invite them to suggest ways to refine the project to be more appropriate for their own needs ("refinement" is the next stage)

Building a participant list

• You can use the "nicknames" or "address book" feature of many email systems. (If the list gets long, after the first "welcome" message during the "organization" stage, put them in a "bcc" field (if that is available), so everyone doesn't have wade through a zillion email addresses before reading the text of a message.
• If you have access to a mail server, you can find out how to set up a listserv or email reflector. The advantage of this is that not only you can send messages to the whole group, but also other participants can do that.
• If you have a web page for your project, you may want to put the participant list there. That helps to build a sense of community for your project.