[Cross-posted from Connect US Community.]

Connect Us gathered a bunch of folks from different organizations to serve as a Network Advisory Team, and I was a member of that group. A big activity Connect Us did to help understand the network better was a social networking analysis that mapped a lot of the connections between the organizations in our community, and figured out what kinds of connections were strung between all of us.

By far, the most common form of interaction (if you can call it that) was the ubiquitous email list. There were something like 250 or 300 different list-type products or services mentioned by respondents to the survey that was done to inform the analysis.

This is all merely to introduce this: The web consulting firm Beaconfire has just released a study about email lists called, "Network of Networks: Email Lists, Nature Protection, and Pollution Control." The main issue on the lists they examine is environment, but the lessons and other list-knowledge in the survey is really useful to people running the email lists that appear to be the coin of the activism realm.

(H/t to Colin at e.politics.)