I am looking for web sites and newsletters which I should announce an
international conference in autism to. I have found hundreds
(literally) of general autism sites, but what I really want is the top
(say) 10 places (plus the contact details) where I should either post
a notice or request they
include details in a newsletter.

If it would be useful, you can see more about the conference at
http://www.autismcymru.org/conference/Awares_New_A4_6pp.pdf

Thanks, John Duffy

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Request for Question Clarification by politicalguru-ga on 21 May 2003 00:57 PDT

Who are your potential "customers"? Parents? Caretakers? Medical
professionals? Teachers? etc.

Greetings Mr. Duffy,
I compiled a list of possible resources where you might be able to
announce the conference you mentioned. I see you are in the UK, based
on what I saw in the PDF brochure you have.

What I compiled were autism websites that can allow others to post
announcements on their website, and Internet message boards and
groups. I chose the organizations that seem to be the biggest or have
the widest reach. Sorry if these are less than ten, but most the other
search results are localized chapters or organizations. I included
organizations from the United States in case you want to invite people
from there.

Autism Connect - Free website on Autism information 
http://www.autismconnect.org/
- Hmm, I should’ve known you’d know this, but let me list it for the
benefit of other readers.


Future Horizons - World Leader in Autism / Asperger's / PDD
Publications
http://www.futurehorizons-autism.com/
Future Horizons, Inc.
721 West Abram Street 
Arlington, TX 76013 
Phone 800.489.0727 
Fax 817.277.2270
email: info@futurehorizons-autism.com


Organization for Autism Research - has events and newsletters pages
http://www.autismorg.com/autism/default.htm

OAR Newsletter page (under development)
http://www.autismorg.com/autism/newsletter.asp

Organization for Autism Research
2111 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 600
Arlington, VA 22201
(703) 351-5031
OAR@autismorg.com


Autism Coalition events page
http://autismcoalition.com/events.htm

Autism Coalition contact form
http://autismcoalition.com/contact.htm

Mailing Address:
181 Westchester Avenue
3rd Floor
Port Chester, NY 10573 
Phone: 914-935-1462


World Autism Organization
http://www.worldautism.org
Contact emails:
contact@worldautism.org - about the organization
gdev@worldautism.org - about the website


The National Autistic Society UK
http://www.nas.org.uk/index.html
NAS Press Office
393 City Road, London, EC1V 1NG 
Tel: 020 7903 3593
Fax: 020 7903 3596
Email: press@nas.org.uk
Website: www.nas.org.uk
Out-of-office mobiles: 07787 124792 / 07881 944514


Message Boards:
Message boards and mailing lists often have a lot of groups devoted to
autism. You could try posting on a free/public board or ask the
moderator to post it for you.

News groups on Autism search in Google groups
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=autism&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en

Search Results for ‘Autism’ on Yahoo Groups - 854 groups
http://groups.yahoo.com/search?query=autism

Autism groups searched on MSN Groups
http://partners.search.msn.com/partner.asp?q=autism&CO=50&RS=CHECKED&qap=&FORM=COENUS&dom=groups.msn.com&cfg=COENUS&ba=0&v=1&lng=

Autism groups searched on Lycos Clubs
http://clubs.lycos.com/live/Search/Results.asp?Area=2&query=autism

Autism groups searched on EZBoard (watch out though, this site tends
to have a lot of ads, but post one account here and you can post in
all the groups)
http://www.forumfind.com/search?q=autism


Other possible links: 
Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center - 
http://www.emstac.org/registered/topics/autism/events.htm

Autism Society of America events page
http://www.autism-society.org/site/PageServer?pagename=events

List of Links to various autism websites
http://www.autistic.net/

Top 100 Family Sites - list of some sites where your announcement
might also fit
http://www.top100familysites.com/

Autism/ Pervasive Developmental Disorders at About.com
http://autism.about.com/

Yahoo! Directory Autism > Organizations
http://dir.yahoo.com/Health/Diseases_and_Conditions/Autism/Organizations/

Google search strings:
autism events
autism announcement/announcements

I hope this has given you what you need. If you have any problem with
this answer, do please post a Request for Clarification and I shall
respond. Thank you.

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Request for Answer Clarification by johnduffy-ga on 23 May 2003 00:41 PDT

Thnaks for that - I have one question regarding the message
boards/newsgroups. Is there a way I can tell which are the most active
groups without going through all (1000+ !!) of them? Ie - does anyone
round up the most active groups, based on Members, numbers of postings
etc?

Thanks, John

---

Clarification of Answer by techtor-ga on 23 May 2003 01:17 PDT

Hello again, Mr. Duffy,
On the messages boards and groups, I myself couldn't be sure which is
the most active group. My guess is whatever are the first that comes
up in searches of "autism" on the message board site will be the most
active sites. So you might try posting on the first boards you see in
the search. If there is a display of number of users for a group, you
could look through the results and find the most populous group. Yahoo
for example shows user number. These are quite arbitrary ways of
determining you target, though, and the best way is really to be a
member of those groups and 'feel' the group... but with the hundreds
of boards that certainly is tedious! I hope this helps a bit. Sorry I
couldn't be of more precise help in this.

Well researched, although I guess my 'perfect' answer would have to
have been from someone who is a member of the message boards and
newsgroups, and so could have told me which were the absolute best.
Still, this has saved me a few hours of time, and also reminded me
about newsgroups - I haven't used them for years!

Hi, John:

I'm not quite sure what you meant by "newletters", but you should
consider posting an announcement of this conference to newsgroups
which are specific to autism as well.

regards, mathtalk-ga

Newgroups would also be good, so long as they mail out to their
Members, rather than simply acting as a passive news source (which I'm
generally sceptical about!).

I'm just getting the hang of questions - this is my first one - I
think I should also have mentioned that I do have access to
AutismConnect - 30,000 or so Members, mailed every 2 weeks.

Thanks, John

Hi, John:

I can understand your skepticism about "passive" posting to
newsgroups; one is not "actively" sending a message to a fixed number
of "readers".  On the other hand you should consider that newsgroup
participants who actively open a posting from you about the conference
are a self-selected group of interested readers and thus might be more
likely than the average newsletter reader to follow up by clicking on
a link to the conference Web site.  After all, they will already be
on-line.  I think it's a Marshall McLuhan kind of thing; the more
passive the medium, the more active the viewer.

best wishes, mathtalk-ga

I like your thinking - although I am worried about getting flamed for
newsgroup posting - particularly if I am a newcomer to the group. All
in all, though, I would go for newsgroup postings alongside
newsletters and sites.

John

When I follow newsgroups or mailing lists about a specific topic, I
certainly don't see as spam a message that announces a conference,
book or other resource that this is relevant to the topic of the
group/list. However, in the case of mailing lists, you always have the
option to send the announcement to the list owner rather than to the
list, asking them to post it to the group on your behalf if they think
it is relevant.

Goog point - would definitely go to a list owner rather than straight to the list.