One option that we’ve floated around is using simple polling procedures to shine light on the demographics of a network. If you have 20-30 highly focused sources, you can create regular polls (for free using Google Forms). A step after that, if you really wanted to network the group – is to show them the polling afterwords and create an email thread about it. Perhaps it would expose things to the group that they were not already aware of.

Via Stephen Totillo at MTV’s Multiplayer

"The polling brainstorm has evolved after talking to a reporter friend about this all late Friday. I got to thinking that perhaps the idea of a Facebook page or any other socially-networked "place" might not be right for this. But the e-mailed poll itself as an information-gathering technique might be great.

I started imagining a monthly ‘Young Developers Poll’ that might be publicly anonymous, might not be, but would let me explore the idea that young game-makers have perspectives distinct from their elders that would be worth collecting and reporting. And I think such a regular poll could still provide fodder for much more specific stories. The poll could still have all the advantages of keeping the young developers’ identities private, but the advantage of giving them a collective, tabulated voice.

Today I will send e-mails to a set of developers, personal notes saying hello to some I haven’t been in touch with a bit, giving them a head’s up that an e-mailed poll will be coming from me later in the week.

Concurrently, I’ll draft poll questions so I can feel confident that I’m on the right track.

And then I’ll actually aim to send the first poll Thursday"