Now that you are a community member, you can do more then benefit from other member's contributions to the community, you can contribute your own ideas and knowledge. Typical activities in a Cospire community can be divided into the categories of finding existing knowledge, refining and measuring existing knowledge, and creating your own knowledge. To get started, the sections below elaborate on these activities.

You can find existing pieces of knowledge, called Knowledge Objects, by either using Cospire's search engine or browsing through Cospire's category system.

• Cospire Search, similar to other search engines you see on the web, requires you to type in one or more search words or a key phrase to search against. Unlike search engines like Google, Cospire uses a complex algorithm to find the most evolved and useful knowledge possible. This is a good option when you have something fairly specific that you are searching for. In addition, you can search the community by author and/or by category. You can begin searching for existing content in the community by using the search textbox on the upper left of the screen. See Search for more information on how to search and types of search.
• Cospire has a sophisticated and flexible category system that allows the community to better organize its content. You can begin browsing through community categories by clicking "Browse" on the top menu. For more information on how to browse, create, and edit categories, see Categories.

Once you have found a Knowledge Object, there are a number of things you can do to make it more valuable.

• You can rate the quality of a Knowledge Object. This helps refine the relevance of knowledge and give credit to contributors. See Rate a KO for more information.
• You can add annotations to the bottom of any KO. Annotations consist of questions, suggestions, general comments, etc that can be annotated to the bottom of any KO. For more information on annotations see Annotations.
• If you have security permission, you can change the contents and attributes of a KO. See Edit (Revise) a Knowledge Object.

You can create your own Knowledge Objects and give permissions to others to view and revise them. This option is available in the Knowledge Creation Wizard. To get started, mouseover Create & Modify at the top of the menu and click on New Knowledge Object. For more information on creating and working with Knowledge Objects, see Knowledge Objects.

Depending on your security level, you may have the ability to create and change categories. Categories are used to organize Knowledge Objects. To learn more about categories and get started creating categories, see Categories in the Cospire Help document.

You now have an overview of the basic tasks involved with being a member of an Cospire Community. One more thing that many new members like to do is edit their profile. Every member of a community has a profile that tells other members or guests a bit about themselves. Most information in your profile is optional. Click on "My Profile" on the top menu to edit it.

There is still a great deal more to a Cospire Community. Most of these features will become apparent to you as you continue to explore the software. However, for an overview of the main tasks and concepts of Cospire, read the Cospire Help.