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Making Communities Work - On and Offline.
Sun, 2007-02-25 18:47
As someone who does a lot of work on creating and sustaining online communities both inside and outside of the firewall, i've come to a conclusion.
There's sometimes a mis-conception that putting a platform online will generate community action simply by stimulating issues. Whilst this might work in the 'social media' world, in everyday life this simply isn't true.
Engagement seems to mean making close links with offline activities, involving constituencies in the production of media (process is as important as end result), and employing 'node' operators to work closely with members of that community. Picking up the phone to members, meeting for drinks one on one, inviting members to contribute articles... Basically making it real for all concerned is the only way i've found that really works.
Would be really interested in hooking up with people at the event who take a holistic view to community engagement. It's not 'on' or 'offline'. It's just communication.
Do get in touch if this is something you're interested in or directly working on!
Matt ;O)
categories:
Matt I think your first
Making Communities Work
Hi Matt - good to meet you here and across at Working Together. I completely agree we need a mix of methods for engagement - more on my blog.
Part of the problem is those experienced in social online media are not necessarily familiar with off-line methods and vice versa. Let's get some people together!
Count me in
Making Communities Work
Just to throw my threepenn'orth in...agree with all the comments made so far. It's very easy to set up a community - in whatever mix of engagement methods you like - it's much, much harder to make it self-sustaining (because what sort of a community needs to be pushed into keeping those relationship networks going?) and, to use a terrible analogy, take the stabilisers off and watch it find its own path - not necessarily the exact one you lay down when you created the community in the first place.
From my own perspective, within the dreaded e-learning world (and when will it just become 'learning'?), I've seen great 'enablers' of communities set up e.g. collaborative tools, nice bits of content, community modertaors, etc. - but unless the community creates an identity for and of itself, then it will fail and wither on the vine.
NB: Steve has invited me to say a few words tomorrow, along with the other speakers, to give some perspective from the commercial e-learning world on the issues we're tussling with. Currently I'm doing battle with 'platforms' (Becta's word), the changing nature of publishing and the juicy topic of personalisation as currently defined by Becta and DfES. I've previously been engaged by Ufi/learndirect, DfES and other big boys to try and make some mickle out of this muckle, so can show you my scars!
Proposing an un-conference session tommorow.
I think there's the seeds of a good discussion tommorow on this subject.
If time, who'd be up for a bit of a group chat on 'what works and what doesn't?'
I'd be particularly interested in discussing communities in relation to brands! have been asked to come up with a keynote discussion at a conference in sweden on this subject.... the title will be
'Are communities the holy grail in the new age of branding'?
by this, i mean brands in their generic sense, whether public, private sector, or international organisations (U.N etc). also, both relates to internal and external branding.
m
trust and purpose
i'm happy to join in the topic of participatory community, one dear to my heart for many years.
i also find it interesting to learn from unintentional communities that spawn into vibrance (the geriatric who publishes on youtube talks about his new found youtube community, guild members in world of warcraft sometimes build strong face to face friendships - on the basis of "by their actions you will know them")
i have a lot of experience of communities for educationalists (eg Talking Heads) and also some experience of online community for engineers in the automotive and aerospace industries.Communities
Communities For Brand
Would love to have a chat to you about making communities work for brands. This is something we're working on at the moment - we are creating an online community for First Choice Holidays. I also think bridging the gap between the online and offline communities is essential. We are working with our client's staff to ensure they get the best possible response to the online community. Would love to exchange ideas with anyone else interested in this.
Really looking forward to meeting you all tomorrow.
Nice food for thought
Sorry for not being inactive on the boards. Just returned from BarCampLondon2 and FOWALondon07 both were very educational conferences.
As expected both discussed on many aspects of the community, interaction and so called Web2.0. One especially inspiring talk was by Tara hunt who described how in the past team members on Flickr sent personal emails to all new members of their community. Trying to link various people in the Flickr community.
Looking forward to tomorrow's discussion.
Looks like a community
'Environmental Scanning' to promote community interaction
The public relations field utilises a technique called 'environmental scanning' as a means to understand what people are saying about organisations.
Definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_scanning
It tends to be outward facing, but I believe similar principles could be applied inwardly when trying to add value to online communities. For example, what types of connections and conversations are taking place? As facilitators of networks, we should consider formalising this sort of process, perhaps as an extension of network mapping?
Definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_mapping
If we constantly strive to take a holistic view on how managed communities are run, and look to build more assets into the value chain, the sky's the limit I reckon!
Also, whilst it's comfortable to classify network participants in terms of central connectors, boundary spanners, information brokers, and peripheral members, this isn't actually helpful to those seeking to grow and sustain communities. It seems to overtly simplify what are actually highly fluid relationships. Just think of yourselves. Aren't we always in a constant state of flux within the networks we occupy? I bet most of you would agree.
That said, if managing networks 'within the firewall', I suspect many people feel 'restricted' as they are already pigeon holed by organisational hierarchy.
See ya in a few hours.
M
I'm with you...
Totally agree with the posts here - building successful communities seems to be a combo of user-friendly tools, critical mass, commonalities, added value, momentum and random chance... unfortunately there's no magic formula (how I wish you could buy Instant Community Granules!).
I've been struggling with this for the last 8years in a variety of ways, and haven't yet been able to come to any hard & fast conclusions.
I'm definitely up for joining this conversation - see you later today!