I'm writing this from the Community 2.0 conference, which promises to be two great days of inspiration on online community building and management. It got off to a great start with a presentation by John Hagel on "What's Possible? Expanding Markets through Virtual Communities".
Here are some of the highlights of John's talk:
How do we create effective online community?Â
- What do we mean by community?
- What skill sets are needed?
- What mind shifts are needed?
- What organizational structure is needed?
1. What is community?
There's a tendency to regard anything that's interaction as community.
The emphasis of real community establish connections among people so they can participate in shared discussions over time, leading to a complex web of relationships, and to an increased identification with the overall community.
The key to real community:
- shared discussions
- shared relationships
- shared identity
There's an inexorable desire for these communities to meet in physical space as well, and over time the virtual and physical communities get woven together.
2. What skill sets (culture sets) are needed?
- Creating content.
- Structuring/catalyzing social interactions in a way that promotes enduring relationships.
- Economic business models. How to sustain over time.
- [My note: technical skills/culture is a fourth important set, and needs to be integrated with the first three.]
Communities typically start from one of these skill sets.
3. What mind shifts are needed?
- Need to be participant-centric. I often hear questions about what's the value to the company of doing this; but not about the value to participants.
- Need to think long-run. People think too short term.
- Need to move from top-down organizational perspective to bottom-up perspective. Need to give up control.
4. What organizational structure is needed?
Key issues:
- Who is responsible for community initiatives and do they have the authority to mobilize the resources needed to make community work? Do they have the appropriately broad perspective? Even if they're senior, they may be too narrowly focused on marketing or another narrow area — and that narrows community to the functional area of the person in charge?
- How do they define success? Too often there's not even a definition of success. What are the operational metrics. Are there systematic reviews to enhance performance over time?
- Who has the relevant experience in the organization and are they being mobilized into the community?
What value do businesses get from online community?
ROA: Return on Attention
Participants should ask themselves: What is the value I derive from the attention I put into and receive from this community? ALWAYS focus on ROA from participant viewpoint first. Organization can then look at the ROA for their own org. How much did it cost to catch the participants' attention, and how much value did that attention deliver to the organization AND to the participants.
A small proportion of your customers deliver the majority of your value. How do you get them more engaged? And how do you take the less profitable customers and make them more valuable thanks to their communtiy experiences?
How do I create environments to provide resources participants didn't even know existed, let alone searched for, but which are valuable and relevant to them? This is the highest value return on attention.
Recommends Peter Moorville's Ambient Findability. Powerful way to think about return on attention. While most people think about usability, usability presumes findability. Have to figure out first how they can find you. Hagel says findability=fundability.
ROI: Return on information
where information = information on participants
Look at ROI initially from participant viewpoint, then from provider/organizer viewpoint.
From participant perspective: how much info have I shared, and how much effort did it take to share it? And how much value did I receive from sharing that info?
From organizational perspective: How much info did I receive from participants, and how much value was I able to generate — for myself and for participants — from that information?
Organizations are investing a lot in collecting info but aren't thinking much about how to use it.
How can we be more helpful to participants by providing resources based on their profiles/behavior?
How can we shorten cycle between when participants provide info and when they get value back? That's key to motivating participation.
ROS: Return on skills
For participants:Â skills from participating in these communities
For organizers: am I able to attract and retain the most valuable contributors?
Distinguish between communities of interest and communities of practice.
In COPs, focus on places where people are coming together to generate work product, eg in open source software communities. Expects COIs and COPS to start converging. As we face more pressure to deepen our skills and increase value delivered from their skills, I see increased tendency for people to make their passions their professions,b/c you're more likely to develop skills where you feel passion. Likely to seek out communities where people develop their talents while engaging with their passions.
I'm the consumer queen. You know how everyone has one weakness or another where they overspend? For some people it's clothes, for others food, books, music, electronics, home furnishings, kids' stuff, pet stuff — everyone has some area where they overaccumulate.
For me it's ALL of those categories. Which is why I find myself thinking more and more about my personal consumption and how it conflicts with my values and beliefs about social and environmental sustainability.
But I'm not sure that conscious consumption is the solution, per se. OK, it's part of the solution. Buy American Apparel rather than the Gap (if you feel better about underwriting sexual harassment than underwriting cheap labour). Buy recycled paper. Buy organic. Et cetera.
The problem with all that is that in our culture, consumption isn't only — or even primarily — about the end of acquiring goods or services. It's really about the addictive, numbing process of acquisition: every minute I spend searching for the perfect pair of chic, waterproof black boots (suggestions, anyone?) is a minute I'm not spending in reflection about the prospect of global warming, the situation in Iraq, my kids' prospects for happiness, my mortgage, the possibility of suitcase nukes, or any of the other ten thousand anxieties that zoom through my postmodern worrybrain.
Conscious consumption is arguably a better way of channeling that numbing behaviour — if only because non-exploitative goods are more expensive, and thus shopping consciously probably means shopping less –Â but it doesn't address the underlying problem of a society in which the process of consumption is a core social, psychological and identify-forming behaviour.Â
All that said, having given up so many other helpful self-medicating behaviours in the name of responsible parenting, I'm not yet willing/able to separate from my shopaholism. So my latest experiment in displacing the consumer urge has been to switch from real-world shopping (which consumes resources to produce and ship goods) to virtual shopping (which consumes a little energy, but remarkably little.) For all the other shopaholics out there who want to hit the mall without destroying the earth, I recommend checking out Second Life.
Tags can help you drive traffic to your website and build engagement in your online community. Here are my secrets to tagging success.
Social Signal is offering an unusual opportunity to come in on the ground floor of a business with the experience, reputation and credentials to go sky-high. If your enthusiasm for technology is matched only by your passion for social change, you'll find that the joy of working with kindred spirits can be matched by the thrill of helping communities use the Internet in ways they never imagined.
WHO WE ARE: Social Signal puts the web to work for social change, helping organizations turn online communities into a powerful force for progress. We have extensive experience in the non-profit, public and private sectors, and a large network of local, national and international colleagues and clients that you'll be working with on a regular basis. While you expand your professional network and skills, we also hope you'll enjoy being part of our personal network of technology leaders and community advocates in Vancouver and abroad.
WHO WE NEED: We're looking for a organized, progressive, tech-friendly person whose project management skills can make our work even more effective. This fourth member of our team isn't just there to justify taking a four-person table during our meetings in the local Internet cafe. We need a boss: someone who can manage our business affairs, major projects and our team itself so that we make the most of our resources. The right person will enjoy our company's informal, friendly vibe but will help us balance friendliness with professionalism and efficiency.
WHAT YOU'LL DO: You'll business manage our business, project manage our projects, and prioritize our priorities. Your primary responsibility will be to manage our work priorities — everything from client work to business development to financial and legal affairs — to ensure that everything is getting done. You'll also help structure our client engagements by consulting on project scope, breaking down tasks, and assigning responsibilities. You'll know you're doing your job if everyone else on the team is clear about theirs.
Specific responsibilities include:
- managing business operations including h.r., finance and legal affairs
- project managing web development projects
- writing or editing project proposals
- identifying work priorities and assigning tasks
- maintaining friendly, productive relations with our clients (including non-profit organizations, governments and socially-minded businesses) and suppliers (including designers, web developers and hosting companies)
WHO YOU ARE: You're the person who gets things done: organized and detail-oriented while keeping your eye on the big picture. You're confident, diplomatic and a born problem-solver, with a gift for getting along with people even when deadlines are looming or computers are crashing. You like knowing that the work you've done each day has made a real difference – to your colleagues, your clients, and the world.
You're passionate about social change, and your community or activist history shows it. And while you're not a programmer, you're as psyched as we are about the web's ability to make that change happen: your idea of excitement is mastering a great new online task management tool, discovering a smart progressive web site or writing a particularly sharp blog post.
Your real-world and computer desktops are as simple and uncluttered as a Zen rock garden. You're able to point to projects you've guided to completion, chaos you've turned into order, and cats you've herded into neat little rows and columns.
This is a full-time mid-level position. You've already demonstrated your capacity to plan, organize and manage complex projects; now you want to put that capacity to work in a role that will engage and challenge you.
HOW TO APPLY: Please e-mail a résumé, cover letter and salary expectations to hiring@socialsignal.com by September 15th, 2006. Tell us why you’d like to work for Social Signal, and please describe your relevant skills and professional or volunteer experiences. We want to hear about your community, advocacy or public service experiences as much as about your project management and organizational skills and experience. We're particularly interested in hearing about your:
Skills:
- project planning and management
- personal organization and time management
- solid writing and communication skills
- attention to detail
- tech skills (Mac/Windows/Linux, software programs you know, web tools you use)
Experience:
- projects where you've been responsible for planning and coordinating (examples might include event planning, office management or web site development)
- writing for work or fun, on a regular basis; proposal/grant-writing
- situations where you've worked independently with minimal supervision
- work that has involved client relations or working with the public
- jobs that have required you to organize not only your own work but also to keep track of other people's responsibilities and deadlines
- volunteer work for community organizations or causes
- situations where you've gone the extra mile to get the job done
Interests:
- commmunity groups, projects or issues you're involved in
- web sites you like or web tools you're excited about
Bonus points for:
- having your own blog
- telling us your favourite tech tool for managing time or organizing tasks
- a strong opinion (pro or con) about Getting Things Done
Compensation will be commensurate with skills and experience. Please note that this is a mid-level position.
We look forward to hearing from you!
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