Facebook vs twitter
I’m now looking for a Facebook status updater that’s as convenient as Twitterbar (which lets me type my status directly into my browser’s address bar, then press a little + sign to post.)
I’m now looking for a Facebook status updater that’s as convenient as Twitterbar (which lets me type my status directly into my browser’s address bar, then press a little + sign to post.)
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:
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:
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?
Communities typically start from one of these skill sets.
3. What mind shifts are needed?
4. What organizational structure is needed?
Key issues:
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.
We’re just back from two days in Houston as the guests of ttweak, a marketing, communications and design firm that shares our belief that authentic, original voices are the best way to convey a message. ttweak’s best-known work is probably their Houston It’s Worth It campaign, but their extensive and varied experience also includes a number of video projects that let interview subjects, rather than narrators, tell the story. ttweak principals Randy Twaddle and Dave Thompson proved to us that Houston is indeed worth it, not only for the food (mmm, bbq. I mean mmm, Mexican. I mean, mmm, Cajun.) but even more notably for the almost unbelievably friendly people.
While we were in Houston we had the opportunity to meet with a number of ttweak’s clients, all of whom reinforced our impression that Randy and Dave have mastered the art of bottom-up marketing campaigns — and did so long before us johnny-come-latelys in the Web 2.0 world started yakking on about user-generated content. Here’s some of the wisdom we gleaned from their example and their advice:
We’re excited to work with a company that realizes Web 2.0 values of user engagement in all of its work. And thanks again to Randy and Dave for introducing us to their wonderful city!
Tags can help you drive traffic to your website and build engagement in your online community. Here are my secrets to tagging success.
By making it possible for just about anyone with a web connection to create their own online content, blogging has radically democratized content creation and personal publishing. More people can now communicate a message to the world than at at any time in human history. But how can that make the world a better place? This post shows 5 ways.
As announced today on Civic Minded:
I’m making my complete dissertation available for download, beginning today. Depending on your interests, you might want to download the whole enchilada, or to look at selected chapters:
I hope these files will be useful to a wide range of people who are trying to understand the more colorful and innovative elements of online participation — including its latest incarnation at Halliburton Contracts.
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