Building YourOnline Community

Structure for Time

• Virtual is Reality• Opportunity Leads to Service• Guiding Principles

–Know Your Goal–Work the Land–Loosen your Grip

Virtual is Reality

Different Faces of Community- Offline -

Different Faces of Community- Online -

Opportunity Leads to Service

Opportunity Leads to Service

• Know your Goal– Vision as Service

• Work the Land – Labor as Service

• Loosen your Grip– Selflessness as

Service

Labor

Control

Vision

Know Your Goal

Know your Goal

• Is your goal compelling?• Is your goal clear?• Can you describe your target

audience?

Your goal will become a partof your story

Achieve your

• Set aside time each week to manage the community

• Do worthwhile activity to generate emails. –People forget the community is there– It’s your job to remind them!

Work the Land

Work the Land

1. Cultivate knowledge, not just information

2. Design for evolution3. Invite different levels of

participation4. Develop public & private spaces5. Focus on value6. Maintain a strong rhythm

1. Cultivate Knowledge• Information

– Static

– Accumulation of facts

– Easily managed

– Resides in books

• Knowledge– Dynamic

– Accumulation of experience

– More complicated to manage

– Resides in people

To Cultivate Knowledge

• Share information and experience–Uploading documents–Protecting security– Joining in discussions

• Search the best Crusade materials–Google Search

• Connect with the people you need–People Locator–Email

2. Design for evolution

Be a shepherd of the natural community

Design rather than a builder

Constructing the community from scratch.

3. Allow DifferentLevels of Participation

Peripheral Group 65-75%)

Active Group (15-20%)

Core Group (10-15%)

4. Develop both public andprivate community spaces

5. Focus on value

Value is your keyto community life

because participation in

most communities is voluntary!

6. Maintain a Strong Rhythm

Rhythm isthe strongest indicator

of community aliveness!

Loosen your Grip

Loosen your Grip

Share & Experiment

Principlesare not

Commandments

Summary

• Virtual is Reality: The line between the online world and the offline world is fuzzy, not distinct

• Opportunity Leads to Service: We serve by considering the user first

• Guiding Principles – Know Your Goal: Maintain a clear purpose– Work the Land: Keep working– Loosen your Grip: Trust the user to lead

Sources1. Haughey, Matt. Building an Online Community: Just Add Water

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/building_an_online_community/2. Karasic, Shara. Guide to Building an Online Community: An inside

look at how and why people connect virtually. http://www.work.com/building-an-online-community-1299

3. Shirky, Clay. A Group is its own Worst Enemy http://shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html

4. Broadcast Institutions, Community Valueshttp://shirky.com/writings/broadcast_and_community.html

5. Communities, Audiences, and Scalehttp://shirky.com/writings/community_scale.html

6. Social Computing in Student Populationshttp://www.shirky.com/writings/students.html

7. Sierra, Kathy. Building a Successful Online Communityhttp://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/building_a_succ.html

8. Can you teach someone to care?http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/02/can_you_teach_s.html

9. How to Build a User Communityhttp://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/12/how_to_build_a_.html

10. Wenger, Etienne and Richard McDermott and William Snyder. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge

Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge