How To Herd Cats(Tips for running a successful online community)

- What is this talk about? - 11-ish tips for running an existing community - I tried for 10 and overshot slightly- What’s it not about - Not starting or bootstrapping a community. That's a different talk- Community management is frustrating, exciting and rewarding all at the same time- Prepare to be one part UN Envoy, one part Benevolent Dictator

"You can herd cats, move their food."- Still not entirely sure about the food analogy, but it made me laugh- So who is this talk for? - Professional community managers, volunteers, activists, even marketing- Based on my experience with evolt.org and the Oxford Flickr Group- Nothing original here, it’s a distillation of things I’ve learnt from watching luminaries of community management - Jono Bacon - Ubuntu, Heather Champ, George Oates - Flickr, Denise Wilton - Moo, Matt Haughey - Metafilter

Set the ground rules- Be consistent and apply the rules fairly- Be willing to adapt and refine if things keep cropping up - Communities are living breathing things, organic- Let people know someone is watching out for them, be involved (more on this later)

Speaking of rules- Rough ground rules are best, not directives- "Simple is sustainable" - Jono Bacon (The Art of Community, available to download under a CC license)- Community should not be about bureaucracy- Best example: "Don't be creepy. You know the guy. Don't be that guy" - Flickr’s Community Guidelines

Avoid the single point of failure- Spread your responsibilities- Recruit other members as administrators and moderators- Holiday time becomes less of an issue- Especially for international communities - Metafilter has geographically distributed admins keeping an eye on things as the world turns - Oxford Flickr admins keep going to the pub together (whoops!)

Reward good behaviour- Highlight good responses- Positive reinforcement- Promote from within

Ensure you have the right tools- Does your CMS / Platform have the tools to manage your community effectively? - Multiple privilege levels, banning, blocking- Monitoring content - RSS (monitor incoming content), Google Alerts- Administration - Greasemonkey scripts for Firefox

Lead by example- "Be The Best Member Of Your Community" - Matt Haughey- "Post regularly and intelligently" - Matt Haughey- Maintain a high profile, it keeps some troublemakers away - Comes back to the point: let people know someone is watching out for them

Tend your garden with care- Yes, I got eaten by a wooden dinosaur, it’s all okay now though- People should be proud of their shared space- Give them a sense of belonging and ownership- Involve the community in decisions, but be prepared to make the final call- Again it’s the UN Envoy/Benevolent Dictator split

Beware of knee-jerk reactions- This goes for you as well as your members- Look for opportunities to reframe the conversation into something more useful. What’s the underlying cause?- Heather Champ - "The feedback you get over the first two weeks is less reactionary and a lot more thoughtful [than the first 48 hours]"- Watch for wedges. What are wedges? Divisive elements that can blow up - No advice how to recognise them, but you'll learn - First Offence? - Don't berate first time mistakes publicly, use a back channel, take the chance to educate

Own your mistakes- Take responsibility when you screw up- You will screw up- Seriously, you will screw up- Flickr and the the Yahoo authentication incident - Change is hard

Act quickly when things go wrong- A split second decision can persist - This is the exception to avoiding knee jerk reactions - Your tools will be invaluable- Don't be afraid to stop a discussion- Give people time to cool down- Spammers, porn, et al - Broken window theory - If people’s shared space isn’t looked after then things will get worse

Get outside once in a while- It’s difficult to flame someone you’ve shared a pint with- Face time is key- Humanises personas- Gives you a chance to put a voice and mannerisms to the name- People will connect over issues outside of the community sphere - Positive reinforcement again - Social ties feed back into the community

And finally…- Before I go- Communities can be difficult and you need to know when to step away- Moments of frustration, anger- If you don’t have at least one sleepless night a month you’re doing it wrong. Or less stressed than me- But remember…

Have fun!- Reward- Real moments of “Wow, look what we did!”

More Informationdelicious.com/garrettc/ogn16twitter.com/garrettc

ThanksTorchbox, Heather Champ, George Oates, Denise Wilton, Jono Bacon, Matt Haughey

Photosflickr.com/photos/tjflex/233593402/flickr.com/photos/mahalie/571144258/flickr.com/photos/bixentro/341485394/flickr.com/photos/manthatcooks/85558734/flickr.com/photos/revdancatt/449142212flickr.com/photos/st3f4n/3951143570/flickr.com/photos/jazza2/1169499874/flickr.com/photos/doodledan/3900798566/ flickr.com/photos/balakov/3754851363/ And me.

- Interesting links on delicious under ogn16- Feel free to follow me on twitter (although I tend to ramble about lots of things outside of communities)