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Presentation given at the Communities Technologies conference on June 27 2009, describing study of Pathable, an online social networking and community development tool for events. We found at a BarCamp Seattle that Pathable had a meaningful impact on sense of community at the event. We review lessons learned in creating temporary communities over many events.
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Leveraging Social Software for Social Networking and Community Development at Events
Shelly D. Farnham, Ph.D. Founder, Research ConsultantWaggle Labs / PathableCommunities and Technologies, 2009
Partners and coauthors: Peter T. Brown, Jordan Schwartz
Core Problem
People go to events to meet others
Professional events are increasingly technology enabled
How to best leverage advances in social software to improve face-to-face networking at professional events
Agenda
Background Pathable Questionnaire field study Lessons learned over 17 deployments at
events
Why Professional Networking Matters “networking is an important career management strategy in the era of the boundaryless careers [6, p. 283].”
Forret and Dougherty (2001)
Increases access to valuable information, resources and opportunities – in other words increases social capital
Correlated with finding jobs, promotions, salary
Professional Networking Online Access to people over time, over distance, all at once Increased access to diverse and weak social ties
62% of employed Americans “networked” workers 73% of managers/professional use Internet or email
constantly or several times a day 35% of “networked” workers use online networks
Pew Internet and American Life
150 million in online networks, 15 million on LinkedIn
Social Networking at Events World wide over 1.2 million professional events
each year, adding up to a hundred billion dollar industry
Why? Learning Meeting people!
Forming connections with clients and colleagues Face-to-face for developing trust face-to-face for informal idea and knowledge sharing via
conversation
Building Community at Events In early interviews with conference organizers,
they listed building community as a primary goal
Why do event attendees and event hosts at professional events care about building community?
What is Community
"I define "community" as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging, and social identity.”
– Barry Wellman (2001)
Cupcake Society
Why do event attendees care about community?
Sure!
Hey, I’m a member of
the Cupcake Society
too!
Can I borrow some sugar?
Sure!
Take my
recipe, too!
Community groups enable transitive relationships Powerfully increase social capital through simple act of joining
community Communities of practice: group of people interested in content
domain, shared practices increase effectiveness of members
Designing Pathable: Leveraging Social Media for Face to Face Professional Social Networking
Whom do I most want to meet, in the limited time available to me?
How do I meet them? How do we become a “social tie”? How do we become a community?
Who is here? Who do I want to meet?
So
cial Netw
orks
So
cial S
cien
tist
Reality
AllS
tar
Med
ia Startu
p
Research startu
p
So
cia
l Tec
h
Blo
gH
er
Blo
gg
er
com
mu
nity
Co
mm
un
ity
blogger
social technology
Creating Semantic Layer to Social Space
Our Approach: minimal profiles, based on tagging
Add tags or keywords to self E.g. “research, social computing, art”
Optimize design for converging on terms Across people, important terms emerge Tags used as search and browse pivots Tags used as conversation groups Clustering, abstraction, and match-making based on
co-occurrence
Tagging provides semantic layer to social space!
Early Exploration at Seattle Mind Camp 3
75 people provided tags for self, organization, related people, related events
Pathable Community and
social networking tools for conferences
Community Dashboard
Profiles Attendee directory Match-making Messaging Feeds (blog,
twitter) Wiki Schedule
Attendee Directory
Profile
Edit Profile
Host Manager -- Dashboard
Host Manager -- Attendees
Face to Face Integration Using existing technologies:
Mobile Badges Printable calendar Visualization
Personalized Badge
Match-making Best matches possible, with minimal effort in
profiles Based on predictors of successful matches:
Common interests Same roles
Job title Host provided categories
Co-location By geography By events
Existing shared groups and communities Weighted sum to produce ordered list
Design Themes The event host is a connector and community
moderator Coauthor profiles Communication broker, event defining access
Social tags are used as pivots of awareness, connection, and communication
Professional match matching based on tags for improved people finding
Incorporate communication back channels Face to face integration
Related Work Crowdvine, Eventvue
Online networks for events, less emphasis on face to face integration, no recommendations
IntroNetworks Online network for event, recommendations, extremely heavy
weight Ntag, Spotme
Mobile devices, expensive, no pre- and post- online network Proactive displays, e.g. Neighborhood Window
Expensive equipment, required proximity to screen Pathable:
Online directory/community, host as community moderator Online and face to face integration, for pre- during and post-
networking Practical, inexpensive, using day-to-day technologies
BarCamp Seattle Questionnaire Study Research questions:
how important is social networking and community development at events
can Pathable help? Procedure:
BarCamp Seattle is a free, two-day conference held for people in Web 2.0
280 people registered for the event using Pathable 78 people total (76% male and 24% female) completed the
questionnaire, 18 at the event and 60 afterwards online
Self-report Measurements Networking behaviors
Goal in coming to event How many new people met Number of friends and colleagues Perceived professional social support received from people at event
Pathable usage Psychological sense of community [Wilkinson, 2007]
adapted for events “A feeling of fellowship runs deep between me and others at BarCamp” “I feel loyal to the people at BarCamp” “My friendships and associations with others at BarCamp mean a lot”
Event attachment Satisfaction with event
Measurement Cont’d Event attachment
Adapted from Rosenbaum et al. study of a suburban diner People who experienced social support and community through
diner, developed place attachment – bond between person and place
Expected similar transfer of affect for events:
Three factors: dependency, commitment, identification
Sense of Community
Place Attachment
Sense of Community
Event Attachment
Primary Goal in Coming to Event
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Have Fun Be Inspired Learn Meet Others
Primary Goals in Coming to Event
Per
cent
People Came to BarCamp Primarily to Network, and then to Learn
Correlations between Event Features and Intention to Return Will Come Back
Event Feature Next Year
Years to Come
r
r
Number of people met .26 .12
Professional friends at event .31 .01
Satisfaction with sessions .63 .59
Satisfaction with conversations .80 .62
Professional suport .41 .39
Sense of community .44 .78
Event attachment
dependency .62 .73
commitment .67 .79
identificaiton .31 .49
Bolded items are statistically significant at p < .05.
Sense of community and event attachment highly correlation r = .81
Pathable Usage Everyone registered through Pathable, about half actively used the system
60% actively browsed directory 47% actively browsed messages 19% actively sent messages 43% intended to use directory after event 55% intended to use communication features after event
If they said they came to event only to learn, less likely to use Pathable (t = 2.6, p < .02)
The higher the usage, the more they said it helped them meet people (r = .65, p < .001)
No correlation between usage and count of people met Usage correlated with count of professional friends at event (r = .36, p < .01)
**percentages for those who indicated at least somewhat or quite a bit
Impact on Professional Network
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
low high
Impact of Pathable on Size of Network
Num
ber o
f pr
ofes
sion
alfr
iend
s at
eve
nt
Pathable Usage
Impact on Attachment and Sense of Community
2
3
4
5
6
Event Attachment (Ident) Sense of Community
Low
High
PathableUsage:
Impact of Pathable Usage
Rat
ing
on L
iker
tSc
ale
Impact of Usage by Feature
Pathable helped attendees meet others the more they browsed the attendee directory
(r = .37, p < .005) the more they browsed attendee messages
(r = .43, p < .005) the more they sent messages
(r =.54, p < .005) the more they used the match-making feature (r = .66, p < .005)
Lessons Learned Across Events Seventeen deployments over five months
Evening mixers One to three day conferences
Review of what worked, what did not
Figure 9. Life cycle of Pathable activity before, during and after event
Life Cycle of a Pathable-enabled Event Gnomedex
Can create an active community with minimal effort
Two emails Seeded initial
profiles Seeded
conversations
Adoption Rates
Higher for conferences vs. mixers
Higher for smaller events (200-600 vs. 2000)
Higher if seamless with registration 0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Mixer Conference
Perc
ent o
f A
tten
dees
who
Pos
ted
Prof
ile
Type of Event
Most Attendees Will Post their Profile in Pathable Directory
Pathable Group Messages
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Mixer Conference
Type of Event
Ave
rage
Mes
sage
s R
ecei
ved
People Converse More in Pathable for Conferences than Mixers
Searching Attendee Directory
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
private public
Event Directory Setting
Search in Event Directory is Most Well Used Feature
Sear
ches
Per P
erso
n in
Dir
ecto
ry
Average total number of directory searches per event: 6882
Seeding the Community Ensure the community feels full from the start Model the desired behavior
Invite the organizers, speakers, volunteers to complete a profile first
Author the speaker/high status profiles Seed representative tags Seed type of conversation hoped for Send personal invitations
Leveraging Match-making Features Nurturing tags
Use badges Use color coded categories
Provides overview Easy point of conversation Examples
Job types: developer, designer, marketer
Interests: blogging, podcasting, and mobile
Person types: creative vs. geek
Personality: introvert, extrovert Integrate with face to face
Introductions Birds of a feather meetings
People Loved Badges
and blogged about them!
Conclusions Networking and community development primary goal Professional networking and sense of community strong
predictors of event satisfaction, event attachment, and intention to return
Pathable helped Features helped attendees meet others, especially use of match-making
feature Usage had positive impact on sense of community, event attachment
It is quality, not quantity, that matters counts of people met had little impact on satisfaction quality of conversation, usage of matching-making tool, and count
of professional connections had an impact
Issues Requirements for success of Pathable
Event organizers must actively adopt role of community organizers
Important to seed community profiles and conversation Important to have seamless integration with registration system Event duration must be long enough, and desire to meet others
strong enough to motivate people to complete profiles Study issues
Correlation is not causation Perhaps people with stronger sense of community more likely to use Pathable Did find usage is correlated with desire to meet new people, and users
reported it helped them meet new people Generalizability to other types of events
Features Tagging still a new idea for many people Profile fatigue
Next Steps
Personalized scheduling
Twitter integration
Matching based on complementary interests
Custom profile questions