A set of theories and exercises on Community Building developed for a workshop I gave at the Community 2.0 conference in Las Vegas.
Text of Theory & Strategy for Community Building
Theory & strategy for community building Deborah Schultz www.deborahschultz.com technology changes, humans dont
Welcome Introductions Expectations Outline of the day
What Community What does community mean to you? An Exercise
What did we learn? Community Building
Important Concepts
Collaboration
Shared ideas, passions and experiences
Relationship building
Room for divergent views
Common language and knowledge, dialog
Social structure emerges organically
Key Concepts
Common, shared purpose
Interaction - must be easy
Shared meaning
Feelings of influence and membership
Authenticity - Intimacy
Emergent structures
The birth of a community
We just illustrated that:
Tacit and explicit theories drive our community strategy
Norming functions develop quickly
There is an individual and group collective
Clustering is a natural evolution of community
Case Studies A critical analyses of existing communities Exercise II
Community Types - Broad
Affiliation
Circumstance
Practice
Elective vs non-elective
Three questions
Review the community list we created what do you think is the intention of this site?
Why do you think these examples are successful at community
How do they measure their success
Choose a Site to Read
Flickr
Ebay
Quickbooks
Sourceforge
Threadless
Craigslist
Amazon
Vox
Lessons learned
Community needs vary by type
Affiliation
Circumstance
Practice
Elective vs non-elective
Elective affinity means we cannot mandate community
Create platforms of emergent community
Lets get strategic What would you do? Exercise III
Answer these questions
Who - are you designing for?
What are you going to give them?
How are you going to tell them?
How would you measure success?
Three important rules
Culture is based on your theories
Strategy varies greatly for elective vs non-elective communities
A huge attitude shift is needed
You are now a partner and catalyst
Elements of Community
Content Curation
User Refined Search
Create & consume
The Live Web
Value is rewarded
Co-creation
Shared experience
Offline & online
Participation
Niche vs Mass
Authenticity
This is not about technology
Things to Think About
Define THE thing
Shift your viewpoint
What really drives your audience?
Give to get
Be bold, be different
Be a catalyst
Explore your assets
Everyone is an editor
Be human
Be an advocate
Feed the beast
Keep it simple
Iterate iterate iterate
Inspiration & gut check reading Cluetrain Manifesto Seth Godin Citizen Marketers The Wisdom of Crowds The Starfish and the Spider Made to Stick Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Chris Locke Pick one Jackie Huba/Ben McConell James Suriowiecki Ori Brofman & Rod Beckstrom Chip & Dan Heath
