Theory & Strategy for Community Building

Slide 1: Theory & strategy for community building Deborah Schultz www.deborahschultz.com “technology changes, humans don’t”

Slide 2: Welcome Introductions Expectations Outline of the day

Slide 3: What Community What does community mean to you? An Exercise

Slide 4: What did we learn? Community Building

Slide 5: Important Concepts  Collaboration  Shared ideas, passions and experiences  Relationship building  Room for divergent views  Common language and knowledge, dialog  Social structure emerges organically

Slide 6: Key Concepts  Common, shared purpose  Interaction - must be easy  Shared meaning  Feelings of influence and membership  Authenticity - Intimacy  Emergent structures

Slide 7: 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

Slide 8: Case Studies A critical analyses of existing communities Exercise II

Slide 9: Community Types - Broad  Affiliation  Circumstance  Practice  Elective vs non-elective

Slide 10: 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

Slide 11: Choose a Site to “Read”  Flickr  Threadless  Ebay  Craigslist  Quickbooks  Amazon  Sourceforge  Vox

Slide 12: 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

Slide 13: Let’s get strategic What would you do? Exercise III

Slide 14: 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?

Slide 15: 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

Slide 16: Elements of Community  Content Curation  Co-creation  User Refined  Shared experience Search  Offline & online  Create & consume  Participation  The Live Web  Niche vs Mass  Value is rewarded  Authenticity This is not about technology

Slide 17: Things to Think About  Define THE thing  Explore your assets  Shift your viewpoint  Everyone is an editor  What really drives  Be human your audience?  Be an advocate  Give to get  Feed the beast  Be bold, be different  Keep it simple  Be a catalyst  Iterate iterate iterate

Slide 18: Inspiration & “gut check” reading Made to Stick Chip & Dan Heath The Starfish and the Ori Brofman & Rod Spider Beckstrom The Wisdom of Crowds James Suriowiecki Citizen Marketers Jackie Huba/Ben McConell Seth Godin Pick one Cluetrain Manifesto Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Chris Locke

Slide 19: Thanks for participating Deborah Schultz www.deborahschultz.com deborahschultz@gmail.com Technology changes, humans don’t