Using an online community is a huge change for people from more traditional backgrounds or for less web-savvy audiences. This is especially true for communities used inside of a company or organization where people are being asked to change the way that they work. An online community can be a large organizational change, and these changes take time and effort with plenty of education and training. People building online communities sometimes underestimate the amount of resistance and fear that can come from many people within the organization. As community builders, we can learn quite a bit from organizational change management principles to come up with some interesting nuggets of information for how community managers can help people through the change to a more community-oriented organization.

1. Change is Hard
Online Communities and Organizational Change
Dawn Foster
Sr. Executive & Community Practice Manager at Olliance Group
olliancegroup.com @geekygirldawn fastwonderblog.com

2. Change is Hard on People
 Fear
 Anxiety
 Worry
 Resistance
 Revolt
Photo by: 416style http://www.flickr.com/photos/sookie/31219031/

3. Community Can Be Big Change
 Many of us thrive on learning and using new technologies
and finding new ways to collaborate
 For others, an online community is a huge change
 Shift from reading websites to being expected to create content
 Need to learn new technologies
 Communities can be especially scary because
 Mistakes and failure are public for your peers to see
 Anything you say now could be around forever
 Some organizational cultures make it difficult to build
community
 Government, conservative companies or professions, regulation
Photo by: BGLewandowski http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianlewandowski/55680565/

4. Scope of the Issue with Change
 Entire industry / ecosystem
 Government, regulated industry, less tech-savvy industry,
certain demographics
 Company or organization
 Internal corporate community, non-profit organization community
 Some portion of the population
 One of more audience segments
 Certain individuals having difficulty with the change
Photo by: Anirudh Koul http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/3786725982/

5. Organizational Change Mgmt
 Definition (Wikipedia)
 Change management is a structured approach to transitioning
individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a
desired future state. It includes both organizational change
management processes and individual change management
models, which are used to manage the people side of change.
 We can learn from organizational change management
principles.
 Used for many years within organizations to deal with change
 Historically used with top-down change within organizations
 We can apply some of their best practices to community
building
 Even when it isn’t a top-down initiative

6. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Process
 Establish a sense of urgency
 Help people understand the importance of getting involved now
 Opportunities, market / competition concerns, potential crisis
 Create a guiding coalition
 In an organization, get executives as champions
 For corporate communities, get key customers
 Industry leaders, influential community members, etc. can also
be champions for industry efforts
 Develop a vision and strategy
 Know what you want to accomplish (vision)
 Always have a strategy for your online community efforts

7. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Process
 Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
 For people who are afraid or resistant, a single communication
will not win them over
 Over communicate with as much information as possible
 Provide plenty of opportunities for training. Many people will
need more than a single training session
 Communicate using a variety of methods (written, video, etc.)
 Empower People to Act
 Remove obstacles
 Change systems or processes that make
it difficult to build community
 Encourage risk taking and non-traditional
ideas
Photo by: DailyPic http://www.flickr.com/photos/dailypic/1459055735/

8. Kotter’s 8 Step Change Process
 Generate Short-Term Wins
 Find easy ways for people to be successful quickly and frequently
 Recognize and reward members who are helping build community
 Evolution
 Figure out what works and what doesn’t
 Evolve the community to change those things that aren’t working
as well
 Continue to improve the community over time
 Culture
 Focus community management on reinforcing
and building this new culture
 Develop new leaders who support the culture
Photo by: usag.yongsan http://www.flickr.com/photos/usag-yongsan/3582952821/

9. Summary
 Q&A
 Resources:
 John P. Kotter: Leading Change
 About Dawn Foster
 Author of Companies and Communities: Participating without
being sleazy
 My Blog: Fastwonderblog.com
 Consulting: Olliancegroup.com
 Twitter: @geekygirldawn
 Email: dawn@fastwonder.com