building online
communities
Tara ‘miss rogue’ Hunt, Citizen Agency

summary
1. What makes a community?
2. Examples of communities
3. Common community themes
4. Setting fertile ground for your own
community

What makes a community?

community
Community can include the dimensions of
geographic location, psychological ties and/or
people working together toward a common
goal.

virtual community
A virtual space supported by computer-based
information technology, centered upon
communication and interaction of participants
to generate member-driven content, resulting
in relationships being built up.
(Lee & Vogel, 2003)

characteristics of a
virtual community
• personal homepage/profile (ie. url.com/
people/missrogue)
• personal content creation
• ability to interact with others’ content
• ability to ‘friend’ and share content

succession
community
visitor customer
member

benefits of community
• heightened customer loyalty
• self-policing
• amplified word of mouth
• better feedback
• stronger & more personal filters on content

Examples of communities

3 levels of community
1. Lightweight Social Processes
2. Collaborative Information Structures
3. High End Collaboration

lightweight social
processes
Low-barrier social involvement like voting and
the recording of personal participation.
• DIGG • Del.icio.us
• Last.fm • Amazon
• Craigslist • Netvibes

collaborative
information structures
Core product enhanced by a social
component, deeper participation to interact.
• Flickr • Facebook
• YouTube • Odeo
• Threadless • Developer networks

high end collaboration
Groups utilizing systems to make sense and
share complex materials and data.
• Open Source
• Wikipedia projects
• Lostpedia • Couchsurfing

3 levels of community
1. Lightweight Social Processes
2. Collaborative Information
Structures
3. High End Collaboration

Common community themes

communities studied
• Flickr - photo sharing community
• Twitter - sms community
• Wordpress - developer community
• Threadless - art-based apparel community
• BarCamp - geek conference community

common themes
• sense of fun/play
• keeping the dialogue going
• “wouldn’t it be awesome if...” development
• maximized the power of word of mouth

more common themes
• simple platforms for building on
• compelling stories
• rewarding of community members

“Have Fun”
• Founders having fun, very public about the
necessity of fun (the necessity to enjoy one’s
work)

“I just wanted to create a company that would be as
much fun and as fulfilling as possible. Fun in work to me
means a lot of freedom, and ton of creativity, working
with people I respect and like, and pursuing ideas that
are just crazy enough to work. I don't want to have to
worry about getting buy-in from executives or a board,
raising money, worrying about investor's perceptions,
or cashing out.”
~ Ev, Twitter ~

“Have Fun”
• Playful messaging and images on the site

twitter’s 404 message

wordpress

wordpress

keeping the dialogue
going
• Personal use of the product

Twitter

keeping the dialogue
going
• Involved personally in customer support

Wordpress
From the Future of Web Apps in San Francisco:
“I can’t emphasize enough how important it is
to answer your own customer support emails.”
- Matt Mullenweg

keeping the dialogue
going
• Greeting new customers & introducing them
to others

Flickr
“The Flickr team spent a lot of time greeting
every user that came to the site, offering them
help on how to get engaged with the rest of
the community....online community-building is
just like being the host of the party - if guests
come to a party, and they don't know
anyone...they'll leave.”
~ from Christine.net ~

“wouldn’t it be
awesome if...”
• Take an experimental approach to
development

Threadless
“We basically make all of our decisions to work on a
new project after we hear the phrase, “Wouldn’t it be
awesome if...” It doesn’t mean everything works, but
many things do”
~ Jake, Threadless ~

BarCamp
“Everyone was complaining that they hadn’t been
invited to FOO Camp, but we thought, “Wouldn’t it
be awesome to just have our own?” Nobody
thought we could do it. We had 6 days. No location.
No people. No food. But it didn’t matter. If it was
just the 6 of us in my living room, it would be great.”
~ Chris, BarCamp ~

“wouldn’t it be
awesome if...”
• Throw away the business plan and learn to
embrace the chaos

Flickr
"We started the company that produced Flickr to build
an online game. Flickr was a side project. It got more
popular and then it took over the whole company but it
certainly wasn't what we intended to do, so there wasn't
any real business plan when we started."
~ Stewart, Flickr ~

Google
“The Googley Approach to Business "It's a place where
failure coexists with triumph , and ideas bubble up from
lightly supervised engineers, none of whom wory too
much about their projects ever making money."”
from Fortune Magazine Article, "Chaos at Google"

the power of word of
mouth
• Built-in a variety of ways to share early on:
blog, rss, copy & paste urls (Flickr)
• Participants are media creators: podcasting,
blogging, irc, wiki, etc. (BarCamp)
• Instead of adding more features, added more
on-ramps: jabber, email, web-based, etc.
(Twitter)

involving community in
decisions
• Listen to your users & be flexible (Flickr)
• Let the community create the content &
make the decisions (Threadless)
• Put the audience in charge (BarCamp)

simple platforms to
build on
• Google Maps versus Yahoo! Maps

simple platforms to
build on
• Building blocks [by Tantek Çelik]
• Tools, resources, or techniques
• Built by experts
• Usable by non-experts
• Combine with other building blocks
• Build larger blocks from smaller blocks

simple platforms to
build on
• Make your platform simple and extensible
(Wordpress)
• Provide a simple, but rich API (Flickr)
• Keep it simple and document it openly
(BarCamp)
• Focus on one function well (Twitter)
• Keep it to the torso (Threadless)

compelling stories
• Twitter (the birth of Obvious)
• Flickr (GNE to photo sharing)
• Wordpress (Matt, the wonder kid)
• Threadless (Jake and Jake just loved art)
• BarCamp (6 days, no resources, story of will)

community rewards
• Flickr: free pro accounts, anniversary
parties, schwag
• Twitter: featured members, blogging
• Wordpress: featuring developers
• Threadless: as they make more $$, so do
their artists
• BarCamp: more privileges as leaders emerge

Setting fertile ground for your own
community

motivation
"What keeps them logging in as a regular part
of their routine? Because there is a benefit to
the person that makes a real difference in their
lives....if it helps you find your next job, or
connects you with a new friend, or fulfills that
need to have good conversation with a bunch
of bright people, then it becomes a real
bargain."
~ John Coate, Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building
Online Community, 1993

sense of community
1. Feelings of membership
2. Feelings of influence
3. Integration and fulfillment of needs
4. Shared emotional connection
(McMillan and Chavis, 1986)

feelings of membership
• arise from the creation of community
boundaries
• perception of emotional safety
• sense of belonging to and identification with
• use of common symbols, language, etc.

feelings of membership
• includes: personal profile pages, 'friending',
defining groups within the larger group
(groups), invitations to groups
• allow for lots of personal & group
expression
• greet new members and introduce them to
others with similar interests

feelings of influence
• being able to influence group (voice heard)
• being able to be influenced by group
(learning)
• feedback responsiveness
• rule enforcement and creation by members
• maintenance of norms within the group

feelings of influence
• includes: forums, chat, comments, blogging,
personalized mail
• create many ways in which members can
connect and platforms for expression

integration and
fulfillment of needs
• feeling of being supported by others
• rewards of being a member, such as status,
expertise
• shared values
• feeling of competence within group

maslow’s hierarchy of
needs
1. Physiological
2. Security/Safety
3. Social
4. Self-Esteem/Ego
5. Self-Actualization

integration and
fulfillment of needs
• includes: status rewards, featuring members,
vips, karma points, etc.
• 'in crowd' knowledge - acorns, tricks,
traditions & rituals

shared emotional
connection
• relationships, shared history & experience
• high quality, frequent interaction
• discrete/shared events/history and crisis
• personal investment of time and resources
• the effect of honor and humiliation
• spiritual bonds

shared emotional
connection
• can't be created, but shared experiences
with members can help (continual, deep
interaction with community)
• offline meetups, celebrations and developer
days help

in conclusion
Fostering healthy communities is complicated,
time consuming and requires dedication to
your members, but the rewards are high and
long term.

licensing:

Photo of Matt Mullenweg: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jluster/3392263/
Slide with Photos from Threadless CommunityNext presentation
Kitty on Twitter Shot from Twitter.com/error
Flickr’s Clogged tubes screenshot of my own
Hello Dolly! Album cover: Wikipedia
Cute dog waiting: http://www.flickr.com/photos/itsgreg/90724994/
Thanks to:
Chris Messina (for all sorts of stuff), Blaine Cook (Twitter), Stewart
Butterfield (Flickr), Heather Champ (Flickr), Tom Coates (Yahoo!), Jake &
Jeffrey (Threadless), Matt Mullenweg (Wordpress), Kathy Sierra (Creating
Passionate Users), Tantek Çelik, Léon van Gurp (Masters Thesis Student in
the Netherlands, who pointed me to some of these resources), David
Weinberger (whose O.J. quote I probably stole used), PARC’s amazing
research on collaborative networks, and everyone who reads my blog and
helps me through these lessons daily.