The document discusses creating a scalable community website for Impact BC using WordPress MU and BuddyPress. It proposes this technical solution, outlines key features like profiles, groups, forums, and messaging, and discusses next steps like defining user groups, user stories, and promotion strategies to drive adoption of the new community site.

1. “ How to use Word Press MU and Buddy Press to create a scalable community website for Impact BC” By Julian Barabas January 2010

2. What is the purpose of this presentation? What is the goal of this project? What is a “social network”, and what elements does it include? What are the high level requirements for this project? What functionality needs have been expressed by Impact BC? What is our development approach for this project? What should a good technical solution look like? What technical solution are we proposing? What is Word Press MU? What is Buddy Press? What functionality is available in this solution? What functionality could be available in the future? What are the user groups of your new community? What are the “user groups” of your organization? What are the “user stories” of your organization? What needs to happen next? What are our timelines? What else should we consider? Questions?

3. What is the goal of this project? To quickly create a scalable, and easy to use “community website” (i.e. social network website), that supports the strategic objectives of Impact BC. “ Support Service Improvement” “ Collaboration with Partners” “ Share Knowledge” “ Activated individuals and communities “ To allow both the public, and Impact BC stakeholders to register with the community, thereby allowing them to request access to private and public groups. To allow community members to collaborate, learn, share, and discuss various topics using groups, blogs and forums.

4. What is a “social network”? Members can: Create a user profile for themselves Upload a picture of themselves Make “ Friends ” (who have similar interests) Create Groups (public and private) Upload documents (AVI, PDF, DOC, PPT, SWF) Comment on artefacts (articles, blogs, links, photos) Send Messages to Friends Post Forum Topics Manage Privacy settings Advanced Features Could Include Geo-Social Networking: i.e. Google Maps Plug-In Interoperability between Social Networks: i.e. “Facebook Connect” Mobile Access: i.e. Mobify

5. What are the high level requirements for this project? Public Joins website community Joins public groups Opts-in for email notification Members Add friends Apply to private groups Communicate with friends and groups Manages their profile and registration data Manages privacy settings Staff Approves applications to private groups Moderates forum posts Manages registration data, and user account creation process Uploads documents and manage blogs

6. What functionality needs have been expressed by Impact BC? What user groups will be using the community? What user stories will each group? Registration/Login Document Upload/Download Discussion Forums Archiving Topics Event Calendar Site Analytics Report Workspaces for Teams Permission Levels Ability To Create/Manage Teams Provide Training Documents Quizzes, Surveys and Polls Web Conferencing

7. What is our development approach for this project? Step 1: Get stakeholder “buy in” on our proposed platform – today! Step 2: Get clear requirements around “user groups” and the particular functionality required by each “user group” (i.e. User stories provided by stakeholders) – this week! Step 3: Update prototype with business-driven configurations – next week! Step 4: Launch site and advertise to market ( What is the value-proposition for the public ? Why will they register? How will you create awareness about your new community? How does your community fit into your broader social media strategy? ) Step 5: Moderate site, and extend as necessary.

8. What solution are we proposing? Word Press MU + BuddyPress

9. Why are we proposing this? Affordable Proven Extendible Secure Experienced Familiar UI

10. What is Word Press? “ WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. ”

11. What is Word Press MU? WordPress Multi-User (WordPress MU, or just WPMU) is a fork of WordPress created to allow simultaneous blogs to exist within one installation. WordPress MU makes it possible for anyone with a website to host their own blogging community, control, and moderate all the blogs from a single dashboard.

12. What is Buddy Press?

13. How popular is WordPress Mu and Buddy Press?

14. What functionality is available in this solution? Extended Profiles Private Messaging Friends Groups Activity Streams Blog Tracking Forums

15. Community Landing Page (Example)

16. Extended Profile (Example)

17. Private Messaging (Example) How does it work? Each member will have their own individual Inbox, Sentbox, and Drafts folder. They will be notified of new messages by a new message count as well as email notifications if enabled. Sending of messages to multiple friends, as well as site wide messages by an administrator are also possible. What is Private Messaging? “BuddyPress private messaging works like internal site email. Members can message people on their friends list as well as forward and reply to received messages.”

18. Browse and Add New Friends How does it work? Members of a BuddyPress enabled installation can be connected together by one member adding another as a “friend” and then the other member accepting the friendship request. Each member has a visible list of their friends on the site. Friends lists are browsable and members can click on each friend to see more information – or add them as their own friend. Profiles are not restricted as a whole. The ability to search for members by and piece of profile information is also included in with the built in members directory.

19. Create and Manage Groups How does it work? Groups in BuddyPress are a gathering of members, wires posts and forum topics. In future versions members will be able to post any sort of content to groups including blog posts, images and links. Any member can create a group in BuddyPress. They then become the group administrator giving them heightened privileges within that group. Every group includes a place for group information, and the latest group news which can be kept up to date my group administrators. Groups also include a group forum (bbPress), and wire where group members can engage in discussions. These features can be selectively enabled by group creator.

20. Activity Streams Activity streams aggregate all activity across a BuddyPress installation, as well as allowing members to post short updates. It’s possible to follow activity site wide, just for your friends, or just for your groups. Others can comment on your activity and you can even mark activities as favourites so you can keep track of conversations.

21. Blog Tracking Allowing multiple blogs and multiple users per blog is a key feature to WordPress MU. BuddyPress preserves this functionality. The blogs component will aggregate all blogs, blog posts and comments for a member across the entire installation. This means other members can easily find all blogs that a member belongs to or owns, as well as their recent posts and comments. The blogs component also adds an easy to use screen for creating new blogs built right into the theme.

22. Discussion Forums The forums component allows groups to create and manage their own bbPress forum. Group members can post and reply to topics all from within the group’s page. Forums are not specifically tied to groups, they are generic, just like the wire. Forums can be attached to any content within an installation. This means third party plug-ins and new components can make use of the forums component in the future.

23. What are the “user groups” of your new community? Public (anonymous visitors) Public (authenticated visitors) Collaborative Faculty (authenticated) Group Creators Group Administrators Group Members Collaborative Members Group Members Who else? How many different groups? What roles? What permissions? What user stories?

24. What are the “user stories” of these “user groups”? Public Register for an account Opts-In for Email Notifications Joins Public Group(s) Receives email verification email What else? Collaborative Faculty Creates Group Assigns Group Administrator Uploads Documents Moderates Forums Approve Group Membership Requests. Create/Edit Events What else? Collaborative Members Joins Public Groups Requests to join Private Group Private Message Friends Post Forum Topics Post Document Comments Join Public Events What else?

25. Important Consideration Create Facebook Group that educates people about, and directs people toward, your new community website. Create LinkedIn Group that educates people about, and directs people toward, your new community website. Create Twitter account that educates people about, and directs people toward, your new community website. “ Just because you build it, does NOT mean people will come!” Solution: Make sure that your new social network is only PART of a broader social media strategy.

26. Next steps... Who will use your community? (“ user groups ”) What can they do? (“ user stories ”) How will they do it? (“ use cases ”) Stakeholders will be sent a questionnaire that will ask them questions about their community website vision. Developers will create BETA environment, and start configuring BuddyPress to address your business’ needs

27. How could Facebook Connect help your network grow? Want to learn more about Facebook Connect? http://www.facebook.com/connectnews?v=app_4949752878

28. What are our timelines? When can I get a full list of user groups? – This week! When can I get a full list of user stories? – This week! When can I create a full list of use cases? – Next week! When can we see the next demonstration? – 1st Week Feb When are we aiming to go live? – 3rd Week of Feb “ Release early. Release often. And listen to your customers.” – Linus Torvalds (investor of Linux)

29. How will you let people know about your new community? “ Assuming that the website goes live in February. How will you let people know about it?”

30. Why should I join your community? What is the value proposition for prospective members? Incentives to sign up? (Examples) Free eBook when you create account! Free iPod Shuffle every month to most active member! Free Access to White Papers! Free Webinars! Free Health Videos

31. Questions and Feedback [email_address]