8 Steps to a Thriving Web Community - The Role of Open Source Drupal

8 Steps to a Thriving Web Community – The Role of Open Source Drupal

Rachel Happe Cofounder

The Community Roundtable

Lynne Capozzi VP Marketing Acquia

Community Management Primer

Rachel Happe & Jim Storer Principals

The Community Roundtable

Trends Organizations Want to Leverage

•  Membership in online communities has more than doubled in only three years.

•  54% of members log into their community at least once a day.

•  71% of members said their community is very important or extremely important to them.

•  55% say they feel as strongly about their online communities as they do about their real-world communities

–  2008 report from the Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School for Communication

Yet…Enterprise social software has only been tracked since 2007 as a viable market

Rapid growth is causing a lot of confusion

What is The Community Roundtable?

The Community Roundtable is a peer network for community managers and social media practitioners who’s mission is:

#LaunchCamp @TheCR  @jimstorer @rhappe 

  Further the discipline of community management

  Provide support and resources for community managers

  Aggregate, document, and share community management best practices

www.community‐roundtable.com 

Who We Are

Rachel Happe

Background: PRTM, IDe, Bitpass, IDC, Mzinga

Skills: Facilitation, Communication, Analysis, Management, Coaching, Content Creation

Domain Expertise: Internet trends, Social Media, Communities, New Product Development

Jim Storer

Background: DCI, SharedInsights, Mzinga

Skills: Facilitation, Communication, Community Management, Coaching, Content Creation

Domain Expertise: Social Media, Communities, Programming & content

Our customers have diverse experiences with community management

Members have an average of 4.7 years of community management experience 

Community Maturity Model TM

Strategy

Leadership

Culture

Community Management

Content & Programming

Policies & Governance

Tools

Metrics & Measurement

Stage 1

Hierarchy Stage 2

Emergent Community

Stage 3

Community Stage 3

Networked

Familiarize & Listen

Command & Control

Reactive

None

Formal & Structured

No Guidelines for UGC

Consumer tools used by individuals

Anecdotal

Participate

Consensus

Contributive

Informal

Some user generated content

Restrictive social media policies

Consumer & self-service tools

Basic Activities

Build

Collaborative

Emergent

Defined roles & processes

Community created content

Flexible social media policies

Mix of consumer & enterprise tools

Activities & Content

Integrate

Distributed

Activist

Integrated roles & processes

Integrated formal & user generated

Inclusive

‘Social’ functionality is integrated

Behaviors & Outcomes

1. STRATEGY

#SMBNH  @TheCR  @rhappe 

You Need An Engaged Network

Investors 

Employees 

Customers 

Partners 

Having a passive constituent base is no longer enough

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/luc/1804295568/ 

Alignment

Customer PerspecSve 

Brand Messaging 

Transparency 

Tone 

Product InformaSon 

Available InformaSon 

Product Experience 

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/73937087@N00/422507353/ 

Expectations – Reality = Satisfaction

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

What To Do

•  Acknowledge and articulate who you are as a organization –  The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

•  Align how you talk about your company and products with what customers think about you

•  Think of customers as marketing partners •  Determine how socially-enabled your

constituents are

•  Identify the drivers that will help you build a network

2. LEADERSHIP

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

Be Transparent hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/22971881@N02/3104553057/in/set‐72157611215947198/ 

Be Authentic Photo by T.McEnroe 

Be Modest

Distributed

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/mclxi/388392114/ 

Lead from the Back

What You Need To Do

•  Practice conversational and facilitated communications internally

•  Take small steps toward transparency

•  Experience self-organizing environments – developer communities, India, Wikipedia, user groups

•  War game radically different communications cultures – using games like Bafa Bafa

3. CULTURE

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

Tone hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/jspad/142160659/ 

Informed

Storytelling hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/kiwanja/3169447879/ 

Powerful

Feeling of Power/Control hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/gargi/2483623130/ 

What You Need To Do

•  Listen/Ask/Measure how communications and decisions are made

•  Translate between groups

•  Be as responsive to various constituents in their own modality

•  Encourage and reward change

•  Set expectations clearly

4. COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

Who Are Your Cheeseheads?

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/sheila_steele/161726592/ 

Bring Catnip

Ride The Waves hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/tk_five_0/2279894817/ 

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/jfchenier/2409726404/ 

Donʼt Ignore

What You Need To Do

•  Build a mission that attracts passionate fans

•  Offer rewards and recognition to encourage ‘good’ behaviors

•  Ride the wave of community interest rather than trying to start waves

•  Donʼt ignore problems – address immediately even if you don’t have the answer

5. CONTENT & PROGRAMMING

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/pandemia/1286794844/ 

Be Notable

Schedule

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/vidiot/61484953/ 

Keep A Regular Schedule

Text

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/cecilanne_r‐s/3541646602/ 

Be Multi-Modal

Image

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/mfakheri/2815755503/ 

Be Valuable

What You Need To Do

•  Attract attention

•  Create a schedule of events that have a cadence

•  Develop content in different modalities – text, images, video; synchronous & asynchronous

•  Focus on value – build content that will be contextual and relevant to your audience

6. POLICY & GOVERNANCE

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

Have Rules hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/strandloper/1385105547/ 

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/cibergaita/62123585/ Take Calculated Risks

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/lrargerich/3107809174/sizes/l/ Protect Your Base

What You Need To Do

•  Define expected culture through rules. Be Firm

•  Articulate and plan for the risks but remember too, risks make things fun & worthwhile

•  Define the constituent groups for whom you are responsible and how – both legally and ethically – and what will harm them

7. TOOLS

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/docman/36125185/ Find Good Tools

What You Need To Do

•  Understand where tools can help - not everything requires or has a tool that can help

•  Evaluate which investments have higher payoff – those that streamline repetitive or expensive tasks

•  Understand tool externalities – tools don’t work in a vacuum. How do they work with existing processes and people?

8. METRICS & MEASUREMENT

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/286709039/ Measure

hFp://www.flickr.com/photos/captkodak/272746539/ Account & Reconcile

What You Need To Do

•  Know where you want to go- measurement is not all that useful if you don’t know what success looks like

•  Understand data influencers – if you don’t know how to change a measurement or its cost, it is also not all that useful

•  Keep it simple – the easier it is for everyone to understand, the better. Three clear metrics are better than 20.

•  Develop accounting standards – what are your priorities and values and how well does your budget reflect them?

•  Donʼt forget your common sense. Measurement is one guide post to good decision making, not the sole factor.

Resource: hFp://www.thesocialorganizaSon.com/social‐media‐metrics.html 

Community Maturity Model TM

Strategy

Leadership

Culture

Community Management

Content & Programming

Policies & Governance

Tools

Metrics & Measurement

Stage 1

Hierarchy Stage 2

Emergent Community

Stage 3

Community Stage 3

Networked

Familiarize & Listen

Command & Control

Reactive

None

Formal & Structured

No Guidelines for UGC

Consumer tools used by individuals

Anecdotal

Participate

Consensus

Contributive

Informal

Some user generated content

Restrictive social media policies

Consumer & self-service tools

Basic Activities

Build

Collaborative

Emergent

Defined roles & processes

Community created content

Flexible social media policies

Mix of consumer & enterprise tools

Activities & Content

Integrate

Distributed

Activist

Integrated roles & processes

Integrated formal & user generated

Inclusive

‘Social’ functionality is integrated

Behaviors & Outcomes

COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT PRIMER PACKAGE

@TheCR  @acquia  @rhappe  

Community Management Primer Package

Our Community Management Primer Package is a mix of presentations, discussions, individual exercises, and group exercises – all designed to ensure and reinforce alignment and community success

1.  Advisory Services

–  Kick-Off & Introduction Call – Two hours

–  Workshop Preparation Call – One hour

–  Check-up Calls Post-Workshop – 2 one-hour calls

2.  Workshop – 2 Days

–  12 sessions designed to elicit opportunities, barriers, concerns, and challenges around eight core community competencies

3.  Two (2) annual memberships in TheCR Network.

Package Price is $15,000

Workshop Exercises

Strategy: Group Exercise –  3 Strategies; Pros & Cons of each

Culture: Individual Exercise –  Picture your culture

Community Management: Group –  War Game - Handling two common scenarios

Leadership: Group –  Network Mapping – Influencing the Influencers

Policies: Individual –  Mix & Match – Behaviors and policies

Metrics & Measurement: Individual –  Draw Your Dashboard

Content & Programming: Group –  Mix & Match – Outcomes, programming, & budgets

Tools: Individual –  Build a homepage

Example: Tool Exercise

CMPP Customers Will Be Able To:

1.  Write a comprehensive community strategy

2.  Develop a content & program plan aligned with their goals and budget

3.  Understand the role of influencers

4.  Address common community management scenarios

5.  Understand legal hurdles and draft a corporate social media policy consistent with business goals and cultural requirements

6.  Identify and track the metrics that matter from the start

7.  Better understand and assess the Acquia features that will drive business results

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Why Drupal as a community platform?

  Powerful CMS   Rapid deployment, speed to market   Content creation, organization and discovery   Social Networks   Community Forums & thread discussions   Ratings & votings   Single & Multi user blogs   Best platform for growth – start small

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

JackBe Developer Community http://www.jackbe.com/enterprise-mashup/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Intuit QuickBase http://quickbase.intuit.com/developer/articles

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Greenopolis http://greenopolis.com/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Novell Communities http://www.novell.com/communities/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Nvidia Tegra Developer Zone http://tegradeveloper.nvidia.com/tegra/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Atom Developer Community http://appdeveloper.intel.com/en-us/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Symantec http://www.symantec.com/connect/

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Acquia is Your Drupal Guide

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Do you love working with Drupal?

  If so, Acquia is hiring: – Engineering & design – Client advisors and consulting – Inside sales

Check out openings at http://acquia.com/careers

© 2009 Acquia, Inc. All rights reserved.

Questions   For more information, visit:

–  http://acquia.com –  http://twitter.com/acquia –  http://community-roundtable.com –  http://twitter.com/TheCR

  Contact us:

–  sales@acquia.com

–  888.9.ACQUIA

–  rachel@community-roundtable.com

–  @rhappe / @TheCR

–  Rachel: 617-271-4574

  Sign up for a free 30-day Acquia Network Trial

–  http://acquia.com/trial

Recording of today’s event and slides will be posted at:

http://acquia.com/community/resources/recorded_webinars