Building & Nurturing Successful On-line Communities

(…….batteries not included)

Stephen DaleStephen DaleSemantix (UK) LtdSemantix (UK) Ltd

www.semantix.co.ukwww.semantix.co.uk

What makes a successful CoP? clear purpose – what will it be used to do? creating a safe and trusted environment committed core group of active participants being motivated knowing the needs of participantshaving a clear action plan with activities to meet

needsblending face-to-face and online activities

Nurturing and sustaining the CoP requires efforteffort

and energyenergy from a skilled facilitatorfacilitator.

Facilitator Responsibilities• Supporting sociability, relationship and trust

building • Seed and feed discussion topics• Maintain and sustain the communities health• Direct knowledge nuggets for capture and

reuse• Work to network community members• Provide basic help as needed with the tools • Reporting CoP activity – metrics, evaluations • Ensure the space is kept "tidy" and navigable • Monitoring success criteria and impact

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Facilitating online - the challenges• Designing the right mix of online and off-line

activities ('blended learning') • Catering for different learning styles and needs • Learning to become a 'guide' or 'facilitator' • Dealing with administrative, technical issues and

support requirements, and issues of time • Avoiding the dangers of misinterpretation of text• Finding the right voice• Standing back, and allowing members to discover

the powerhttp://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Understanding your CommunityHelping Communities

Best Practice Communities

Knowledge Stewarding Communities

Innovation Communities

Drivers Lower cost through reuseSocial responsibility

Lower cost through standardisationConsistency of projectImproves outcomes

Professional development

Tracks shifting marketing trendsRegulation and legislation

Activities Connecting membersKnowledge who’s who

Collecting, VettingPublishing

Enlisting leading expertsManage content

Decipher trends Share insightsDevelopment of Policy

Structure and roles

Problem solvingSub committees

Index and store Best practicePublishing

Task force Domain expertsSub-committees

Reward for participation

Sense of belongingAssistance to daily work

Desire for improvement

Passion for the topicProfessional development

Job responsibility to detect emerging trends

Knowledge Tacit - high socialisation

Low tacitExplicit to explore

Tacit to explicitTacit to tacit

Explicit to tacit.

Levels of engagement

Type of engagement

Leve

l of

enga

gem

ent

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Observers

PowerContributors

Contributors

Inactive

Understanding the community profile

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Know who your contributors are – and look after them!Know who your contributors are – and look after them!

The community will have a rhythm of activity

Act

ivity

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Understanding the rhythm helps you keep with the beat!Understanding the rhythm helps you keep with the beat!

Community Metrics

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Network maps provide insight and prompt questions

““I frequently or very frequently receive I frequently or very frequently receive information from this person that I need information from this person that I need to do my jobto do my job.”

Hutchinson Associates 2005

Engagement Strategies: Hot seats

• Can be used to attract new members to the community.

• Enables participants to ask the person in the hot seat (usually an expert in their field) questions, to which they can respond over a set period of time.

• Normally run using the forum, but they can also be run as a phone conference, webinar or interview

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/

Engagement Strategies: Newsletters

CoP Health CheckSymptom Actions

No participation or activity.No new documents or links posted No new discussion threads, announcements or news

•Post new content, requesting feedback and comments to elicit new conversation. •Remind people to set alerts for the site.•Talk to members to find out what people are working on and ask people what they would like to see on it.

Activity only by a few people •Call or email members who haven’t participated for a while; find out why they haven’t been participating. Use those conversations to elicit new content and encourage contribution.•Be sure that the people who are not contributing understand how to use the tools. Never assume that tools are “intuitive” to everyone, or that everyone understands how to use them.

People use email instead of posting questions and discussions on the CoP

•The email habit is a hard one to break. If the goal of the community is to capture all the relevant discussions for future use, then the community facilitator needs to take a strong stand with members. •One way to do this is to make a public statement that no questions sent by individual email will be answered, but that questions posted to the community will always be answered in set time.•Another approach is to respond to all email questions by asking the requestor to post the question in the forum.

Sudden drop in discussions where there was previous activity.

•Review the postings for potential “flaming”. Edit the discussion threads to remove inappropriate comments (and state that you have done so). Speak with the people who have posted and clarify the norms for participation of the community.

Another community is focused on the same topic.

•If the members of the other community are current or previous members of your community, talk to them about why the community isn’t meeting their needs. If they do want to take a specific focus, then be sure that you have set up cross-linkages to the other community sites, and are referring people back and forth as needed.•If the new community consists of people who are not participating in the current community, ask some of the same questions. See if there is sufficient overlap that the new community might be better managed as a Sub - CoP of the current site or a merger between the communities

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/

Help for Facilitators

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Community Facilitator Check-List• Recognize and market achievements of the whole community in front of the company and

other communities• Recognize and market community successes and their effect on:

– Customer service– Innovation– Creation of new lines of business– Newsletters– Publications

• Recognize and Market communities internally and externally• Sell successes up to senior management via storytelling of community achievements• Single out key players for their accomplishments in front of their peers• Create programs that recognize leaders, communities, membership and community roles• Recognizing volunteers, especially in community roles where there was no compensation, is

essential• Use the community sponsor as an important spokesperson• Create community posters, newsletters, publications, tools, brochures, etc.• Create programs that recognize community contributions, participation, helping peers,

sharing experiences, connecting experts, and mentoring.• Create processes for rewarding knowledge nuggets captured, created, and shared• Convey a feeling of appreciation for members through positive reinforcement

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Summary• Build it and they won’twon’t come…technology by

itself won’t guarantee a successful community.• The facilitator (or community manager) is the

key to a successful and vibrant community.

• It’s hard work and requires lots of energy…energy…• When deploying the technology, remember…

batteries are not included!batteries are not included!

Thank you!

steve.dale@semantix.co.uk

stephendale

http://www.linkedin.com/in/stevedalexxx

CONTACT http://twitter.com/stephendale

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