Theory & strategy for community building

Deborah Schultzwww.deborahschultz.com

“technology changes, humans don’t”

Welcome

IntroductionsExpectations

Outline of the day

An Exercise

What Community

What does community mean to

you?

What did we learn?

Community Building

Important Concepts Collaboration Shared ideas, passions and

experiences Relationship building Room for divergent views Common language and knowledge,

dialog Social structure emerges organically

Key Concepts Common, shared purpose Interaction - must be easy Shared meaning Feelings of influence and

membership Authenticity - Intimacy Emergent structures

The birth of a community We just illustrated that:

Tacit and explicit theories drive our community strategy

Norming functions develop quickly There is an individual and group

collective Clustering is a natural evolution of

community

Case Studies

A critical analyses of existing

communitiesExercise II

Community Types - Broad Affiliation Circumstance Practice Elective vs non-elective

Three questions Review the community list we

created what do you think is the intention of this site?

Why do you think these examples are successful at community

How do they measure their success

Choose a Site to “Read” Flickr Ebay Quickbooks Sourceforge

Threadless Craigslist Amazon Vox

Lessons learned Community needs vary by type

Affiliation Circumstance Practice Elective vs non-elective

Elective affinity means we cannot mandate community

Create platforms of emergent community

Let’s get strategic

What would you do?

Exercise III

Answer these questions Who - are you designing for? What are you going to give

them? How are you going to tell them? How would you measure

success?

Three important rules Culture is based on your

theories Strategy varies greatly for

elective vs non-elective communities

A huge attitude shift is neededYou are now a partner and catalyst

Elements of Community Content Curation User Refined

Search Create &

consume The Live Web Value is rewarded

Co-creation Shared

experience Offline & online Participation Niche vs Mass Authenticity

This is not about technology

Things to Think About Define THE thing Shift your viewpoint What really drives

your audience? Give to get Be bold, be different Be a catalyst

Explore your assets Everyone is an

editor Be human Be an advocate Feed the beast Keep it simple Iterate iterate iterate

Made to Stick Chip & Dan HeathThe Starfish and the Spider

Ori Brofman & Rod Beckstrom

The Wisdom of Crowds James SuriowieckiCitizen Marketers Jackie Huba/Ben

McConellSeth Godin Pick oneCluetrain Manifesto Doc Searls, David

Weinberger, Chris Locke

Inspiration & “gut check” reading

Thanks for participating

Deborah Schultzwww.deborahschultz.com

deborahschultz@gmail.com

Technology changes, humans don’t