Online Communities and Co-Creation

Online communities & Co-CreationMs. Anubha RastogiAstt. Prof, Vidya School Of Business2017-18

THE POWER OF CONNECTIONS

Anubha Rastogi | VSB

Defining Virtual or Online Community

“Social aggregators that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace.”

Virtual communities can be basically defined as groups of like-minded strangers who interact predominantly in the cyberspace to form relationships, share knowledge, have fun or engage in economic transactions.“

• Online communities combine 4 important features• Internet communication tools• Rules that define community membership• Collaborative production of material by members• Repeat use by members

• Communication is multidirectional• Users provide material • Users consume information

• Challenges faced by community builders• Building traffic• Maintaining member collaboration• Member retention


Benefits of Virtual Communities


Exploring Virtual Communities

What do you do in a Virtual Community.

• Share• Teach• Assist• Entertain• Discuss• Works towards a common goal• Beautify• Patrol

Types Of Virtual Community

• Blogs• Facebook pages• Forums• Email groups• Social Networks


Typology of Virtual Community

Four distinct categories of communities occur based on the exchanges that occur within them: • Community Of Interest - Information exchange about a topic • Goal-oriented Community Of Interest - Sharing of diverse perspectives and production of objects

commissioned by the mandate. • Learner's Community - Participation to the realization of a collective educational project. • Community Of Practice - Professional practice development through sharing knowledge among members of

a professional community

Two distinct categories of communities based on the size and types of members

• Personal communities• Are small in scale• Members know each other• Communication is direct between individuals through E-mail or a shared Web site

• Extended communities• Larger in scale and scope• Composed of many smaller areas that allow personal communities to flourish• Rely on a mixture of content and communication tools including Web content publishing

and Centrally-managed discussions


Types Of Online Community Members

• The Sleepers: Almost dead on the community. Not even aware about what is happening. Just joined it for the heck of it.• The Lurker: You rarely hear from the Lurker. She likes to read all the conversations and takes what she needs from each

discussion, but she rarely participates. Every now and then, she surprises everyone by voicing an opinion, but most of the time, you don’t even know she’s there.

• The Newbie: Newbies (new members) often don’t know where to start. Newbies may introduce themselves to the group and then do their best to find ways to fit in. Most members welcome newbies and do what they can to make them feel at home.

• The Regular: The Regular is a familiar personality in the online community. Everyone knows her face or recognizes her avatar —the image she uses to portray herself online. Because the Regular is so active, other community members may feel that they know her and trust her judgment — most of the time.

• The Leader: Whether self-appointed or through mutual respect, the Leader is someone who has been with the community for years and truly knows his stuff. When he offers his two cents, people listen. Sometimes, the Leader is someone that the community has chosen; at other times, the Leader is a legend in his own mind.

• The Elder: As a pillar of the online community, the Elder isn’t necessarily active anymore, but she’s held in high esteem. When she does participate, members hang on to her every word. The Elder has been with the community since day one. Not every member may agree with or even like the Elder, but no one will say a disparaging word about her.

• The Expert (aka the Know-It-All): Every group has an Expert — someone who knows everythingabout everything. The Expert has been everywhere and seen everything. He did it all long beforethe other members did and thinks that he did it better, stronger, and faster. The Expert doesn’thave many friends but doesn’t seem to notice.

• The Elite: Forums and communities that rank their members by how long they’ve been around or how often they participate have a clique of Elite members. Though an Elite member mingles with thenewer members now and then, she keeps pretty much to herself.


Types Of Behavior In Virtual Community

Positive or Interactive

Type Description

Announcements Posts written to share information

with members of the community

Queries or Specific Requests for

Information

Posts requesting information,

including:

a) Queries made by other

community members

b) Queries taken out of the

community

c) Queries presented to the

community

Directed Group Projects Posts written to further a goal of

the community, such as the

creation of a FAQ (Frequently

Asked Questions file), a database

or project in the world outside the

community

Type Description

Flaming Argumentative posts written purely for the sake

of insulting others

Trolling Posts seeking to illicit flames, called “flame-bait”

by Tepper (1997)

Spamming Posts regarded as unsolicited junk mail

Cyber-rape Posts of an unsolicited, unwelcome and

assaultive nature

Hostile

• No Flaming

• No Spamming

• No Phishing


What drives Virtual Community

A. Affordances of Virtual Communities

Affordance Description

Persistence Continuous over time and use by

many

Periodicity Sense of time and rhythm to

interactions

Boundaries Multi-use areas: rooms, forums,

private areas

Engagement Multiple ways to connect and interact

Authoring Users create content and space, and

recreate it as well

B. Motivators of Virtual Community


C. Communication Tools Are The Heart Of Online Community

• Two categories of tools, based on the type and scale of communication possible

• Communication rings send messages directly between users• Everybody in the ring gets the message• Communication rings don’t scale – they break down as the group gets too big• E-mail, Internet Pagers , Groupware, Games & Simulations

• Content trees are indirect• They use a central gathering point such as a bulletin board or a Web site to collect and store information• Depend on hierarchies that create manageable discussions• Community members go to topic areas and discussion groups that match their interests• Usenet, Bulletin Boards, Chat rooms, Websites

D. Membership rules define the nature of community and interaction• Strong communities have strong rules

• Membership depends on passing through a difficult hurdle that creates shared values and experiences

• Interests and opinions are strongly held

• Weak communities are easy to join• Examples are fan clubs, shopping club members, frequent flyer programs• Weak community ties are a serious problem for online marketers


Establishing a Virtual Community


Community Goes online : The IMPACT

• THE ARGUMENTS FOR:

• New technologies allow new forms of communication between close friends, acquaintances, and strangers

• Online communities provide a focus for social interaction

• New technologies improve communication between co-workers, customers and suppliers

• Online communities enable consumer-to-consumer interaction

• Marketers can use community-building technologies to generate customer loyalty, involvement, and repeat sales

• THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST• :

• Private time online comes at the expense of physical interaction with friends and family

• Weak ties between strangers replace strong ties between friends and neighbors

• Those who spend hours online often test higher on psychological measures of loneliness and depression


Increasing Returns Cycles with Virtual Communities

TransactionOfferings

MemberLoyalty

Online Community Increasing Returns

Draw moremembers tocommunity

Promote member-to-member interaction

Build member loyalty to community

Generate member-based content

ContentAttractiveness

Targetproductsand offerings

MemberProfiles

Draw vendors and user spending to community


CO-CREATION

Using the power of community for business advantage


Co-CreationCo-creation is a management initiative that brings different parties together (for instance, a company and a group of customers), in order to jointly produce a mutually valued outcome.


Strategic networks such as Collaborative Networked Organisations (CNOs) and Virtual Customer Communities (VCCs) show a high potential as drivers of value co-creation and collaborative innovation in today’s Networking Era.

Value Co Creation with Virtual Communities


Co Creating Value Through Experiences In VC


The 5 Principles of Co-Creation Tools, Processes And Research Techniques To Help Clients Better Interact With Their Communities And Their Customers

• Online Chat Groups

• In-Depth Interviews, pairs and triads

• Forum/Bulletin Board Discussion

• Online ethnography, video/photo diaries

• Online stimuli evaluation

• Video Clip Evaluation

• Online Surveys

• Polling

Enabling Co-Creation


The Co-Creation Process

Style Of Engagement With The Co Creation Projects


Guidelines for Managing Communities of Co-Creation


Co-Creation vs Crowd Sourcing

The Three Cs Of Modern Creativity Are Community, Crowd Sourcing & Co Creation. Get Connected. Get Creative !

Online Communities and Co-Creation

Education

Transcript of Online Communities and Co-Creation