September Wrap-Up Community Builder Chat: Online, Offline, and Migration

Tonight was the 2nd monthly Community Builder chat; and I had a great time! There was some really rich conversation with lots of great ideas shared and best practices recommended.

Get the full transcript here!

Question 1: asked about migrating a community from one tool to another, specifically from listservs to a website/forum.

Some of the responses highlighted the need to understand what was currently working for the listserv conversations and what would be a valuable hook to move people to the forums, and especially who within the community (not the org) may be the most influential in a successful migration.  There are a lot of best practices surrounding incentives (try giving promotion and value and not actual rewards) that were shared; but many people felt that the key would be in creating value on the new space that wasn’t possible or wasn’t the same in the listservs.

Question 2: asked how to build a loop between on and offline engagement.

Most agreed that it is harder to move from online to offline, where engagement may be strong because of the access or timing that can’t be accomplished with the physical world. There are also some great ways to help make offline action visible online like sharing actions or highlighting content like videos and photos from events online (try pulling content from across the web together on your website via Yahoo! Pipes).  When talking about moving people from online to offline, it’s important to think about what the purpose is – if it is just to meet and network, many may not see the value in that if the connections and value are already being met online.  Christina shared a great example about finding opportunities to support the community in coming together by listening to online conversations and helping members find events of interest to the organization’s mission and their location.

Matthew also shared an idea for an application creating print-on-demand materials for supporters – you can see his notes in the transcript, or you can catch him on Twitter @mw for more!

Get the full transcript here!

October Community Builder Chat

I’m already looking forward to the next opportunity to connect with others working to build community and explore ideas and examples.  The next monthly chat will be:

• Date: October 28th (I’ll be presenting at the Blackbaud Conference on the 21st so will move it to the 4th Thursday of the month)
• Time: 4 pm EST (1 hour)
• Chat: Launch the chat here (not live until the chat starts)

About the Community Builder Chat

These monthly chats part of the #4Change network and are open to anyone interested in learning and sharing about building community, on and offline, with the use of social media or other technology tools. If you have a topic or question you’d like to explore in an upcoming chat, feel free to let me know anytime!  Hope to have you join us next time 🙂