Location: Washington DC

Topic: Build and Nurture Global Online Communities

Description: Is creating a global online community important to reaching and engaging with your association’s constituents or members? Are you interested in using an online tool, but have yet to try it yourself? This session will explore why several associations have chosen to use virtual options for building their international communities and what they have learned. Learn how virtual options will help your organization engage internationally, and discover some of the available tools and partnerships for building communities. You’ll also take part in an open discussion to learn what fellow attendees have experienced.

Related Links:

• ASAE International
• Presentation slides

Location: New Orleans, LA

Topic: Maximizing Impact with Online Communities

Description: Are you collaborating, innovating, and sharing best practices with others in your organization? In your area of service? In your profession? Don’t reinvent the wheel! Learn to leverage online social and collaborative tools to maximize impact. We will explore the how and why of online communities of practice using hands on exercises, and key examples from the national service and nonprofit sectors. Whether you want to start a community, revitalize an existing one, or find places where your peers already share, this session will help you clarify your strategy and choose the human resources and tools to support your community.

Related Links:

• NCVS
• Points of Light
• Slides

• 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

(Photo credit: ToastyKen)

When:

• Date: September 16th
• Time: 4 pm Eastern, 9 pm UK (duration: 1 hour)
• Visit: Launch the Chat (not active until the 16th)

Topics:

Thanks to the rich conversation in last month’s chat, we have our main questions selected already. But, you can still add thoughts ahead of time, or share more questions that we may get to or save for another upcoming chat. This time we will be addressing:

• Migrating a community from one platform to another
• Building a loop between online and offline community activities

Share your ideas ahead of time in the comments below, or on twitter using #4change and/or #commbuild – have an idea for a better hashtag for this chat? Please leave a comment with your idea!

Did you miss last month’s chat? That’s okay – you can still see the full transcript here!

Location: Atlanta, GA, USA – at the 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference

Topic: Building Stronger Online Communities without Losing your Sanity

Description: If you want to build a strong online community, getting the right platform in place is only half the battle, and it’s the easy half. In this peer-led discussion, we’ll share our experiences of online community building and build lists of best practices around recruiting new members and retaining them, increasing participation and moderating your community. I’m joining Manny Hernandez (Tu Diabetes), Peggy Duvette (Wiser Earth), and Christine Egger (SocialActions) for this session.

Related Links:

• 10NTC
• Pre-event blog post
• Post-event blog post

If you want to build a strong online community, getting the right platform in place is only half the battle, and it’s the easy half. In this peer-led discussion, we’ll share our experiences of online community building and build lists of best practices around recruiting new members and retaining them, increasing participation and moderating your community.

Who: Speakers: Amy Sample Ward | Netsquared; Debra Askanase; Ivan Boothe

When: 1:30 p.m.

What: What is the basis of community organizing and why is it important to online campaigns? Traditional community organizing informs a successful online campaign and lays the groundwork for a sustainable, effective movement for social change. In this session, participants will get their hands dirty planning a social media campaign that integrates traditional organizing theory and practice. During the workshop, we will present traditional community organizing principles and methods of campaign mapping. We will also ask up to three attending organizations to present an idea for an upcoming campaign and goals. Attendees will divide into break-out groups to design the online campaign. The groups will use both community organizing principles and social media tools to create an online social media campaign. Each group will present its campaign strategy and tactics to the entire workshop. Workshop leaders will offer feedback and evaluation. Come to the session with your online campaign ideas, and get ready to have fun mapping out a campaign!

Head of Community Management at FreshNetworks, previously at iVillage, Daily Mail etc.; most proud of job at an adoption charity

What do we mean by “community” – question asked to the participants:

• people
• support
• shared interest
• label
• conversations
• reciprocity
• belonging

When you think about “what is community?” do you think about online or offline? Do you think you are part of a community?

• We mean people
• we mean connections
• we mean support
• we mean similarity
• we mean social group
• we mean peers
• we mean a group being ‘led’

Community confusion:

• people rarely consider themselves part of communities offline
• people are rarely members of just one community
• communities can be physical and conceptual
• they can be permanent or temporary

What is an online community?

• it used to mean ‘message boards’ and not much more
• for a while, people meant ‘facebook’ although that’s a social network of people you already know

What Twitter isn’t… Twitter isn’t a message board, or a social network of people you already know… So, is it a community?

What Twitter is… twitter is a platform, it’s about connections, it’s the direciton we’re heading in; it’s a micro-community that is different for every individual.

What Twitter gives us:

• freedom
• it’s blown away old rules
• a boost to existing communities and content on the web
• keeping people in touch and highlighting existing communities

One word to describe a good online community experience: nice, warm, friendly, friendship, welcoming, assistance, funny, reassurance, welcoming

People want warm and welcoming, but that it isn’t always what they get with online communities. So how?

Getting Started

Identify a community

• who are you providing a platform for?
• build it and they will come… doesn’t work
• do these people want or need a space to communicate?
• who are they?

What are the concerns of the community?

• do they need to speak anonymously?
• do they need to share images?
• do they need to be protected?
• do they have barriers to understanding technology?
• do they have fractured interests?
• are there opposing viewpoints and needs?

Sexy or quick?  there are 4 attributes to a good online community:

• easy
• safe
• secure
• sticky
• sexy can wait!  it’s great if it has all the bells and whistles but that can come later, what’s most important is that it’s usable, meets community needs etc.

Vibrant, ugly: it’s okay if it’s not perfect to look at; between timely and perfect, choose timely.  An example: Criagslist.org

Where will you host your community?

• do you have an online presence that can be enhanced?
• do you need to build community elements into your next iteration?
• do you have the budget and resources to build from scratch – and manage?
• should you set up a space where your audience already is?
• don’t automatically reject free tools like Ning.com
• what about hiring someone to maintain and participate in that space as a community manager?

How do we keep our community safe?

What do you mean by safe?

• safe from offensive material
• safe from ‘trolls’ and trouble-makers
• safe to chat without fear of personal attacks
• safe from ‘real-life’ crossover
• safe from spam attacks

Control – and lack of it: you cannot control people, but you can steer, guide and react; you must establish ground rules, and update them regularly.

• no one is solely interested in one topic – nor should they be
• single-issue parties don’t win elections; single-issue communities, don’t thrive – we don’t have only one interest
• connections are what’s important, give people the freedom to connect – start small, only 3 or 4 sections or topics and then let the community drive the development
• tools like CAPTCHA

Keeping your organization safe: if someone writes a lie about a celebrity on a community that you host, when are you liable?  The minute it goes up.  Mumsnet case study: some moms posted to Mumsnet that Gina Ford was too harsh with her practices, etc. and Gina took them to court.  Mumsnet said that they don’t moderate as there are too many message to handle and so on.  The best approach is to plan for that and have a take-down policy; encourage members to report malicious content and give them way to do so easily.

Who will keep your community safe…and vibrant?

• moderation
• welcoming members
• stimulating discussion
• removing spam and offensive content
• who is liable? – If you use something like Ning does that platform share a part of the liability? Yes. If you make it explicit on your site in your terms of use that your site is not moderated then you are not liable, according to some.
• “Can the receptionist do it?” – maybe, if they want to, but moderating and welcoming people and getting involved isn’t just for anyone; it takes someone that has the time and the interest to do.

Q&A

What’s been your biggest challenge in building a community? Launching the adoption community, it had a very intersted and active membership that communicated through local support groups and a buddy scheme but not online with many members anti-internet and people in the organization who were skeptical.  Had to prove that it was as well as, not instead of. That it could help people find the organization and provide easier access for people with limited mobility or other limitations who couldn’t get to the offline activities.  Now as a membership they see it core to the organization and have a stake in how it develops.

Have you any tips about how to deal with bad apples? sometimes turning good is the most important thing. if people are complaining and talking about how things should be use it as an opportunity to explain why you did things the way you did and ask for more ideas about how to make things better. some people are trying to get attention, often the way around that is to give them a little attention and encourage them to behave the way you’d like – engage and help, but don’t give in to what they are doing.  sometimes there’s spammers and rule breakers, so make sure you explain the rules they are breaking and explain your actions to moderate their behavior – give 3 strikes and you’re out.

Have you experience with usefulness with combining writing communication with video communication? depends on the set up, whether you are building communities in ning or drupal or from scratch, building in the ability for users to include video and so on is easier. but, other forms of communication might not be appropriate to the community.

My current job title includes the term “Community Builder” and I get asked nearly every day just what that means: how do you build community? where is the community you want to build? how can I be a community builder online? Tips, secrets, ideas?!  I want to take a break from all the hard work building community (does that get a wink?) to share some of what I believe is the core of successful community building (on or offline).

“Community building” is about a lot of things.  Some people define it as organizing, especially around specific events, campaigns, legislation, or fundraising.  Others see it as specifically applying to online community spaces, like a social networking site.  I believe that community exists everywhere, really.  That the Internet is a huge community of people looking to connect with others like them to form smaller, more specific communities.  Those of us in positions to support those connections and collaborations are some of the luckiest people in the global network, acting as the email or Twitter post or blog reference that helps individuals make networked jumps to where they really want to be.

Gardening vs Landscaping

So, what’s the secret to successful community building? You guessed it: be a great gardener and avoid the temptation to landscape.  Here’s what that means:

• A gardener only takes out the weeds; a landscaper takes out everything that isn’t part of the design.  Think about the number of beautiful plants or trees that have sprung up in parks, your yard, or even out in nature that weren’t “intended” to be there but quickly grew to be a valuable part of the ecosystem.
• A gardener isn’t afraid to mix things around; a landscaper plans and plots and plants.  Sometimes you can’t know ahead of time just which plants will respond well or want more sun or shade so you need to be flexible.
• When a storm hits, a gardener can remain open to planting anew and rejuvenating others; a landscaper may just order more of the same.  Sometimes it takes a storm to realize which plants just weren’t going to make it or which were able to stick it out.
• When in doubt, a gardener will try more plants or kinds of plants and see which take root; a landscaper may default to less.  What about the plants you had never used before to know about and how they took root, flowered, and bolted up right before your eyes?

Clearly, this is all very metaphorical here with the back yard options.  It is, though, meant to paint a picture:

The Gardener creates an ecosystem open to change, available to new groups, and full of fresh opportunities to emerge naturally.  The approach is focused on organic collaboration and growth for the entire community.  The gardener is simply there to help, cultivate, and clear the weeds if/when they poke up.

The Landscaper creates an ecosystem that matches a preconceived design or pattern.  The approach is focused on executing a preconceived environment, regardless of how natural or organic it may be for the larger area.  The landscaper is there to ensure that everything stays just as planned.

Your Community

How can you apply these ideas to your community building? The first question I always ask myself when considering a new tool or functionality online, a new project or campaign, or even new partnerships or members is: “Is this something the Community wants or something I want?” It doesn’t matter what I want, really.  It matters what the Community wants.  And how do you know if or what they are interested in? ASK!  Be sure to always provide opportunities for your community members or those who come across your work to share their ideas about what they would like to see, how they’d like to connect with each other and how they would like to work with you.  And when considering anything new, ask for feedback and share your ideas and plans ahead of time.  You may be surprised, but your Community often has even better ideas than you!

What do you think? Do you have other ideas about successful community building? Have a great example or case study you want to share?  Looking forward to more!

You can read the full post and join the conversation on SSIR here.