Full Circle Associates

My last post was on the ground, in-the-flow practical stuff of online community management in response to Chris Brogan’s great post, On Managing A Community . This one climbs up to meta-ville a bit and asks a couple of questions.

Are we talking about communities, or are we embarking on the era of network facilitation?
If you read between the lines and through the comments on Chris’s blog I think he has begun to tease out some of the differences between community and network management! (I’ll come back to that word “management.”) Read through his goals which I think are different than what we have come to expect for what I’ll call “traditional online community management.” In the past this has been about the inward set of processes around hosting, moderation and facilitation of web based discussion communities - large or small. He speaks of outreach, of reputation of an organization in the world, and of mechanisms of learn from and with groups of people and even the wider world. It is an outward looking role, not inward. It is about spawning connections, not keeping existing connections organized.

This is not your mother’s discussion board, sweetheart!

When we move to the network, a couple of things happen. The notion of managing becomes even more of an illusion than managing that herd of cats called “community.” (By community, I mean a bounded set of individuals who care about something and who know they are members and interact with each other over time.)

Instead we are talking about scanning for things important for our organizations - conversations about us, niches or needs we can fill, feedback and suggestions for improving what we do. It is filtering and redirecting those messages to where they can do good. It is a little bit like listening to the universe.

Instead of managing conflict or spammers in a walled community, we are seeking to make connections between people that advance our organization’s learning and goals. That includes between disgruntled people and the people who might address that problem, between ideas, links and content to people who might use them, and between communities that exist within the humus of the network garden.

Instead of spawning or archiving threads, we are tagging and remixing. Instead of inviting in or kicking out members, we are mapping the network of relationships, looking for where to respond, and where to catalyze action.

These are not the list of community management skills we have come to know since the first big upswing in online communities in the mid 1990’s. We have moved to from community to network…. what is the word?

If we are talking about communities, are we really talking about managers?
I don’t think it is management in the traditional sense, in the sense of control and mold (or even “facilipulate” - manipulate+facilitate!). It is about sensing, scanning, filtering and connecting. And, it is about learning. Facilitating learning. Living the learning and creating the next iteration of that learning. It is about stewarding technology as wave upon wave of new tools crashes upon our organizations.

It is about weaving between the community and the network.

What the heck would this job be called? Which organizations have the foresight to invest in it — and realize that those who help them weave their organizations in and out of the networks will benefit most from those networks? If we were looking for this person, what skills would they show up with? What would their traces across the internet look like?

photo credit: CaseyLessard
Chris Brogan has a great post today on online community management - a must read if you have or are considering an online community in your business or organization. On Managing A Community .

I have two “chunks” I’d like to contribute to this conversation/stream of posts/comments. First relates directly to Chris’ observations about community managers. That is the content of Part 1. Check the next post for a more “meta” reflection in Part 2.

Skills, Experience and Qualities of a “community manager”
1. On the practical side, I would add the following things I’d look for in a candidate (Chris didn’t write about this, but it is on my mind, so what the heck!)

• Fast, accurate and quality reading/writing skills - I always recommend a timed reading/writing test that involves looking at multiple bits of information (posts, etc.), seeing the patterns of those posts then composing a response.
• Ability to think globally, not just in a linear manner. Community is non-linear. A good community manager must be able to skip around, see patterns, scan the whole and then discern if and where to intervene in the system. People who have to go from a, to b, to c often struggle with this and can’t do it fast enough. And alas, speed keeps coming into the picture. (Ah, i still dream of Slow Community.).
• Good at multimembership or meaningfully belonging to a number of communities. A community manager is a bridge - finding the opportunities to connect in and out of the community to both build the community and carry it’s ideas/impact outside of the community. So they should be active on other community sites (as noted by Chris suggesting they have accounts on various key systems.)
• Head and heart. Community requires the emotional intelligence from the heart side and the analytical/strategic and content skills from the head side. I can’t stress enough that this needs to be BOTH, not OR!
• Social network mapping and analysis skills. Today we are not often working in the confines of boundaried communities (see Post 2) so being able to see and understand the larger network is critical.

Adding to Chris’s section on Strategy

• Understand our community’s relationship to other communities and networks in our domain. In other words, watch for connections!

Adding to Chris’s section on Reporting

• I like that Chris framed this as “in my organization.” Reporting structure needs to reflect who can champion the community manager AND, more importantly, steward relationships with other parts of the organization because rarely is an organization’s community important to just one functional area. Again, connections!

Adding to Chris’s section on Measurement

• Quantity and quality of network relationships to key strategic people/communities/other networks.
• Where the person is doing facilitation within a bounded community (traditional), clarity and quantification of the managers appropriate role in the community over time. For example, if you are looking to build internal member capacity to manage their own communities, what evidence do you see that the community manager is reducing her/his visible participation and evidence of members taking up key community facilitation activities? Where that person is to be the public “face” of an organization, the strategy and thus measurement would be quite different.

My second point is about the context - communities — and the word — managers. And I think I need to make it in a separate post as it is quite different and much more meta. I appreciated the tactical, practical quality of Chris’s post, so I wanted to respond in kind. So see you in the next post!
orld?

This is the second in my latest series of online facilitation method tips and mini-podcasts. John Smith asked me to write up the practice some of us have been nurturing on the KM4DevWiki to encourage summarizing and harvesting of learnings from key community conversations in our email list on to a wiki. The podcast can be found here.

There are often amazing threads on email lists and web based discussions. Often they get lost due to the tyranny of recency over relevancy. We remember what we last read. How many times have you heard people say “hey, we discussed that before… where IS that conversation?” Some tools make it easy to search within message, but then you have to reconstruct a thread. There may have had subject line changes, interruptions, etc. It is hard work. That’s why it is useful think about practices to pull out useful stuff so it can provide wider and easier benefit.

One practice of harvesting learnings from text based discussions (in email or web forums) started as a small FAQ (frequently asked questions) project a small group of use did a couple of years ago as part of the KM4Dev community. KM4Dev is a global community of practice interested in knowledge management and knowledge sharing in international development.

We initially intended to create FAQ’s out of key discussions to answer what we thought were some of the “big questions” that often came up in the community. You can read about the project at the following links.

• FAQIntro - about the FAQ project
• Community Knowledge - what the FAQ project turned in to.
• FAQ Template - the template use - which is now simpler than our earlier versions.
• FAQ Team Meeting Notes - our FAQ team telephone meeting notes
• FAQtory Process Observations - our observations and reflections on doing this project
• FAQ Project After Action Review
• Community Questions and Comments - community feedback.

What we discovered was that often something wasn’t simply a response to a question, so the FAQ format started to limit us. We moved into harvesting what we called “Community Knowledge.” This is the basis of the technique I know use regularly.

Now, on the the technique. (Did I say these were going to be short? I guess I goofed on that!)

1. Role model the harvesting behavior. Our initial FAQs gave people the chance to experience discussion summaries. But the next step was to role model it around current discussions. At first we would notice a “hot thread,” summarize it then post the wiki url back to the email list.
   • Templates can make it easier/more comfortable for people new to summarization and/or wikis.
   • Cross promote the wiki on the list to keep it in the community “line of sight.”
2. Ask others to try the behavior. Next we started asking people to create and post their own summaries of discussion threads that they started.
   • asking in a private email is friendlier, but sometimes the public request can add some useful “pressure.”
3. Time the request well. Usually we made the request for summarization after we saw a thread really get going — and hopefully near the end of the thread.
   • I have made the mistake of suggesting that the thread be summarized too soon and people took that as a “stop talking” signal.
4. Expect resistance. (And I’m tempted to say “resistance is futile, but that’s not really true!) Initially people did not summarize. So I would set up a wiki page for them, send them the url and another small request. (I think I started signing my emails from “wikipest.”) Some people would then summarize and post to the wiki, and some would send me the summary to post. That was fine.
   • Reminders are often useful. I do wonder if I annoyed some times…
5. Encourage those who adopt the practice. After about a year, others started recommending a summaries to starters of hot threads. So the initial part of the practice was being picked up by others. More people were creating pages, but it was still a very limited group.
   • Don’t expect miracles
   • Do thank those wonderful souls who will do this important community work.
6. Make the value visible. Last year we had the need to review our technical platforms and lo and behold, the wiki was getting more page views that the community’s older, established content management based site. This validated that people were finding and in some way, interested in what we had harvested. I believe this external validation helped motivate and maintain the practice.
   • Share stories of use
   • Make pageview data available
   • If the wiki has been useful beyond the community, get the other users to send a thank you as well.
7. Reduce barriers and support from the side. Some of us still have to go in and link pages to the index page.
   • We have had to require registration for the wiki due to wiki-spam, which creates some friction and overhead - it is not as easy as I wish it were.
   • The wiki still needs a lot of overall attention to make things easier to find. (That is on my to do list - and has been for a long time. )

All in all, the practice is valued. We are making our knowledge visible and available to the wider world and inviting them to help improve it. There are 76 entries. The entries on knowledge sharing tools and methods have been spread and reused by members’ parent organizations. Value has been amplified. I think it was worth it!

For more on harvesting:

• The Art of Hosting (paper .dco)

I work a lot inside of communities of one sort or another and they often have their own insider language. You know, jargon. People complain that jargon is exclusionary and it sure can be. But it is also useful short hand within a community and can convey succinctly something with specific meaning. The challenge for us is using that language either outside our communities or with intent to exclude.

But dang, it can be useful. Here is a great example from travel guru/insider Joe Brancatelli who does a lovely decoding for us outsiders. This time it is about talking to gate agents at the airport.

One example: When you don’t see your plane at the gate, don’t ask the agent if the flight is on time. Ask, “Where’s the equipment?” That will force the agent to go to the computer and find out where your aircraft is and when it will actually arrive. If the plane is already at the gate, ask, “When are we scheduled to push back?” Looking for an upgrade? Don’t blindly inquire about your chances. Ask, “How are the loads today?” The agent will tell you how many seats are empty and your number on the upgrade wait list.

What kind of insider language do you use? How do you interpret it for others?

Amazing chocolate airplane and photo by Stevepreneur on Flickr

In lieu of a Monday Video, I am going out of character and posting a Monday Joke. I am not known for either my love of or telling of jokes. But this one is a keeper.

There has been a humorous thread on the Online Facilitation list this past week, started by the wise and witty Rosanna Tarsiero. You can see the original trigger post here: Message: How many list members does it takes to change a light bulb?. Read the responses to see the additions!

How many list members does it take to change a light bulb?

One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed.

Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.

Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

Seven more to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

Five to flame the spell checkers.

Three to correct spelling/grammar flames.

Six to argue over whether it’s “lightbulb” or “light bulb” … another six to condemn those six as stupid.

Fifteen to claim experience in the lighting industry and give the correct spelling.

Nineteen to post that this group is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb (or light bulb) forum.

Eleven to defend the posting to the group saying that we all use light bulbs and there fore the posts are relevant to this group.

Thirty six to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty.

Seven to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

Four to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL.

Three to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group.

Thirteen to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add “Me too.”

Five to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

Four to say “didn’t we go through this already a short time ago?”

Thirteen to say “do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs.”

Three to tell a funny story about their show dog and a light bulb.

AND

One group lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now with something unrelated they found at snopes.com and start the thing all over again.

(Photo by jagoLIVE)

Last week I wrote briefly about the recent Forrester report on building online communities for marketing. Jeremiah Owyang followed up with me and gave me a copy of the report to read. House painting derailed my intent to read it last week and and post my thoughts, but a few quiet hours before Northern Voice in my room up here in Vancouver BC finally gives me the opportunity to reflect on the report.

First, it is a very nice compilation of solid, basic advice on building commercially oriented communities. There isn’t anything particularly unique about the content. It is common sense you can find by combing through what is offered on the net. As usual, the value is in the compilation. But here is where I have to confess. I have read VERY few analyst reports. I work in the non profit world where such products are rarely affordable. I think I had this fantasy idea of what they would be like. I expected some secret sauce. Maybe I know online communities so well that I forget that this stuff is NOT basic knowledge. So I have to wonder about the market for analysts reports. Clearly I am naive!

That said, here are the things that struck me as highs and lows of the report.

Highs:

• It is succinct. Something I am terrible at!
• It focuses on the community members and their needs - be in service to your community
• It offers sound advice for both resourcing a community and being clear on the goals and how they might be tracked. (I’d suggest linking to Beth Kanter’s great stuff on ROI. I need to find the links)
• Solid advice on community management (very happy to see this validated)
• A good attempt to frame community planning in terms of community activity needs rather than from a technology position.
• I was THRILLED to see the advice to make sure you don’t get your community data locked into a platform. This is really important and a lot of people miss this one.

Some of my critiques:

• As I mentioned in my previous blog post, the image about community growth does not give an accurate picture of community life cycle. Communities ebb and flow. Membership turns over. Communities do not grow out and out. It is more like a recursive spiral. Networks, however, can bring life into communities and nurture the emergence of new communities. They are far more scalable than communities, but harder to both measure and “manage.” Which leads me to my next point.
• The report doesn’t fully address or distinguish this very interesting intersection of communities and networks. There is one mention of “a group within an existing social networking site” but this is a huge sweet spot. I suspect most commercial endeavors really want to foster both a network and the communities that form within it. (I define communities as a bounded set of people interacting with each other - not just with content - around some shared purpose over time. So one time use does not a community member make! ) If I were exploring an “online community” strategy for my company, I would not do it without a network strategy as well. I could prattle on about this forever, but I can’t miss the party tonight…
• This raises the issue of identity, which wasn’t present in the report. Identity is a tough topic for an intro piece, but in the end, people define themselves by their identity as an individual (how they show up in a community) and as a member of a community (I am a member of the X community.) There is mention of profile tools, which help manifest identity, but not about how community hosts can nurture a sense of individual and group identity in a community. Identity is a core aspect of brand loyalty. So some attention to how identity shows up and can be nutured is a key strategy.
• From a design standpoint, I think this point is made, but I also think it could be stronger. You need to work with your developers to develop both the technical AND social architecture. Some tools for example, while they look like “conversation” tools, in practice they aren’t and thus don’t support a social conversational architecture, even if the vendor claims they do. There are some great developers who really understand social architecture and there are a bunch who think they do. This is a slippery slope/trap.
• Visual design is not mentioned. I used to dismiss this as secondary. Boy, was I wrong. Visual design that is appropriate to the target audience in critical. I learned this with http://www.shareyourstory.org. Visuals tie to identity, to navigation, and distinguish your community from the hundreds of others out there.
• How to work with “the competition.” Like I said, there are hundreds of other communities out there. Is your strategy to work with or fight against that dynamic? Do you make it easy for your members to move across their communities or do you want to be their central community? The latter is getting harder and harder to do. That’s why (and the report mentions this) thinking about working with a FaceBook strategy might make sense. Having multiple ways for your members to interact in your community that make it easy, while still maintaining enough distinct identity that they IDENTIFY with you.

All in all, it is very cool to be able to read and publicly critique the report. Jeremiah walks the talk of transparency and participating and listening to his network and communities. It is only a pity that the readers of the report may not see this practice in action. It could inform their community strategy as much, if not more, than reading the report. Because supporting online communities is not a formula. It is a practice. And practices have to be… well… practiced!

One of the practices that is part of my daily routine in communities and teams which use phone calls for meetings, is to take notes in a chat environment. I am really good at capturing notes so I’m often one of the note takers. I find typing increases my attentiveness and listening. Otherwise I’m prone to multitasking (email, checking twitter, writing blog posts. Should I admit I started writing this post while on a telecon?)

What I’ve noticed is that I’ve started to use the chat as back channel for voicing my own input and thoughts. This is more like the “backchannel” used by techie communities, particularly during face to face events. It is another layer of conversation that enables more than one person to “talk” at the same time. It is also useful in web meetings. Back channel, of course, has it’s risks too — fractured attention and a channel for mocking etc — but it is different from the note taking practice. One is a record, the other is part of the conversation. One represents the voices of others, the other IS the voices.

When I mix the two, I start wondering, am I compromising the note taking with my comments and input? Or am I adding richness and voice to the proceedings? Am I strengthening the conversation by adding text input and not interrupting, or am I undermining the speaker? All these are possible. So how does this inform my choices in my practice?

This duality reminds me of this “two hatted” feeling I get when I am in a facilitator role. I often feel I am not fully devoting myself to facilitation if I put my participant hat on. When I do, I do it explicitly. I am wondering, should I do that when I shift in chat, or does that just add more noise to a fast flowing chat?

What do you think?

Photo by Salvor

My friends John Smith and Shawn Callahan have put together a great resource for communities of practice, teams and other groups who use teleconferences calls. Conference call practices to generate knowledge and record learning

True to form in our informal network, Caren amplifies, and we continue to build on our old history .

Pretty cool…

In a couple of weeks I’ll be facilitating a multilingual event. We are using DGroups (hopefully - they are moving servers and it just got delayed a week into our week long event and I need a plan B) paired with a wiki. We want to keep it simple, we want to try and include multilingual participation and we don’t have any dedicated translation resources. So we need a community based solution.

The plan is we all start together (English, Spanish, French) in one email discussion thread to introduce ourselves. We are asking people to post their introduction in their home language on wikispaces page and then, we thought we’d translate them all. But darn, that is a huge task. So I poked around Google’s Widgets and thought I’d try their translation widget in my Wikispaces onlinefacilitation wiki. Wow, it worked pretty darn well!

After the first day of introductions, we’ll split into English, Spanish and French language groups for our topical discussions on Days 2-4. We will have each group do a quick summary each day on the wiki, which again, we can start translating with the Google widget, then improve upon it. (Sometimes the machine translations are pretty funny.) On the last two days, we’ll again work across languages in one list to close out, make meaning (in EVERY sense of the word) and have that experience of togetherness, even with our language gaps.

It will be an interesting experiment. I’m very excited about it. I’ll make sure to return here and report what we learn, plus the wiki will be available for others to review after the event.