Jim Cashel and I hosted the "State of Online Community" webinar this morning.

The webinar is based on the research we've conducted as part of the Online Community Research Network, and highlights 10 key trends from 2008, as well as taking a peak into emerging trends for 2009. This webcast and slide deck represent a large body of work from the Forum One Networks team, as reflects input from over 2000 online community professionals from all over the world.

You can see an archive of the webcast (with audio and slides, requires short registration) here:
The State of Online Community: 2008 Archive

The slides from the webcast are here:



A .pdf of the slides can be found here.

What did I miss? What should we focus on next year? Just want to argue about something? Leave a comment or email me

I’ve been working with my research team at Forum One to put together a short survey about the effects of the economic downturn on online community budgets and strategy in the near term, as well as the effects on 2009 planning. If you currently run an online community for your organization, I would **love** to have your input.

The survey can be found here:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=aIL0VzBCp03sc6az_2bu8t1A_3d_3d

If you decide to participate, there are few things to note:
• All participants will receive a copy of the final (aggregate) report.
• All data will be processed and compiled in aggregate. Data will not be reviewed or presented in a personally (or company) identifiable way.
• All participants are entered in to a drawing for 1 of 10 $25 Starbucks coffee cards.

If you have any questions about the study, please feel free to contact me (bjohnston@forumone.com). We hope to close the survey portion of the study by December 12th.

We initiated the Online Community Culture study in October of 2008, as part of the ongoing research agenda of the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at the factors that influence online community culture, and the steps community managers and strategists take in cultivating, and in some cases influencing, a community’s culture. We had over 75 participants in the research, representing many sectors, including software, tech, traditional media, social media and online community, and non-profits. Respondents seniority skewed towards Manager (44%), Directors & VP's (12%).

Key Factors Establishing an Online Community's Culture
One key area we wanted to understand was the short list of factors that community managers thought were most important in establishing a communities culture. We asked: "What are the three most important factors in establishing and maintaining a community's culture?"

The top three responses (in order) were:

• Quality, up-to-date content
  
• Have a clear objective / value statement 11% (12)
  
• strong moderation / facilitation 12% (13) of the community site was a critical factor.

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Listen, and treat others as you'd expect to be treated. Be there - 24/7 coverage. Show gratitude to earn respect”
Director / Community Manager, Media Company

“Active moderation with a well informed host, participation at all levels of the organization and support by the executive level”
Director Internet Marketing, Tools/Service Provider

“Platform, (if you want the conversation to occur on a 1st party site, if not it may very well occur on a third party site), Recognition (supporting the achievements of the community members, and enabling through various interactions including events, content, and feedback interaction opportunities. Listening Mechanism (ensure that community members voices are heard)”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

“The community is open to all (even competitors. Speak your mind but respect everyone. Clear policies and guidelines dictate the rules/expectations of the community”
Social Media / Community Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“1 - Focus: Managing expectations from the outset as to what users can and cannot experience in the community 2 - Prompt response & closing the loop
3 - Rich & engaging content”
CEO, Online Community / Social Media Company

“1 - establish ground rules at the get go and enforce them even handedly 2 - respond to the evolution demands of a growing community by evolving your offering 3 - remember that you are not one of them, you are their advocate to the company and the company's advocate to them”
Senior Community Development Manager, Hardware/Software Company

“1- Always ensuring that the community comes before the brand behind it. 2 - Let the community create the culture and make tools and communications to enhance that, instead of trying to impose a culture. 3 - Prevent the community from going stale”
Online Community Coordinator, Non Profit Organization

“1) Providing differentiated and relevant tools, features, & content (why engage with 'product X' here, vs. anywhere else?) 2) Lower the barrier to participation / access as much as you reasonably can 3) Provide self-moderation tools”
Director, Online Marketing, Entertainment (Video Games)

Steps to Establish an Online Community's Culture
Another area we wanted to explore with this project was the set of key actions taken by community hosts to support the establishment of a community's culture.

We asked: ": What steps have you taken to establish a new community's culture?"

Respondents highlighted the following key actions:

• Recognizing positive participation
  
• Soliciting and Responding to member feedback
  
• Communicating with Members
  

Key quotes from the respondents:

“Active participation of internal staff - Reward programs for active participants - ongoing moderation - News and announcement on landing pages.”
Community Manager, Software Company

“For our upcoming community redesign, we are limiting the amount and importance of "standard" community features (friends, forums, "favorite books", etc.) and focusing more on making the resources, our organization’s knowledge and user's generated knowledge, as a visible and social part of the site. All articles and content can be rated and comment upon. Users will have access to a Yahoo Answers style tool. Users can contribute stories and best practices in a community blog. The "standard" functions are there to help make relationships made on these new functions easier to keep, but the knowledge and resources people create will be the most important part of the community.”
Online Community Coordinator, Non-Profit Organization

“Instituted simple but comprehensive rules and codes of practice. Engaged community members directly rather than leaving them to flail without response. Demonstrated that by following, new policies results happened.”
Community Development Manager, Hardware / Software Company

“Actively soliciting feedback from members. Publicly acknowledging and acting upon the feedback received. Clearly identifying desirable behavior as a model for others to embrace. Setting a positive example when posting as a member (not as a moderator).”
Analytics Country Manager, Agency

“1. Designed our primary social media platform to emphasize and reinforce our targeted audience -- business professionals interested in an exchange of information on business oriented topics. This includes, look and feel; community standards, user added content, involvement with other business oriented social networks. 2. Individual responses to feedback submitters, within one business day, from me or my team, providing information as well as our real names, e-mail addresses and office phone numbers.”
Director, User Participation, Media Company

“Listen, learn and adapt. It's important to remember that company's can participate in the community discussion, and provide a "the company's" perspective or view”
Community Program Manager, Software Company

Netting It Out
Based on synthesis of the respondents' answers, key activities and factors for establishing a desirable culture for an online community are generally:

Value Statement
Create a clear value statement for the community that includes all stakeholders (host and members). The host must offer a unique set of content, features, and access to personalities as part of the value statement. The value statement should be clearly communicated within the community overtly (via the code of conduct) and subtly through branding, user experience and moderation / management cues.

Clear Code of Conduct
A clear and concise code of conduct should be available on the community site, and should clearly describe the expected behavior of community members, and the consequences for behavior that is out of bounds.

Open Lines of Communication
The community host must be easily accessible, and responsive. As noted in the comments above, some organizations have an internal SLA (Service Level Agreement) for response times.

Host plays a visible (but different) role
Members of the host organization should play a visible role in the community. Being present, interacting with members and often times leading community initiatives or activities. It is important to note that the role of host is one of attending, not just participation. Just like the host of a good party doesn't just mingle, and good community host participates with intention, and keeps an eye on the overall mood of the community.

User Experience / Feature Set Should Be Tailored To Audience

If you subscribe to the design principals of the Bauhaus, then "form follows function". This means that, from the baseline information architecture of the community presence, all the way to feature selection and visual design, the community's online experience is shaped to be appropriate for the desired audience. A community designed for 3D artists working in the film industry (more visual, to share images) has a much different form factor than a site designed for application developers (more text-based, to share code samples).

Content
Quality, relevant and up to date content is key to many online communities. Unique content from the host organization is often one of the key "Why are we here" factors to attract community members. Ensuring that quality member content is highlighted on the community site (and elsewhere, if possible), helps with participation incentive and helps foster a sense of engagement.

Acknowledge Positive Contributions
Highlighting positive contributions and contributors helps encourage content contributions, as well as reinforce positive member behavior.

Create a "Welcoming" Culture
When new members are welcomed in to a community by the host or other community members, that member is more likely to come back, and to contribute.

For More Information

The full report "Online Community Culture: Establishing, Maintaining and Changing" (Published 11/08, 40pgs) is available to Online Community Research Network members, and includes additional information on:

• Factors that have a negative impact on culture
  
• Processes for collecting ideas, memes, and "stories" from members
  
• Managing external factors effecting culture
  
• Managing a negative culture
  

Many organizations are involved with online community building activities, but few consider implications of their online communities on making their business more "green", or even better, more sustainable.

The case can be made that online community building activities support the three key areas of Sustainable Development:

From the Wikipedia definition of Sustainable Development:

Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future.

... The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability.

While I don't propose that online communities can magically transform organizations into sustainability superstars, but I do think there is a case to be made that online communities can help support a more sustainable enterprise for many companies. Let's take a look at each constituent category that makes up sustainable development:

1. Environmental

As my colleague Jim Cashel pointed out in a post last year,

Online communities are green.

I believe that online community professionals should hook onto the "green" juggernaut, especially in three ways:

- Anyone involved with corporate green strategy should include an online community strategy;
- Anyone developing online community metrics should include carbon savings as an indicator;
- Anyone marketing online communities should speak to their "green" qualities.

I asked for examples (via Twitter) of communities focused on green and sustainable development issues, and John Kembel, CEO of HiveLive was kind enough to forward a couple of his favorite examples of Green / Sustainability communities:

See The Designers Accord -- just written up in FastCompany
(http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/100000-and-counting.html).
They just launched a community to start the conversation and to
promote sustainable design within the design community worldwide
(e.g., IDEO and others). Their website: http://designersaccord.org
and their brand new community: http://community.designersaccord.org

Another example:

Ryan Martens (CTO of Rally -- rallydev.com) is a strong proponent of
greening the software industry through Agile + Community. See
http://agilecommons.org/hives/6997a8ec6a/summary
E.g., using community to directly engage customers and involve them in
the software dev process rids companies of the 60% wasted development
in most apps (mostly because the conversation between product manager
and customer isn't tight enough). And they're doing lots of things as
a company in addition to promoting agile and using community.

2. Economic
There are a few obvious (and myriad not so obvious) economic benefits to firms engaging in community building activities, from the proven cost-reduction of support forums to the idea generation of innovation communities like My Starbuck Idea and Dell's Ideastorm. Online communities can be sources of tremendous value, and the value-creation happens in much more sustainable way (low environmental impact, source of value is easily replenished) than other processes like manufacturing of consumer goods.

3. Sociopolitical / Social Capital Development
The sociopolitical implications of online communities have inspired many an academic journal article, and the possible benefits range from a more transparent and representative government to supporting human rights worldwide. Online communities (and more generally, social media) allow for identity, sharing and connection at scales we haven't previously seen. As the world becomes smaller by being more connected, the connected individual (arguably) becomes more empowered. Specific examples of the sociopolitical implications of online communities range from social capital created and exchanged via Facebook, the mix of social and real capital that support the developing world on Kiva.org, or the potential for change that many hope for with the beginings of Change.gov .

It's Time to Consider Sustainability
The concept of thinking about online communities and social media through the lens of sustainable development is a nascent one, but given what is at stake, it's one who's time has come.

Quoting again from Jim's "Online Communities Are Green" post

We've always tried to cast our arguments for online communities in black and white. It's time to use a bit more green.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts, feedback and examples.

If you are interested in discussing this topic in person, as well as other issues related to sustainability and environmental concerns in the enterprise, please consider joining us for the Green Enterprise Unconference on December 3rd in Mountain View, CA.

The Marketing & Online Communities conference was held last Wednesday at the Tribeca Grand in New York. We had a fantastic lineup of folks representing top agencies, brand marketers and online communities. A few of the organizations that were in attendance:

Fleishman-Hillard, Digitas, Swirl, The Knot, Google, Business Week, BlogHer, iVillage, Trip Adivsor, and American Express.

The venue was fantastic. We were in the Grand Screening room at the Tribeca Grand for most of the day, which is a very posh 100+ person theater. The room was small enough to be comfortable and intimate, and supported the in-depth conversations among participants that strive for at our conferences.


Some of the key takeaways:

The Power of Conversation
Heather Gold kicked off the conference with her session "Designing for Conversation". Heather started the session by holding an informal conversation with a few folks in the front of the room, and scaling the dialog to the whole room in the course of the next 50 minutes. Her intention was to show that conversation leads to connection. Marc Sirkin thoughts about Heather's session:

Heather Gold was terrific (a bit like Sarah Silverman if you ask me). She's funny as hell and led a kickoff discussion. "Presentation as conversation" is what I wrote down.
During that same session, this quote popped for me as well: "Vulnerability leads to connection." How true! My experiences managing online communities prove this over and over again. I can be scary to allow yourself to be vulnerable in an online community, but it goes a long way to proving that you are an actual human being.

Definition of Community
The term "community" was obviously mentioned throughout the day, but depending on the speaker's context "community" was used to describe mass social media, private feedback panels, a customer base, and social site used to support a campaign (I'm sure there were other mentions as well). In his blog recap of the conference, Kevin Briody asks if we should get more sophisticated about community nomenclature

Should there be a more concrete distinction between “real” communities - long lasting with invested hosts and participants - vs “branded communities” - short term, advertising driven and product- or brand-centric communities? Also, what is the minimum amount of time that a “branded community” should exist for? CPG’s can run campaigns as short as 6 weeks, but the consensus seemed that 6 months was a standard minimum to push for.

Evolution of the Agency
Another thread that ran throughout the day was that agencies are feeling the push to develop their social media and community-building chops. Brad McCormick of Porter-Novelli went so far as to say that boundaries between advertising, PR and marketing are softening, and that there is an invetable convergence towards "digital". Bryan Person of Liveworld conducted several interviews for the conference, including the one with Brad McCormick below:




Additional Sources:

Mirc Sirkin's - Microsoft
http://www.mindnumbingthoughts.com/2008/11/marketing-and-communities-conference.html

Bryan Person - LiveWorld
http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog/Bryan-Persons-Blog/2000001553

Kevin Briody - Webjunction / OCLC
http://kevinbriody.net/2008/11/06/recollections-from-marketing-online-communities-2008/


Twitter stream from the event:
http://twemes.com/moc2008

We are pulling together the speaker's presentations, and we captured additional notes and video from the conference, which we are currently processing. Stay tuned for more great content!

Dear Online Community Report readers: a special Halloween treat! Bryan Person of LiveWorld conducted podcasts with two of our session leads for the upcoming Marketing & Online Communities conference.

In the podcasts below, Bryan interviews comic Heather Gold and co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Knot, Carley Roney. Though Heather and Carley appraoch marketing from differing perspectives, the concepts of authenticity, trust, and relationships are common threads throughout there interviews.

Heather Gold subvert.com gives her take on "conversation", and what it means for marketing to speak with a human voice.


[Right-click to download]

Carley Roney talks about The Knot's community, how advertising fits in the community, and the importance of word of mouth.


[Right-click to download]

We are now on a waiting list for the conference. If you would like to get on the list (the first 3-5 usually get in), please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

There is some last minute awesomeness coming together for next week's Marketing & Online Communities conference that I wanted to pass along.

In addition to the fantastic final(mostly) agenda I posted last Friday, we have added 3 new speakers to the M&OC lineup:
Joining Peter Friedman, CEO of LiveWorld, for the final panel "Integrating Customer Communities in to the Marketing Mix", will be:
Carley Roney – The Knot
Rich Lafauci, U.S. Managing Director of Technology, at Digitas
Margaret Clerkin, COO Mindshare Interaction

We also have many great organizations attending, including: Answers Corp, Business Week, Digitas, ExpoTV, Fleishman-Hillard, Google, IBM, Mashable, Media Bistro, Meetup, Microsoft, Networked Insights, Patricia Seybold Group, SolutionSet, TripAdvisor, WEGO Health, to name a few.

We still have a few seats left, so if you would like to participate in the event, please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

The tag for the event is #moc2008

We are just over a week away from the Marketing & Online Communities conference, which will be held November 5th at the Tribeca Grand in New York City. The event promises to be an informative and interactive discussion of the intersection of marketing and online communities. We still have a few seats left, so if you would like to participate in the event, please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

Our intention with holding the Marketing & Online Communities conference is to explore of the intersection of marketing and online communities. Marketing agencies and teams are playing a key role in the development of online communities, and more generally, in the use of social media. But, there are several key issues, including:

• Many marketing teams are still focused on quarterly-driven results and think in a campaign mentality, versus building long term relationships.


• Many community hosts are struggling with appropriate forms of marketing, and in developing appropriate engagement programs.


• Community members don't want to feel manipulated or interrupted in their community experiences, and they want to have conversations, as opposed to being "talked at" by brands.

We chose our topic and speaker lineup to highlight healthy attitudes and best practices in building relationships with online communities.

Our session and breakout topics, and session leads will include:

• Designing for Conversation
  Heather Gold, Subvert.com


• The Social Web: How Consumers and Brands are Connecting Online
  Elisa Camahort Page – BlogHer
  Kendra Bracken – Fleishman-Hillard
  


• Secrets of Successful Community Campaigns
  Heather Lutrell – 3jane / indieclick
  Belinda Lang – American Express
  


• Community Generated Media: Giving Customers a Voice and Companies Insight
  David Rubinstein - ExpoTV
  Michael Liefer - Swirl
  


• The Role of PR: "Public Relationships "
  Brad B McCormick – Porter Novelli
  


• Moderating Your Brand
  Mike Passcucci - Mzinga
  


• Brand Monitoring in A Web 2.0 World
  Steve Broback – Parnassus Group


• Integrating Customer Communities in to the Marketing Mix
  Peter Friedman, Moderator – LiveWorld
  



Again, if you would like to participate in the event, please register here: http://moc08.eventbrite.com .

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

The tag for the event is #moc2008

The seventh annual Online Community Summit was held October 9-10 in Sonoma, CA, at Ramekins culinary school. The beautiful Sonoma setting was the perfect backdrop for two days of in depth discussion about engaging and growing online communities.

Participants were senior practitioners and from a diverse set of industries. Companies represented included: AARP, BusinessWeek, Cisco, Consumers Union (Consumer Reports), Current TV, Ebay, iVillage, Logictech, Loopt, Salon.com, Sony, Yahoo and many more.

We cover a lot of ground in the two days of discussion, but to my mind, three key points stick out:

Value & Metrics
The conversation around dimensions of value of online communities seems to be getting more sophisticated. In general, it seems most organizations are comfortable with accepting that there is intrinsic value in community-building activities. Reporting on that value requires a mix of quantitative and qualitative data. The most successful community strategies include clear goals for the organizations community activities that tie back to larger organizational goals. Most teams aren't getting pressure to "justify the existence" of the online community, but rather, are getting pressure to provide more in depth analysis of the type of value that is being created with the community.


Metaphor: Beyond Destination to Ecosystem
Most community strategies that were discussed involved a more sophisticated engagement plan that went beyond a destination site, and included not only the destination site, but other independent community sites, key bloggers, mass social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Etc.) and even offline groups and events.

Mobile is Coming
If for no other reason than the shear adoption of mobile devices, mobile social networking will play a clear role in the industry soon. Not only are mobile devices deployed at scale, but the sophistication of the devices, and the networks that they run on, are getting faster and more sophisticated. A theme with many in the room at the Summit was about augmented their existing communities with a mobile version.



Blog & Podcast coverage:
We were blessed with several talented bloggers, podcasters and twitterers for this year's Summit, and as such, I have a lot of follow up content to point you to.

Aaron Strout and Jim Storer of Mzinga did several key interviews. Jim shares his thoughts, and has teh embedded interviews on his blog:
http://www.mzinga.com/en/Community/Blogs/Jim-Storer/Conversations-w-Mzinga-at-OCS08/

Bryan Person of LiveWorld has a nice summary post of the Summit, as well:
http://socialvoice.liveworld.com/blog-entry/Bryan-Persons-Blog/Recapping-2008-Online/1100000180

Brian also conducted a series of interviews:
• Chrystie Hill, director of community services for WebJunction.org.
• Kathy O'Sullivan, product manager of online community for the education team at Autodesk.
• Ron Casalotti, director of user participation at BusinessWeek.
• Christine Perey, market-research and business-development consultant for technology providers.

Chrystie Hill's of Web Junction shares her thoughts:
http://blog.webjunctionworks.org/index.php/2008/10/18/online-community-summit-2008/

Pictures of the Summit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/forumone/tags/ocs08

Twitter Stream:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ocs08