Voice of Community

An Interactive Gathering Does Not a Community Make

I’m currently on vacation at a fitness and health camp known as Fitness Ridge, in St. George in Southern Utah. It’s about 2 hours outside of Las Vegas, nestled between Zion and Bryce National Parks, a truly spectacular area.

 
 
I’m at Fitness Ridge with my wife, for a week’s extended workout consisting of a 6 to 8-mile hike every morning, followed by 6 hours in the gym and the pool every day, and all on 1200 calories per day (yes, it is possible!) Check it out if you’re interested at www.fitnessridge.com

So what does this have to do with community? Well, there are 70 people here bound together for at least a week, (some are staying several weeks), exercising and eating together with no possibility for escape from the compound. So, reaching back into my sociology degree days of many moons ago, I thought that I would don the anthropological invisibility cloaks of my revered mentors, Branislow Malinowski and Margaret Mead and, although we are most definitely not in New Guinea, and would observe the development of community in our week’s long gathering at the Ridge from my unique, embedded vantage point.

You would think that community would be running rampant here – closed environment, 70 people all here for one reason: to get fit and lose weight, and at least a week of shared common experiences - common goals, communal living, communal tiredness, but no – very little “community”. There are some isolated groups developing, some cliques, some guests that came as a group, a lot of one-on-one relationships and friendships forming, but no overwhelming sense of community. Why? Let’s look at what gives a sense of community and see what parallels there are here.

In a paper written in 1986 titles “Psychological Sense of Community”,McMillan and Chavez identify four essential aspects of the sense of community and why people join and stay in communities: membership, influence, integration and fulfillment of needs, and shared emotional connection.

Membership - a feeling that members have of belonging. In this particular group, there’s not a lot of kudos in being a member or wanting to be recognized as a member. Just the opposite: there’s some embarrassment and in some cases, shame about being here (although none is at all justified.) It’s like the commonly reported reactions of people going to support groups like  AA or ALANON – “What am I doing here? I’m nothing like and have nothing in common with these people!”

Influence - a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group. There is a lot of mutual support and empathy from people “who have been there”, but it’s not training or support in how to fix the problem. This group learns by being instructed and shown what to do by the trainers, and shown what to eat by the chef and the dieticians. We don’t learn a lot from each other than failures in the past, because unlike other communities especially communities of practice, we are not experts. So there is no training value from interaction between guests.

Integration and fulfillment of needs - a shared faith that members needs will be met. As indicated previously, because we are not experts, there is no expectation that our needs will be met by members of the community. We expect our needs to be met by the staff.

Shared emotional connection - a shared faith in their commitment to be together. Although this aspect refers to the emotional connection within the community, their “shared history”, there is a great emotional connection in terms of their shared experiences with health and food issues and the fact that although there are many different reasons that brought us here, that everybody here is here for the same reason: to be healthier and fitter, and to lose weight.

In addition there are several other barriers to community formation with this group:

Heterogeneity The heterogeneous nature of the guests makes it difficult to find someone exactly like you. We’re from all walks of life, different ages, at different stages in life, different educational backgrounds, different work experiences and very different life experiences. Apart from the desire to get healthy and be very supportive of each other, there’s very little that brings us together as one “community.”  And certainly not enough to keep us together afterwards – I tried unsuccessfully to form a Fitness Ridge Bay Area alums group (all those that had ever attended the camp who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area) but to no takers.
 
Individual activities: The activities, although conducted in groups, are all about the individual. It’s individual goals that are being satisfied – one wins private victories, one wins alone; we don’t win by all crossing the finishing line at the same time.

Moral of the story: a gathering, even a week’s-long gathering for a single purpose, an event, a conference, a summit, or whatever, even with a lot of interactivity, does not a community make. As community managers, user group leaders, and practitioners involved in community building, facilitation, and curation, or seeking to communicate with communities, we should not be content just because a lot of people show up. It takes care and the right ingredients to make a true, healthy, vibrant community.

Have you had similar experiences of groups where you thought you had a community but really didn’t?

Not All Evangelists are Created Equal

We often talk about the search for evangelists, the 1 in the 1-9-90 formula, and how hard it is to find them, maintain them, reward them, and keep them motivated, as if they were a single, uniform, type: the evangelist. The truth of the matter is, there are many different types of evangelist. 

And this was brought home to me a few days ago when I was re-reading The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, a book I find more quoted than read, (perhaps that’s the fate of all books, but I digress) and pondering his three social types of people: connectors, mavens, and salesmen, “who play a critical role in word-of-mouth epidemics that dictate our tastes and trends and fashions.”

Connectors: Connectors know lots of people. They are the people who given 100 names chosen at random from the Manhattan phone directory will know 90+ people with the same surname. They are the “handful of people with a truly extraordinary knack of making friends and acquaintances.” They are also important for not only the numbers they know but the importance of people they know. They manage to occupy many different worlds and subcultures and niches” whether it’s work, church, athletics, schools, PTAs, neighborhood groups, societies, professional associations, and so on. The ties do not have to be strong. Gladwell quotes Mark Granovetter’s law of weak ties for job searchers, where he found that people getting jobs most easily were the ones with the weakest but most extensive ties. You get more jobs through acquaintances, not so much through your close friends.

Mavens: Unlike Connectors who are people specialists, mavens are information specialists. The word means “one who accumulates knowledge” These are people who monitor store prices, “market mavens” and complain loudly and bitterly when 2 cents off really means 2 cents off a price that was artificially inflated to 4 cents the week before. Also, it’s not just the fact that mavens accumulate a lot of information, they also want to tell you about it – they take you shopping, they “distribute about 4 times as many coupons as other people”, and so on. Gladwell quotes Linda Price, marketing professor at Nebraska University, when she says “well over half of Americans know a maven, or somebody close to a maven’s description.” They are important because they know about things that most of us do not know. And they pass it on “because they want to help and they like to help.”

Salesmen: Salesmen have the skills “to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we’re hearing.” These are the people who can sell snow in the winter in Switzerland and ship coals to Newcastle. What makes a successful sales person successful is hard to define. It is often very subtle, it is often more non-verbal than verbal (which might indicate a lesser impact in online communities) relying greatly on body movement and facial expressions. It can also involve subtleties of dress, demeanor, and attitude.
In summary, mavens are the data banks; connectors are social glue, salesmen are the persuaders. If you think that this might be too theoretical, see the latest Groundswell blog from Forrester where they indicate who state that a minority of people generate 80% of what they call “influence impressions” or influence posts which are “blog posts, blog comments, discussion forum posts, and ratings and reviews. We estimate that people in the US create 1.64 billion influence posts every year. If around 150 people view each of these posts (a conservative estimate…), that’s another 250 billion-plus impressions.”

The point is that as community specialists, in our search for evangelists and in their nurture and care, we should not assume that we are dealing with a single type. For example, professionals, who don’t want anything to do with all that FaceBook stuff live in different communities, primarily communities of practice, defined as “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Etienne Wenger, Cultivating Communities of Practice). In a community of practice, an evangelist might be someone of a very different type. The evangelist in a community of practice is often the guru, the super-user, the expert, someone who by nature paradoxically, is often anything but social. They might not “know” a lot of people, but have something of the maven in them in that they seek out and gather information and like to help, but they are definitely not trying to sell you anything. As a community specialist, you should consider that there might be several personas that you should be seeking out that would be appropriate to help fulfill the goals of your specific community, and treat them uniquely. Do others spring to mind?

Virtual Events and Community

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding that increasingly I’m attending more events online. The move to virtual events and mixtures of physical and virtual events (hybrid events) as opposed to purely physical events had been gaining momentum in recent years. 

   
One need  only look at the attendance at Autodesk University (AU) last year to see why: approximately 5,000 attended the physical event in Las Vegas, but over 20,000 participated in AU Virtual, a combination of live streaming, pre- and post-recorded presentations, and on-demand sessions. In addition, over 100,000 customers are registered for AU Online, providing year round access to recordings of the sessions, key notes, presentations and meeting notes, video interviews at the show and other content.

  
The original main driving forces behind the growth of virtual events were economic and sustainability factors. Holding a virtual event means no travel, for attendees or presenters, no accommodation or entertainment expenses. Holding a virtual event also means reduced carbon footprint for attendees, event holders, and vendors alike – no airline fuel, no booths, no onsite marketing collateral, no physical handouts.Now however, more positive considerations are driving the move to and emphasis on virtual. Reach as seen in the previous examples, is an obvious factor, and both geographically and in terms of then numbers and variety of customers. Also, reach in terms of the duration of the event is greatly expanded. Before the event, whether physical or virtual or a hybrid event, sample sessions and presentations, preparatory and other background material, can be provided. After the event, all presentations, sessions and session materials, can be made available year round.

While I was attending a virtual event last week, I got to thinking about the relationships between the physical and the virtual, and where does community fit in. Although an event is not community, physical attendance at events has always been a great stimulus for community: you get to share in that common excitement of being at the event itself and all the social activities that go along with that experience. You get to meet old colleagues and attendees from previous and other events. You also get to finally meet and put a face to an email address that has been your only connection with colleagues and peers sometimes for many years.

So how does community compete in a virtual event world? I would suggest that community does very well in indeed, and in many cases adds to and exceeds the experience of the physical event.

Prior to the event, community is instrumental in creating buzz around the event, witness the number of “Are you going?”, “I’m getting ready”, “On my way” tweets and community posts on community sites and in discussion forums before the event.

During the event, it’s much easier now to find colleagues like yourself online through effective profiles provided at sign-in that help you discover fellow professionals, just like yourself. You know how difficult it is to make contact with similarly-minded people at conferences, hall-by-hall, session-by-session, table-by-table. With online matching and searching tools, that experience is transformed. During sessions, you can tweet with your colleagues about the presentation adding you own unique commentary and experiences to the topic making it a far more valuable experience that simply being a passive recipient of what it being presented. (Finally, there is a reason to tweet!) And after the session, that collation of commentaries adds still further to the value of the event whether you’re there physically, there virtually, or accessing that body of work long after the hoopla has died down.

Finally of course, the availability of all the sessions online, the conversations between old and new friends, the interaction on the discussion boards on topics raised, ensures that community continues the experience and value of the event  long after the event has closed.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that community is not only a critical driver and an integral part of virtual events, community is a 24/7/365 virtual event. What say you?

And if you want to check out the latest in virtual from Autodesk, sign up for the Seize the Opportunity Autodesk Virtual Event on April 19. 

 
   
Right on your desktop, attend sessions on the lastest Autodesk 2011 products such as:

• See the Difference: Lynn Allen's AutoCAD 2011 Tips & Techniques
• Go Beyond 3D to Digital Prototyping with Autodesk Inventor 2011
• Getting to Building Information Modeling (BIM)
• On the Road to Success: Autodesk Solutions for Roads and Highways
• Take Control with AutoCAD LT 2011 Software

Seize the Opportunity!

Community-based Product Design

One of the great benefits of being part of a community is that when you participate, you are demonstrating that you matter. You matter to Autodesk and more importantly, you matter to your fellow community members. Nowhere is that more evident is when you get to contribute to, and participate in, the development of the products themselves.

In the past, you’ve been able to influence the design of products through channels like  the LABs community, you can Suggest a Feature, and you can participate in the Beta Feedback program, Now, not only can you influence the design of products, your contributions can be an integral part of the product, instantaneously, through Wiki Help.

 
  
Check out the new Wiki Help for Autodesk products. Contribute your content and your way of doing things in a real-world, professional environment. You'll be adding to the collective intelligence of the community and helping millions of users; and it will be your images and words that people will be reading. How cool is that?

So start contributing by adding your videos, tutorials, comments, ratings, tags, tips, instructions, and links.  Be recognized as the expert. Check it out!