tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.comments2009-09-18T18:36:02.231-07:00The Quiet Oneamyleehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05490190588540113650noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-53073134082691564352009-09-18T18:36:02.231-07:002009-09-18T18:36:02.231-07:00When everything is just a click away, what does ne...When everything is just a click away, what does neighborhood mean? Here in the physical world, it's the folks who are around you -- socio-economic more than anything else. In geocities it was self professed interest in a group. But no real physical space: you didn't have to walk past others in your neighborhood to go somewhere else. Physically, I run into folks at our neighborhood park who happen to live around here; in a virtual world those you run into can be from anywhere, and if you choose to lurk, you never "run into folks." I'm a lurker. But with a 5 year old a the park, I have often get pulled into interactions. I think the geocities idea didn't work out because there was no pulling folks into interactions -- it was too easy to be a lurker. (Which, I think you noted a while back, in not necessarily a bad thing).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-29244596714704110532009-09-18T06:42:33.381-07:002009-09-18T06:42:33.381-07:00Why didn't the research "neighborhood&quo...Why didn't the research "neighborhood" work out for you?amyleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05490190588540113650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-59617293999334002052009-09-17T20:19:43.045-07:002009-09-17T20:19:43.045-07:00I went hunting in the wayback machine for a snapsh...I went hunting in the wayback machine for a snapshot of my old geocities account. I think at one point I was in some form of research neighborhood before they gave up on the neighborhood idea. Now Yahoo says they are shutting it down completely 10/26/09; just another abandoned dot com boomtown.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-87379350721399255412009-07-24T09:58:01.820-07:002009-07-24T09:58:01.820-07:00*grin* The communities do recognize this. Makes me...*grin* The communities do recognize this. Makes me wonder why we jump through these hoops in the business world. <br /><br />I'll add one more to your note about "we need to continue". We are all guessing and reinventing wheels. That is a colossal waste of time, money and personal brain cycles. We need to share better what is working and what isn't. That's why I really appreciate the long comment you initially made and wish I had a bigger audience for my blog. *sigh* I understand the issues around propriety and the competitive nature of the businesses we work for but it just feels like such a waste.<br /><br />OK. Off my soap box. *wink*amyleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05490190588540113650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-39146489280995011152009-07-24T09:44:29.493-07:002009-07-24T09:44:29.493-07:00Let's be sure to add that they are often the m...Let's be sure to add that they are often the most visible caretaker of a company's brand or NPO's mission. Yes, Community Managers of all levels are not getting paid enough. <br /><br />We need to continue to improve ways to document and communicate our value with those who are stakeholders, decision makers and purse-string holders.<br /><br />(Oddly enough, communities themselves often recognize the value of having a team of hosts, referees, coaches and teachers with out justification.)Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01008184599324923996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-19952654581077991612009-07-23T11:29:06.237-07:002009-07-23T11:29:06.237-07:00Online community managers need to wear many hats, ...Online community managers need to wear many hats, don't they? Not only are they running a technically complex web presence, you are acting as party host, referee, psychologist, motivational coach, behaviorist, statistician, teacher, and you have to constantly invent new ways to prove their worth. Community managers don't get paid enough. Seriously.amyleehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05490190588540113650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-55057490997961181692009-07-23T10:25:14.007-07:002009-07-23T10:25:14.007-07:00Thanks for writing your thoughts on lurkers. I agr...Thanks for writing your thoughts on lurkers. I agree with much of what you say on the points that participation does not always fulfill a community's goals, may actually direct effort away from those goals and that many community hosts (managers, stakeholder and decision makers) grab at it because it's pretty concrete.<br /><br />My view is that tracking contributions is one of many measures that can help support an online community if it's kept in check by, as you say, having realistic expectations about contributions. Benchmarking is very important because that participation rate can be influenced by many factors such as who the community members are, the size of the community, the tenure of the community (how long have they been together) and even the intent of the community (information, support, collaboration). Much like a heartbeat, contribution rates can be a good measure of ill health. Too little and the community may have trouble sustaining, too high and it may be burning itself out.<br /><br />Moving beyond participation metrics, I would add overall website segments. I operated in the dark for years about the relation of the community to the rest of my (former) nonprofit site. According to participation measures, the community accounted for less than 1% of over all site usage. However, when I found out we could segment the web stats into those who did or didn't visit the community portion, we could see there were a very significant portion of the site visitors who were lurking on the community portion. To the tune of 40-50% of overall site use. Clearly, "participation" was not limited to posting a contribution to the community.<br /><br />We also tried to survey those who did not submit contributions and found some anecdotal evidence of people who had were loyal readers of the community forum and cited the information and indirect support happening in the forum as contributing to their goals. So again, explicit participation in a community can have a strong influencing effect on those who read.<br /><br />And moving beyond concrete measures, I strongly advocate breaking down the difficult intangibles such as "quality of life" in to chunks that have a better chance of being measured. For example, at the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation our intangible was "life long success". We developed a model of change that said if people can get research-based information, reduce their feelings of isolation, change their attitudes about success, and take action to improve their lives, then they would be on their way toward life-long success. Sure our model might be wrong, but that's why we have lots of organizations and businesses taking different approaches. Regardless, this gave me a change to track (qualitatively) a set of success metrics separate from community health metrics. There was still pressure to improve participation rates, but I was able to teach decision makers that too much participation could undermine some of our goals.Scotthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01008184599324923996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708315063639020267.post-89739173354228825922009-04-23T15:00:00.000-07:002009-04-23T15:00:00.000-07:00This is incredibly well point. Life, and a job. A ...This is incredibly well point. Life, and a job. A job that allows a full life. Thanks for the reminder.Katehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15155653296574874739noreply@blogger.com