May 11, 2015
My background
Teachers and students
Software developers
Casual game players
My current job
I am currently hiring for • Customer Service Reps ($14-16/hr)• Associate Community Manager
(mid-$40s / year)
Race car simulation game
Winners of online races win nice prizes, i.e. trip to California to drive real race cars
Humanize interactions
• People come for content but stay for relationships
• Address people by name or handle
• Sign notes with your name
• Provide robust profiles to help people relate:• Allow individuals to share about themselves
free-form• Have system keep track of updates: posts,
badges, etc• Highlight fresh or good profiles
Communications
• Be open, honest and transparent• If you don’t know or can’t share, simply say
so• Squirrely answers erode trust• Don’t delete negative comments; instead
respond with the best spin possible
• Create feedback loops• Let the members have lots of influence in
determining the community roadmap• Always be grateful for constructive criticism
Make it easy for newcomers
• Provide a “Visitor’s Center” • Name is not important; could be
“Getting Started” or “About us”• Include the following:
• Frequently Asked Questions• A guided tour• Membership requirements• Help/Search• Press releases• Links to notable people
Volunteer leaders
• Promote certain members to be volunteer leaders; choose them carefully
• Delineate their responsibilities
• Provide training if need be
• Provide perqs for participating:• SWAG, early access to software, connections to
key people, private group for discussion• Distinction online (icon with their screen name)
• Monitor their continuing participation
Roles within the community
• Greeter – welcome newcomers
• Host – facilitate the core activities
• Content expert – provide compelling posts for other members
• Editor – evaluate content
• Cops – remove people/content that violate the community standards
• Teacher – teach members to become leaders
• Events Coordinator – plan and run events
• Support – answer questions about the system
• Manager – evaluate and support leadersFrom “Community Building” by Amy Jo Kim
Stages of participation
• Visitors: people without a persistent identity in the community
Membership Ritual: letter, gift, event
• Novices: new members who need to learn the ropes and be introduced into the community life
• Regulars: established members that are comfortably participating in community life
Leadership Ritual: selection, training, graduation
• Leaders: volunteers, contractors and staff that keep the community running
• Elders: long established regulars and leaders who share their knowledge, and pass along the culture
From “Community Building” by Amy Jo Kim
Encouraging participation
• Seed discussion• Don’t open empty forums• People are reluctant to go first• People need examples to follow
• Create some dummy questions/answers• If you can find helpful cohorts, great• Else create dummy accounts for just this
purpose• Provide variety of use cases
Encouraging more conversation
• Answer in open ended ways• Even if you are providing a definitive
answer, say “has this worked for other people”
• Ask questions
• Don’t’ respond immediately; allow the community to answer• Exception: if bad info has already been
posted, respond quickly to avoid people chasing bad info
Designing products via community
• Throughout the design/build cycle, get feedback from customers
• The better your product reflects customer desires, the more successful it will be
• Examples:• Simple: Christmas theme at Mindjolt• More elaborate: continual back and forth
between development manager and community at IBM
Analytics trumps community input
Regardless of input, Shard 5 tests so much better, so it will be used going forward
Bonus question: Twitter
• “LinkedIn is dead; the way to search for work is by Twitter”
• Huh?