Online Community Report

Online Community Unconference 2008: It's a Wrap

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-06-20T20:20:58Z

The Online Community Unconference was held this Wednesday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View.

How was it? In a word? AWESOME.

We had 250 participants from a diverse range of organizations, including Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Linden Lab, SeeqPod, Flickr, LinkedIn, Cisco, Sun and Current TV.

We had a jam packed day (started @ 8:30 and ran until 5:30). The energy was palpable. Check out the short video I shot below of folks reviewing the session grid shortly before session 1.

Over the course of the day, participants held over 50 sessions about community strategy, UX, management, member engagement and technology.

Session topics included:

How do we motivate empowered users to participate positively
Worst Case Scenerios - What to do when things go terribly wrong
The Numbers Behind Trust - The hidden numbers that govern group dynamics
Internationalizing content & community
Meet them where they are vs. If you build it they will come
Building the Collaboration Ecosystem - All components for community building success
Cross Networking Madness - How are niche communities using data portability
Community Management 101: How to get started in this big wide world
Web 2.0 Components to build B2B Collaborative Communities
Community Year One - Phases, Activities, Successes
Community Management 2.0 - Success & Failures
The platforms for community are SH*T. Discuss
Effective Ambassador programs
Pulling the plug - how/when/why?

My observations:

It's 2 days later, and I have to admit my head is still spinning. The quality of content and conversation was high, and there is still a lo of processing I need to do. My genreal impressions were:

This was the "Community Community" coming together. This was not an event where a few talking heads lectured the masses. This was a gathering of the tribes for those who manage communities and set community strategy on a daily basis.

The conversation has matured. There were far fewer folks that wanted to talk about community 101 this year as compared with last year's Unconference. Topics were fairly sophisticated and most of the direct feedback I got was that participants were pleased to discover the level of experience represented by the other participants.

The lack of standards is REALLY starting to hurt. Focus is (finally) beginning to shift from islands of communities to the larger community ecosystem. A general lack of standards around nomenclature, metrics, data schemas (including profile structure), profile accessibility and community UX (to raise just a few issues) is starting to come up as a real issue more often. I think we are finally mature enough as an industry to have the discussions as a body of practice (and contribute to and help direct discussions on tactical problems, like Data Portability).

The best resource about online communities is the community of practice. This statement is actually a common thread in all of Forum One Network's activities. We believe the best and most valuable source of information about building and growing healthy online communities is the body of practitioners.

We will be opening up the Unconference wiki in about a week, and will post highlights of the session notes. In the meantime, lot's of folks were twittering and blogging. I've posted highlights below.

Other Unconference highlights:
http://twemes.com/ocu2008
http://summize.com/search?q=ocu2008
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocu2008
http://www.grimwell.com/?p=211
http://talk.lithium.com/lithium/blog/article?blog.id=lithium&message.id=139#M139

PS: Tasty Snacks = Accomplished!

Online Community ROI and Revenue Techniques

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-06-10T05:17:30Z

We just released (for a limited time) the Online Community Revenue and ROI Techniques research report.

The study was conducted last fall as part of the Online Community Research Network, and explored issues around driving revenue via online communities.

I've included highlights below. I would encourage you to download the report for the full result set.

Question: Based on your experience, what are the most effective strategies and tactics for generating revenue from an online community?

Summary:
Respondents highlighted several common themes, including:

The need for Advertising:
“Provide a platform for peer-to-peer interaction that advertisers can participate in. By ensuring that advertising content is relevant to the content the community is generating (through tools like contextual matching), we’ve seen high ROI for advertising partners for
branding and lead generation campaigns.”

The need for Subscriptions:
“In our context (most-valued content available only to paying subscribers), we provide high-quality community features – including access to experts – as a privilege of subscribership.”

The fact that Advertising and Subscription are the leading strategies isn’t surprising, given that the model was pioneered with content-based sites. Several respondents mentioned that revenue generation from communities was indirect, particularly with regard to brand affinity and advertising.

Categorized write in answers follow -

Advertising:
• “Ad impressions - both visit duration and repeat visitors.”
• “Ad placement has resulted in game downloads from our casual games forums.”
• “Advertising on member content.”
• “Advertising sponsorships.”
• “Identifying quality community connections to leverage for advertising targeting insights.”
• “Provide a platform for peer-to-peer interaction that advertisers can participate in. By ensuring that advertising content is relevant to the content the community is generating (through tools like contextual matching), we've seen high ROI for advertising partners for branding and lead generation campaigns.”
• “Thought leadership, lead generation, customer retention are top indirect revenue sources. Customer councils, ad revenue and member dues are the most frequent direct sources.”
Advertising, Brand Loyalty, and Upgrade Program:
• “Unfortunately, a lot of revenue generated through business communities is indirect. Brand loyalty, hyper-affiliation, user acquisition are all difficult to translate into real dollars - although some companies try. Advertising is probably still the most effective way to monetize a community though - and the more targeted the ads, the better. For instance, having an "upgrade now" button on the forums for an outdated device, etc. A while ago, we piloted an upgrade program through the dell community that was quite successful.”
• “From our viewpoint, it's really a matter of having a more engaged readership. We're strictly an ad business at this point, and getting more people to come back to the site more often and see more pages is only good for us.”

Brand Loyalty:
• “Clients need to appreciate indirect value of promotion, brand awareness, and loyalty. We work with many of our clients to develop their platforms in a way that the software itself could be resold/white labeled for resale.”

Subscriptions & Brand Loyalty:
• “Allow a big upsell jump. A super-premium level allows people to express their loyalty even if the benefits are almost the same as at the next level.”
Subscriptions:
• “In our context (most-valued content available only to paying subscribers), provide high-quality community features, including access to experts, as a privilege of membership/subscribership.”
• “Providing a base platform for free, and charging for a premium version.”
• “Where the revenue is part of a premium service, as a cost of obtaining value from the community or directly tied to the identity and ego of the community member. For example, some kind of payment to access premium content or tools to take better advantage of the social space. Identity creation is a powerful motivator to which money is a means, not a barrier.”

Sponsors:
• “Incite users to create valuable content that can be sponsored by interested parties.”
• “We have not succeeded in having individuals pay directly; we have had more success in getting supporting institutions to pay for their employees' access.”

Create a Strong Community:
• “I do not believe you should be doing community to generate revenue. Our objective is to provide customers/users a way to Learn, Share, and Explore Technology.”
• “The communities don't generate revenue. They provide us a ‘lock-in’ to using our service by showing the value of the "network effect" on our platform. They provide a richer user experience for clients' members and therefore providing greater support during contract renewal negotiations.”
• “Create a strong community, then monetize the activity, versus monetizing the capabilities early on.”
• “Our focus is not on generating revenue directly. We focus on enabling community participants to develop solutions, find answers, and gain knowledge.”

Question: What advice would you have for a colleague that needs to introduce revenue generating activities to their online community?

Summary:
Recommendations varied from the respondents, but several themes emerged from the content:
• Understand Your Community: Know what your community values, and what they expect from you. Let your community guide you on what they value, what they will pay for, and what types of advertising they will tolerate.
• Add More Features/Value: Don’t put roadblocks in front of features that are necessary for a healthy community. Think of value-added services that compliment the core community feature set.
• Be Careful: Your community is a delicate ecosystem. Make sure you don’t abuse it.
• Combine Revenue Sources: which techniques like “Target Advertising” and “Premium Upselling”
• Quality over Quality: Focus on a few effective revenue streams rather than several moderately effective ones. 1 well placed ad vs. 7 throughout the interface.

Again, if you would like to see the full report, I would encourage you to download it here.

Next Community Roundtable: 6/10 @ Cyworld in SF

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-06-06T17:01:22Z

Are you a community manager or are you in charge of online community at your organization? Are you in the Bay Area?

If so, you might find the Online Community Roundtable of interest. This is a small netowrking group / event that meets regularly to discuss issues, opportunities and trends with online communities, and represents leading organizations (large and small).

Our next meeting is Tuesday, June 10 at Cyworld in SF. The session will last from 5:30 to 8:30. Please email me if you are interested.

Online Community Unconference: Help make it the biggest?

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-06-02T03:58:05Z

We have had an unbelievable response to the upcoming Online Community Unconference to be held June 18th. Registration numbers are just shy of 200 people, and we expect to hit 250. We think this will be the biggest event, this year, focused on online communities.

We have a wide range of organizations, industries and personalities coming, including: Adobe, Autodesk, BabyCenter, CafePress, Cisco, Civic Ventures, Comcast, Digg, eBay Research Labs, EdgiLabs, Flickr, Forrester Research, Google, Intuit, Jive Software, Link TV, LinkedIn, NetApp, Omidyar Network, O'Reilly Media, Six Apart, Social Edge, Sony Online Entertainment, SRI International, Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation, Sun, VMWare and YouTube.

To see the full list of folks coming, check out the registration page:
http://ocu2008.eventbrite.com

If you are charged with managing online communities or community strategy for your organization, this will be a fantastic event for you. The agenda is participant driven, the networking is fantastic, and the content will be fantastic.

Current Research: Online Community Marketing, Engagement and Growth

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-05-20T03:45:15Z

The Online Community Research Network is kicking off our next research project to study online community marketing, member engagement and growth strategies.

The goal of the study is to get direct feedback from community managers and strategists about:
- most effective ways to market their communities
- the definition of community member engagement
- best practices for fostering member engagement
- fostering community health and and driving growth

We have found that the best source of information about community best practice and strategy comes from the collective experience of real-world practitioners.

If you would like to participate in the study, please send me an email (bjohnston@forumone.com) with your contact info, your organization, and a link to, or description of the communities you manage or guide.

Mobile Social Networks: An Interview With Christine Perey

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-05-15T17:24:13Z

This month's Expert Interview is with Christine Perey, Analyst and freelance associate of Informa Telecoms & Media. Christine has a truly global view of the topic of mobile social networking as a former Bay Area resident who now resides in Switzerland. Christine was kind enough to spend time answering several questions about mobile-based social networking below and expands on some of the findings published in the new Informa Telecoms and Media report, Mobile Social Networking: Communities and Content on the Move.

Christine's Bio:
Christine Perey is an analyst with over 15 years experience in new and emerging multimedia communications markets. She is a freelance associate of Informa Telecoms & Media and a regular contributor to Informa’s Mobile Media information service.

Christine was the publisher and editor of The QuickTime Forum from 1991-1993 and the founder of The QuickTime Movie Festival. Christine is an invited speaker at industry events and serves on boards, panels and committees dedicated to the advancement of rich media experiences in business and consumer markets. In 2008 Informa Telecoms & Media published Mobile Social Networking: Community and Content on the Move, the most comprehensive market research report on mobile communities, researched and written by Christine. Previously, she authored the Personal Mobile Video Communications market research report published by Wainhouse Research in 2006.
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Q: What are the key differences you see in the mobile market in the states vs. Europe and Asia? Specifically, what are the key barriers to innovation in the US?

A: As far as the general topic of mobile services for consumers and businesses is concerned, there are dramatic regional differences. For example, in the US, most (somewhere over 90%) subscribers are under contract, meaning that they receive a bill every month for the services they used in the prior 30 days. When a service provider has a guaranteed revenue stream, they are less likely to innovate than when people are changing operators every week or month. Also, until relatively recently, both in-bound and out-bound calls were charged and the consumer or business contracted for a flat rate monthly plan based on the “block” of minutes. This affects how people use the phone service (it lowers the tendency to give out the mobile number, for example). By contrast, in European and Asian markets, pre-paid services and dialing party pays are the rules, not the exceptions. People “top up” the phone cards in their phones and can change carriers any day of the week. Many have two phones (with two different carriers). There’s a good article on the US cellular market performance with some of Analysis Research’s recent report findings. Here’s a snippet:

Analysis Research predicts that total annual subscriber growth in the US nationwide could fall to 2 percent a year by 2012, compared with the 11 percent to 14 percent growth posted by the three wireless carriers, AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA. But add in Sprint Nextel, which posted two consecutive quarters of subscriber losses, and the total annual subscriber growth last year for the top four carriers dropped to 9 percent – the slowest growth in a decade.

Technologies for mobile networks are not the same around the world. In the US and most of Latin and South America, the technology is based primarily (with the exception of AT&T Wirless/Cingular network and T-Mobile which are GSM/UMTS) on CDMA2000 which is a different radio technology than what was adopted and deployed in Western (and most of the Eastern block) Europe and Japan. In Europe and in many other parts of the world where advanced mobile services are offered, the technology is GSM which is the predecessor of WCDMA and the step up (to UMTS-3G) is relatively easy. There are proponents of these different technologies in each camp, for sure, but the bottom line is that due to the fact that these differences exist today, some mobile services are easier to build or deploy and will advance/develop more rapidly in some regions than others. In Europe, the UK and Italy are very advanced markets for mobile but for different reasons.

In Japan and Korea, mobile network services are the most advanced in the world, although the UK is not far behind. The competition among carriers and the penetration is high (exceeding one handset per person). Let’s look at Japan to compare and contrast the drivers of innovation, getting to your question about possible barriers to innovation in the US market. In Japan, NTT DoCoMo had the foresight in the mid- or late1990s to create an environment where a rich ecosystem for application developers could develop. In addition to having developer APIs and other tools, they provided a strong financial incentive for developers who created new services on their network. The developers in the i-Mode ecosystem would receive 20-30% of the revenues charged by the mobile operator for the services. The economic reward system is an important driver of innovation but the mobile network operators in the US market have adopted a strong “walled garden” approach where they and only they choose the services offered and if the successful services are provided by a third party, even then the “cut” of the action (revenues) which returns to the application developer is much lower (5-10%).

Despite the regional differences in regulation, markets, technologies and revenue sharing strategies, mobile communities are rapidly expanding in all parts of the world! I don’t have hard statistics to provide about on-deck and off-deck community tendency, but my impression is that mobile communities are making themselves easy to find and people are looking for them on their mobiles. Subscribers are looking for community services on the mobile operator’s deck as well as on the Mobile Web.

One of the barriers to subscribers using mobile communities is the cost of the data traffic. We’ve all heard and many have experienced the sticker shock when you download large files to a mobile handset or do a lot of surfing. In countries, such as Japan, Korea, UK and a few other European markets, there are flat-rate, all-you-can-eat data tariffs offered, which really reduce the barrier to using the mobile data services such as mobile communities. These are catching on and where available, User-Generated Content and mobile community services are high on the list of compelling reasons to take a flat rate data plan with your contract.

In addition to the mobile operator related regional differences, it is clear that there are also economic and societal differences which influence the rate of mobile community adoption. I’ll just look at a few of these non-operator factors to make my point. In many (most) economically less well developed regions of the world (outside the Western and Japanese economies), the mobile handset will be people’s first and only access to the Internet. The number of mobile phones has already exceeded the number of Web connected PCs. Increasingly these mobile phones are capable of accessing data services such as mobile communities. It’s not a question of choice, there just aren’t broadband Internet services available at affordable prices, or the PC in the home or office is shared among an entire family or group of people and you don’t want to have your community experience to be shared by your parents or siblings! The mobile handset personal experience is private and personalized and for some services, dating, for example—a very popular mobile community service—it’s not the type of experience you want to be doing in a living room with people around.

Like in web communities, there are strong cultural drivers which influence the appeal of communities and the feature popularity. In Asian markets, digital gifting is very popular. In Japan, people love to view UGC on their mobile, but are more conservative than Americans when creating their own content. In the US market, more subscribers are exhibitionists with their camera phones.

Q: Why doesn't having international players like T-Mobile help spur innovation and openness in the domestic US market?

A: T-Mobile has operated a very innovative service in the US market called MyFaves and after over a year of success it has expanded this service to Germany, the UK and elsewhere. Please read about this.
Mobile network operator groups, such as Hutchison Whampoa, Telefonica, Orange and Vodafone are very actively pursuing mobile community partnerships and view these services as important to their differentiation and competitive advantage both within a country and between geographies. Mobile communities, like their web cousins, need critical mass to continue growing. Having the ability to reach people on other networks in other regions is very valuable as some of the larger chat communities (e.g. Jumbuck and AirG) have shown.

One of the things we know that users are against is being in a walled garden in their community. Since mobile network operators can prevent the subscribers of other operator networks from joining a community, this can reduce the viral effect. If I’m an Orange customer and you are an O2 subscriber, we should still be able to be friends in the community. This is one of the great appeals to being off-deck or at the very least to join communities which are independently operated.

Q: What are the most interesting trends you are seeing in the mobile social networking space, and where (geographically) are they happening?

A: Mobile communities that offer people the ability to find others with like interests or to meet the numerous other human needs they have over the course of their days and lives, are blossoming. They are not copycats of web communities. Rather they are evolving in their own unique directions because people are taking risks and experimenting.

One of the things that we see increasingly is the desire on the part of community participants to take part in the mobile economy. In other words, those who are driving a lot of traffic for advertising or downloads want to get a fraction of the community host’s revenues. The systems which reward users with points or internal currencies are quickly going to link with recommendations. If I recommend that you go see or purchase something within our community and you trust me and follow that advice, then I should get a reward. Consumers will, over time, become the purveyors of micro-advertising campaigns. If I like a brand of hair product, computer or a sports team, and your transaction is influenced by my preferences, the community will track these social shopping patterns. This isn’t unique to the mobile communities. It is likely to be implemented and adopted well in mobile because the identity of the users is known to the platform provider based on a unique relationship they have with their phone and the mobile network operator.

In parallel with the evolution of communities, community features will be integrated to many if not all digital experiences both mobile and online. In the future, a social networking service will struggle to survive and attract new users simply by providing a social networking functionality as a core service. Instead, the features and functions will be offered as part of other services helping to drive personalization (through the data gathered), drive loyalty and to drive sales. At least this will be possible when a set of universally accepted community user feature-centered standards are developed, ratified and integrated into all future platforms.

Q: What key trends should online community and social media professionals pay attention to?

A: There is a great deal of uncertainty in this market, but the dimensions of the opportunity and the number and types of companies participating in the industry indicate that Mobile Social Networking is going to improve quickly and the service themes at its core – meeting the needs of people to stay in touch and feel that they belong to a group, to be entertained, to increase their productivity, to make a difference or have an impact – will persist over time.

In the future, entertainment will be very different as a result of mobile devices that enable sharing of digital content. According to Nokia’s research entitled A Glimpse of the Next Episode, published in December 2007, approximately 25% of the entertainment consumed by people in 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within ‘peer circles’ rather than produced and distributed by professional firms and studios. As a result of the popularity of online and mobile services like Mobile Social Networking, people will be accustomed to sharing their ‘instant’ social media with people they know as well as with people they have just met. In parallel, they will be learning to use the new tools at their disposal and developing collaborative media skills that will prove more rewarding and engaging than passively watching, reading or hearing the entertainment media produced by the impersonal entertainment powerhouses.

Future mobile devices will have better microphones, perhaps even microphone arrays combining multiple mobile devices into ad hoc sensor networks, for superior capture of sound, such as music and speech. In addition to sound and video, the mobile device will detect other users in the vicinity and, if they are known and part of a user’s community, applications will automatically embed tags associating faces and voices with names.

In some high-end devices, continuous measuring and monitoring of a user’s surroundings will detect when to begin and end a capture sequence, automatically zooming and focusing on items of interest. Since social media is rarely visible from inside a pocket or purse, mobile devices for social media capture will more likely be wearable, mounted on the user’s glasses or hat.

Systems in the mobile handset will permit the manual or automatic annotation of social media with information such as the place, the date and time, the objects in a scene and possibly more ‘human factor’ data such as the emotion of the user. By associating metadata at the time of the capture, the social media blending tools will have the ability to identify whose media was used in an edited composition, as well as to remove or hide people who do not wish to be identified or heard.

Q: What are your recommendations to those hosting and operating online communities?

A: Providers of community services aimed at the broadband-connected PC users are already using three of the four strategies available to them to expand the reach and use of their platforms to include mobile devices. The first strategy is to build a WAP version of the online services. Many add some value to the user by offering the option of receiving alerts when the platform detects community-relevant events via MT SMS and permit message management and viewing using the handset. Orkut and Facebook have used this strategy to date. MySpace also offers a WAP portal interface among its other strategies.

The benefit of this strategy is that it gets a rudimentary level of service deployed, so that the early adopters can at least browse and check their communities when mobile. So far, few of the online community providers using this strategy have enabled the rich social media features which the users of mobile handsets would most like to see. This is because the level of investment necessary for re-architecting the service platform for correct display and formatting is high, given the online community operator’s lack of historical concern with device management, and difficult to justify based on their existing banner ad revenue models. In the future, this strategy should persist and improve as online communities acquire the expertise necessary to build robust mobile community platforms or gateways to their existing services.

The second strategy is to port the online service features to a mobile operator’s proprietary service environment. This is essentially what MySpace did with Helio and, to a far lesser extent, with Vodafone. The service is offered on-deck and is easy for the user to log in, especially if an application or applet is installed. This strategy will also persist and involve pre-loaded applications on feature-rich handsets for mobile community services and social media.

The third strategy is partnering with a mobile community platform provider, such as InterCasting. Bebo and Piczo are among those choosing this strategy for their mobile service access. By using a mobile community platform and aggregation service, the online community reaches the largest number of potential registrants. As long as the community keeps its service brand and feature set, this is a sound strategy and significantly reduces the time-to-market. Other online communities are likely to follow this route when it is proven both from a technology integration and business model perspective.

The final strategy that has yet to be tested is for an online community provider to partner directly with a popular independent mobile community operator. The technologies for creating the gateway between the two will need to be proprietary but need not depend on a third party developer and could evolve at the speed that the two partners require. One of the reasons that this has not been properly explored yet is that mobile community service providers have not, to date, seen much advantage in this. However, as more broadband-connected PC users seek to access via mobile, the overlap between the two access types will drive the dialogue around potential partnerships.

To be successful with a mobile strategy, online communities will need to make a more significant investment to understand and meet the needs of mobile community participants than they have to date. Well-designed surveys, free trials such as that conducted by Sulake, the provider of Habbo Hotel, and the engagement with mobile community industry experts will all contribute to the education of the online community operator.

The most challenging domain for online community service providers to tackle will be in the area of revenue. As community participants have become accustomed to having access at no cost, they are reluctant to begin paying for equivalent or inferior services. As the mobile advertising market heats up and brands feel more comfortable with their community campaigns, this obstacle will gradually decline.

About PEREY Research & Consulting
PEREY Research & Consulting builds and leads senior management teams conducting and applying market research. Component and systems vendors, network operators and value added service providers rely on Perey Research to tap emerging multimedia technology trends, and to devise and implement new business development strategies in light of these trends.

OpenID: What will it take to make it mainstream?

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-05-06T04:19:36Z

I've been thinking about issues around user profile, data accessibility (because who wants to "port"), and universal login thelast couple of days as I prepare for a panel discussion about reputation at next week's Community 2.0 conference.

Specifically, I wanted to check in on the state of OpenID support around the social web. It seems there are glimmers of hope out there. Large companies like Yahoo and Microsoft have announced plans to support OpenID in various ways. That's part of the problem: lot's of talk, not much action.

From the TechCrunch artcile "Kevin Rose at FOWA: DIGG Adopts OpenID"

Kevin Rose, speaking here at the Future of Web Apps conference in London, just announced that Digg will adopt the OpenID decentralized digital identity platform. Don’t expect this right away though - adoption will begin “later this year” according to Rose.

That was FOWA 2007... as in February of 2007 (over 18 months ago). Unfortunately, it seems like OpenID gets more lip service than it does development resources for most sites.

AOL received kudos for their OpenID implementation, yet you still can't login in to AOL using an OpenID created by a "3rd Party" (read: not AOL.)

From AOL's login help file.

Can I log in to all AOL sites using my OpenID account?
We have additional work to do to support 3rd Party OpenIDs with the ability to log in and access AOL® Web properties. Once this work is done, you will be able to log in using your 3rd Party OpenID instead of creating an AOL® account. If a property is able to support OpenID you should see a tab with the OpenID logo as a log in option.

Isn't one of the key tenats of OpenID not to have a central authority managing IDs, so, more often than not you will be dealing with "3rd party generated IDs".

I don't claim to be an identity or data portability expert, but it seems there is work to be done both on the advocacy & user education side of OpenID, as well as on the implementation side.

On the positive side, there are several sites that fully support OpenID, and they can be found here:
https://www.myopenid.com/directory

Online Community Unconference: June 18th in Mountain View

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-30T04:01:06Z

The Online Community Unconference is coming together nicely. We are on for June 18th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. I expect about 250 folks to attend, and Kaliya Hamlin is helping us out with facilitation.

Current organizations attending include:

Autodesk, Inc.
BabyCenter
CafePress
Cisco
Civic Ventures
eBay Research Labs
EdgiLabs
Forrester Research
Google
Jive Software
Link TV
NetApp
Omidyar Network
Social Edge, A Program of the Skoll Foundation
SRI International
Starlight Starbright Children's Foundation

You can see the full list of org and people attending on the conference registration page here:
http://ocu2008.eventbrite.com

We expect the Unconference ot be an action packed day of networking and sharing about issues and best practices in the online community and social media space.

Identity and Data Sharing events in May

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-29T03:59:17Z

Friend of Forum One Networks, Kaliya Hamlin, is helping organize two important events about online identity and data sharing in May.

If you are thinking about online identity issues or data portability, these sessions will be valuable.

Internet Identity Workshop -
We are going into our 6th Conference it is amazing to see this all happen. With OpenID proliferating and the next generation of tools - card selectors etc. being innovated.
May 12-14 in Mountain View California.

The Data Sharing Summit,
May 15, at the Computer History Museum.
There is a lot of activity in this space - with the buzz around DataPortability.org (who we are collaborating with). Our first event in this space was in September 2007. Our purpose is to provide gathering spaces in which all parties interested in working on the challenge of data sharing can work together. We create the agenda the day it happens. It is about getting things done and figuring out the tough problems – there is no committee deciding who does or does not get to 'present' it is about breaking up and really diving in figuring out the solutions and building the consensus to get adoption.

Liveblogging and the back channel move to Twitter

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-22T04:41:05Z

One of the more interesting things that happened at the Online Community Business Forum last week didn't happen during a particular session, but rather, happened to several participants as the sessions of the first day went on. This is a real shift in behavior for these particular participants, as I generally see them using IRC as a back channel, and a few of them live blogging. Twitter was serving both purposes at the OCBF.

Both the conference back channel as well as the live-blogging mostly shifted to Twitter. You can check out the end result of the "Live Tweeting" here: http://twemes.com/ocbf2008

The main benefit I saw of using Twitter during the sessions was that it allowed (at least in a small way) lots of participants who weren't at the conference to participate.

The main downside is that it's really hard to pay attention, be present, and full process a conversation while cramming thoughts in to 140 characters per tweet.

In particular, Shara Karasic of Work.com did an awesome job of live tweeting (wow - did I just write live tweeting?) the event.

Thomas Kriese shares his thoughts about the live tweeting phenomenon here.

Do you Twitter? Follow me @billjohnston

Online Community Business Forum: Initial Report Back

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-18T22:41:27Z

First, apologies for the radio silence on the OC Report blog folks. The Online Community Business Forum was a huge success, but also a massive undertaking, and I took a couple of days to unplug from the socialmediosphere.

The good news? There is a ton of great content about the event online. I'll be posting highlights over the next few days, but I wanted to point folks to several great summaries of our opening sessions.

Two of the highlights of the conference for me were Alan Webber's opening remarks, and Rohit Barghava's session on "Thinking beyond your community site". I've been a huge fan of Alan's since becoming an avid reader of Fast Company in the late 90's. Alan did a great job of setting the tone for the Business Forum with his inspirational remarks about founding Fast Company with Bill Taylor in the early 90s. Alan was followed by Rohit Bhargava, who provided perspective on thinking beyond "your" community site, and gave case studies of community building using an ecosystem approach, including one that covered the launch of his new book "Personality Not Included."

Thomas Kriese of Omidyar Network did a fantastic job of capturing both sessions:

Alan Webber at Online Community Business Forum

Rohit Bhargava speaks at Online Community Business Forum

This was an exceptional two days of content, conversations and networking. Look for more content to follow as we get the presentations and notes added to the wiki. And I haven't even mentioned all the Gorbie sightings!

Online Community Business Forum: Final Agenda Set!

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-10T03:00:43Z

We are just a few days away from the Online Community Business Forum in Santa Fe, and the final agenda is in place. You will find the speaker and topic lineup below. In addition to the awesome lineup of speakers, we are planning a 1/2 day of Open Space on Tuesday afternoon.

We will be posting highlights from both days on the Online Community Report.

Monday, April 14th

Opening Comments
Alan Webber – Co-founding Editor of Fast Company

Session 1 / Thinking Beyond The Community Website
Sometimes the best thing you can do is to build your community by focusing instead on the ecosystem around it. Using two interactive case studies as a framework, this session will kick off the day by challenging your perceptions about your online community, and getting you to think beyond your own sandbox.
Session Lead: Rohit Bhargava – Senior Vice President Digital Strategy & Marketing, Ogilvy

Session 2 / The Business of Community
Case studies on planning, managing and articulating value from two leading brands.
Session Lead: Rachael Makool – Senior Director, Ebay
Session Lead: Mark Williams – Manager, Support Communities, Apple

Session 3 / Community Metrics & Reporting
An overview of online community metrics models, methodologies and techniques.
Session Lead: Matthew Lees , VP - Patricia Seybold Group
Session Lead: Robert Dell’Imagine, Director of Communities - VMWare

Session 4 / Break Out Sessions -

Breakout: Influencers & Evangelists
Session Lead: Alan Crosby, Director of Global Community Relations - Sony Online Entertainment

Breakout: Community Management Best Practices
Session Lead: Scott Moore, Social Media Strategist
Session Lead: Gail Ann Williams, Director of Communities - Salon.com / The Well

Breakout: Getting Beyond Not “Getting It”
Session Lead: Shara Karasic, Community Manager - Work.com

Session 5 / Real Value from Virtual Worlds
Many organizations and finding real value in virtual worlds. Gain perspective and hear case studies from 2 experts dealing in the business of virtual worlds and virtual goods.
Session Lead: Robin Harper, VP of Marketing and Community Development - Linden Lab
Session Lead: Ravi Mehta, VP, Publishing - Viximo

Tuesday, April 15th

Session 6 / Community Value & Revenue Techniques
A leading VC, and a leading social media expert give perspectives on the dimensions of value of online communities, as well as specific examples of revenue techniques.
Session Lead: David Silver, Author, ‘Smart Start-ups’
Session Lead: Aaron Strout, VP Social Media, Mzinga

Session 7: On the Horizon - Panel Discussion
Moderator: Kellie Parker, Online Community Manager – PC World/Mac Publishing
Panelist : Mary Furlong, CEO - Furlong and Associates
Panelist : Jenna Woodul, Chief Community Officer - LiveWorld

As I mentioned before, we are also going to have a mini Unconference On Tuesday afternoon will likely have about 12 sessions.

Greetings and Salutations!

nospam@example.com (Andrew Cohen) — 2008-04-09T20:25:22Z

Hello folks. I'm Andrew Cohen, a Project Director at Forum One Communications and a colleague of Bill Johnston, the dungeon master of this fine site.

I'll be contributing to this blog from time to time, bringing perspectives from the world of government, foundations, organizations, and (ahem) the east coast. I've been working with nonprofit organizations for about ten years and more increasingly providing guidance for organizations struggling use Facebook, MySpace and similar as well as set up and run their own communities.

I'm based in the Alexandria office of Forum One where I reside with my wife, two children (ages 6 and 2), and -- despite a steady stream of requests -- no pets yet.

I've met a few regular readers of this blog in New York City at the Online Communities Unconference East last February and the "Marketing and Online Communities" events last fall November 2007. I also run my own series of nonprofit-focused events called Web Executive Seminars at the National Press Club in Washington DC. I also contribute to Forum One's strategy blog "Influence."

That's more than enough about me. See you here again soon!

Why I <3 the Online Community Business Forum

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-04-03T03:58:10Z

The Online Community Business Forum is coming up in less than 2 weeks. We are holding the event at the lovely Inn & Spa at Loretto, and we have a great lineup of speakers and attendees.

The lineup for both days (april 14th and 15th) is strong.

We just confirmed this afternoon that Rohit Bhargava will be leading the opening session. Rohit is coming to Santa Fe fresh of the launch of his new book Personality Not Included, and will provide insight in to how social media and online communities are transforming business.

We also have great sessions planned, including:

Community Strategy: Rachael Makool – Senior Director, Ebay
Community Metrics & Reporting - Matthew Lees , VP , Patricia Seybold Group, Robert Dell’Imagine, VMWare
Support Communities - Mark Williams, Apple
Real Value from Virtual Worlds - Robin Harper, Linden Lab, Ravi Mehta, Viximo

Other speakers include Mary Furlong of Furlong and Associates, Aaron Strout of Mzinga (the Twitter Mastah!), Tessie Topol of MTV, and David Silver, Author of Smart Startups.

There will be several wine tasting receptions (of course) in and around Santa Fe. We actually had to fight with the Inn & Spa at Loretto to keep the Presidential Suite open, because Michael Gorbechav tried to bump us. No kidding.

And, as icing on the cake, we will have a mini Unconference on the afternoon of April 15th. The two days in Santa Fe promise to be packed with plenty of good session content and plenty of networking all held in a beautiful setting.

We do have a few seats left. If you are up for a last minute trip to lovely Santa Fe, please drop me a line: bjohnston@forumone.com

Online Community ROI: Models and Reporting

nospam@example.com (Bill Johnston) — 2008-03-28T17:35:15Z

Research about online community building and growth is central to the mission of Forum One Networks. The Online Community Research Network studies and publishes 6 times a year on topics that matter to those responsible for guiding online community and social media activities in their organization.

The Online Community ROI Models and Reporting research study was initiated in February of 2008. The study was created in order to investigate further into the ROI research that we conducted in the last half of 2007, and to gain insight into specifically how organizations were valuing and reporting on their online communities activities. Further, we wanted to gain insight into who the stakeholders were for ROI metrics, and how the reports were being received.

I will be blogging highlights of the report over the next few weeks. To obtain a full copy, as well as access to all of our other research, and the professional network of online community pros, please consider joining the Online Community Research Network.

We received approximately 150 completed surveys. Participants included large software companies, large community destination sites, niche community sites, platform providers and interactive marketing and advertising firms.

Q16: Which of the following quantitative and qualitative metrics are critical for communication ROI at your organization? (question 16 from the study)
The top-ranking metrics are: Traffic patterns & statistics; Community member engagement; Unique number of visitors; New Member Registrations; Member Satisfaction; and Product Feedback / R&D ideation.

The middle-ranking metrics are: Number of referrals to the community by members; WOM generated by community; transition of lurkers into active community members; impact of the community on revenue; organization or brand-mentions on other sites; and ratio of comments per post.

When looking at the data segmented by type of respondent organization, Traffic patterns, member engagement and unique community visitors scored consistently high.

Top-ranking Metrics

Middle-ranking Metrics

Lower-ranking Metrics

Q23: What were the 1-2 compelling sources of value from your community or social media efforts that you constantly communicate?

This question was intended to solicit the “elevator pitch” stats or metrics that community managers and strategists use internally to their organization to evangelize community and social media efforts. Answers ranged from the unique ability of online communities to create value to cost reduction of existing communication channels and corporate functions.

These were all write in answers. The main themes are as follows, with selected quotes inline below. (full report contains all write in data).

Community helps problem solve faster and more efficiently than Customer Support, saving our company time and money:
- "Customers are able to get faster response and answers to their problem utilizing the community over contacting Customer Support."
- “Knowledge share, and hence problem solving, is more efficient due to the community model.”
- “Using WebBoard is more efficient then email, telephones or fax. It saves us time and money and increases our ability to service the consumers in our sector.”
- “The ROI on employee time devoted to the forums far exceeds the returns on the usual support methods.” [Thus saving our organization time and money.]
Availability of information and content for specific areas of interest:
- “Expanded resources & knowledge for specific areas of interest and centralized resources.”
- “Niche communities, focused on specific areas of interest. Market leaders on-line and in print with high cross over traffic.”
- “You won't find this content anywhere else - written by our members to raise best practice within vendors.”
Increases site traffic / more engaged relationship with us:
- “The more we invest into community, the more organic traffic we get.”
- “Our members consume 49% more average page views per session every month than non-members.”
- “Our community sites get more than 3 times the engagement for solutions, capabilities and use case content than our traditional sites.”
- “Our forum generates more page views than the site itself.”
- “Our community traffic by far exceeds traffic to all traditional product areas.”
- “Increasing site traffic proves that there is an interest and demand from our customers to have a more open and engaged in relationship with us.”
- “Our programs on average engage participants for 45 minutes each time they visit.”
- “Time spent on the site is higher on forums pages than anywhere else on the site, indicating that community members are more engaged.”
- “Views of photo albums remain the most popular area of the community. Members may not wish to participate in discussions, but they do want to see photos of their events.”
- “An online discussion moderated by subject matter experts that followed an in-person event with the same moderators achieved the most participation of any attempts to engage our users.”
- “Our social media content generates more content and discussions off site, increasing our reach.”
- “The ability of our blogs to drive customer engagement and PR activity.”
Idea Creation / What we learn from members of the community:
- “Ideas for our books.”
- “It's all about what we learn from the developers through our community interactions.”
- “We will have the opportunity to get first hand feedback on products and ideas for improvements and enhancements.”
- “We discovered some problem areas in usage and service adoption that caused us to change our materials and strategy.”
- “We have been able to gather more than a thousand best practices/lessons learned in two years use.”
Lead Generation / Conversion:
- “Converting contacts, acquaintances, and other informal relationships into donor relationships.”
- “Converting contacts into activists and issue leaders.”
- “When we enlist our community members to represent us physically or virtually, our reach and conversion metrics dramatically increase.”
People are saving time / building skills by using our site:
- “In our Sourcing Professional Forum, procurement professionals are constantly sharing templates and best practices across organizations, bootstrapping their RFP effort, saving time and increasing value."
- “People creating and building productive relationships with people that help them improve their practice or do their work better.”
- “The National Board of Certified Teachers can share best teaching practices with ease never before possible.”
- "In our premium areas, customers are using online training and certification to manage global implementations, knocking down traditional barriers to skill building in an online, social learning setting."
- “Our users have access to every single college coach in the country. This is something no other site offers. Our site is always free to the users and they will never be charged. All of our competitors charge users to use their recruiting website.”
- “Our community members credit participation in our community with their increased skills in using our products.”
Build customer loyalty:
- “Anecdotal stories of knowledge sharing, connections made for business purposes and special access created through connecting members.”
- “Community members are more likely to volunteer their time, services, advice, and financial support than non-members.”
- “Employees who belong to the community almost never 'turn over'. They are consistently the best performers out in the stores.”
- “Offering a community to your clients where they can speak to you and each other significantly increases customer loyalty.”
- “More connected members spread the word and come back frequently.”
- "If you want to understand your stakeholders and develop the relationships, you have to think in communities."
- “Online dialogue creates a more open environment that deepens trust and team work throughout the organization.”
- “Our community has one of the highest net promoter scores for our brand of any corporate offering.”
- “Our members say that they like the site and related services - direct comprehension of value, esp. during account meetings.”
- “Research shows that customers in a community can have a sense of involvement with the company as long as we make sure they are heard and that involvement can lead to great loyalty.”
- “Our community members are actively engaged with the brand and don't hesitate to tell us what they like, and don't like. They feel a real sense of ownership of the brand.”
- “Our ability to personally communicate with future users of our product substantially influences their perception of our company.”
- “Increasing site traffic proves that there is an interest and demand from our customers to have a more open and engaged in relationship with us.”
Online community is growing our membership base:
- “In a climate where professional associations, and especially manufacturer associations, have struggled to maintain members, we have consistently and significantly increased in membership year-over-year for the past 5 years. This growth directly coincides with our implementation of online community services. Over 85% of our members find our member-only e-mail discussion groups alone to be worth the price of annual membership.”
- “95% of our members would recommend membership in our online community to other parents raising children with food allergies.”
- “Our blog has increased community participation by 80% over the past year.”
- “We boast membership in 125+ countries.”
- “We have 8000 registered members across 95% of local authorities.”
- “We have doubled the size of our community membership in the last 6 months. 2 years ago, only 34% of our Company's upsells and renewals were also members of the Community. In 2007, 75% of our upsells and renewals were Community members.”
- “We have the largest active user community in the marketplace.”

Again, to get access to the full report, as well as other research and the professional online community network, please check out the OCRN site.