Creating Virtual Communities

Please turn to page 6.

social networking. Virtual worlds.

Online communities. Not long

ago, these existed exclusively in people’s personal lives.

Now, the phenomenon is making waves in the business

world as well.

As an anthropologist, I know that most people seek

places where they can connect with other people.

I spent a year with a company called Linden Lab,

studying the virtual world they launched in 2003,

Second Life, and its effect on its creators and users.

What I learned has implications for businesses as well

as individual participants.

If you aren’t familiar with virtual communities, someone

you know is. In Second Life and other such worlds, you

act through a virtual representative, or avatar, to create

any type of life you desire. The beauty is that everyone

begins effectively equal, with greatly reduced obstacles

of time, space, and physical ability. For some time,

businesses have known the value of a Web presence for

consumers, but the real power of virtual communities

lies in connecting employees. This can be as simple as

a company wiki or blog site, or it may mean a virtual

world, bringing far-fl ung teams together to collaborate

on projects.

THE TRUST-BUILDING ADVANTAGEIf you’re thinking that communicating online or

through an avatar isn’t “authentic,” look at the history of

communication. At fi rst, people thought the telephone

was impersonal and peculiar. It’s all about perspective,

about making spaces

meaningful. If you can

express yourself clearly

and keep a persistent

identity in that space, you

are authentic, as will be the

relationships you form there.

In virtual spaces and through online games, people

can experiment. Their actions aren’t consequence-

free, but the stakes are reconfi gured to value failure.

volume 4 issue 2 autumn 2009

Opportunities Abound in Virtual Communities | The Changing Workplace: That Gap is Technological | Plus a visual tool you can use now!

Outside Expert

Thomas MalabyAssociate Professor of Anthropology University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

w!

Creating Virtual Communitieswww.watercoolernewsletter.com

The real power of virtual communities lies in

connecting employees.

Virtual Communitiesin Businesses

n to page 6.

p

ence-

ailure.

networking. Virtual worlds.

Online communities. Not long

ago, these existed exclusively in people’s personal lives.

lies in connecting employees. This can be as simple as

a company wiki or blog site, or it may mean a virtual

world, bringing far-fl ung teams together to collaborate

Creating Virtual Communities2

today, it’s not unusual

to be part of a

work team that’s scattered not just

across a building, but across the world.

That’s why online communities are

becoming the optimal way for people

to connect and communicate. Yes, it’s

a bit intimidating, but there’s also

a great deal of value.

The drive for online communities is

a natural extension of how people

choose to spend their free

time. Today’s workers don’t

want to read manuals or listen

to presentations. They

want quick snippets of

information that are

easily digestible. Time

is precious and share of

mind is hard to capture.

Think of all the information that

touches you every day. People spend

so much time on Facebook because

there’s always something new. We

need to make this happen in the

workplace, to make people want to

visit our websites. We want it to be

our new “water cooler.”

On a brand I worked on previously,

we developed a virtual world for

our employees. As part of the

development team, I found many

benefi ts, including ease in training

thousands of people at the same

time. We conveyed the new training,

our new look and feel, and our core

proposition for every hotel at the

same time – which would have been

impossible in person. It was cost-

effective, fast, and fun.

Opportunities Aboundin Virtual Communities

Industry Perspective

Hannah Kahn Director, Global Brand ManagementHotel Indigo®

THE BENEFITSIn a “virtual world,” communication is peer-to-peer, tends to be nonjudgmental, and inspires honesty. Unlike company intranets with blogs from executives and perhaps a calendar or announcements, a virtual community offers a level playing fi eld where everyone can air opinions and ideas. It’s a great way to get the best of people, providing a sense of equality.

There is tremendous opportunity for grass-roots sharing of best practices. People question processes and better ways to do things.

Someone may say, “I know we were trained to do it this way, but here’s a twist that really works well for us.”

People can retrain themselves or even explore training in a fi eld other than their own. It’s a great way

for employees to develop themselves, pump up their portfolio, and increase their chances for promotion and possibly a bigger paycheck.

It’s also a good way to compare what’s happening locally with what’s going on in other locations. An

idea that works great in New York may work equally well in Hong Kong. Another benefi t is that a virtual community may attract new employees and set you up as a hip, forward-thinking company to work for.

Of course, there’s a chance that someone might spread inaccurate information or say something negative. But we’ve found that this self-corrects. If a mis-statement is made, someone else usually points it out. If something negative is posted, another person mentions other ways to look at the situation. It is a true conversation of ideas.

GETTING YOUR VIRTUAL COMMUNITY STARTED Set clear objectives; without them, it will fail. In the community I helped

to build, our goals were communication, training, and best-practice sharing. Find a business partner with the expertise to bring your ideas to life. Think

of your target users and what they need and want. Keep it fresh. Constantly provide new content, new options, new ways to

get involved. Teaching and encouraging users to generate content is the best approach to make any e-community come to life.

Find a way to draw people in. Get them hooked, and then harness the energy to solve other problems, share methods and tips, and forge strong teams within your company.

Hannah is responsible for designing guest experiences for Hotel Indigo, a branded boutique offering of InterContinental Hotels Group.

www.watercoolernewsletter.com 3

have you felt the shift at

your workplace?

Things are changing. Some people blame the discomfort

on mixing four generations with four worldviews. I think

it’s more honest to sort differences by technological

comfort. That “technology wedge” between Millennials

and other generations is simply about comfort levels

and expectations. And that’s natural. All generations

have brought new technologies into the workplace and

changed the way we work, from the telephone a few

decades ago to social networking applications today.

What is different today is that changes are

occurring faster. It took 38 years for

radio to acquire 50 million users, and

only three years for Facebook to

reach twice that number. The rate of

change feels scary, but change is here, and

we can get in the way of it or channel it

to make our businesses better.

THREE SHIFTSIn looking at this rapid technology

evolution, we need to be aware of three

shifts that impact how we work and

communicate with one another.

1. The Work-to-Home/

Home-to-Work Shift

Until recently, workers were exposed to new

technology at work, and then migrated it into their

homes – personal computers, for example. Instead of

IT departments guiding workers, employees are now

leading the way. Their home experiences are setting

the agenda for what’s expected at work. The iPhone

now has over 50,000 applications and Facebook has

over 300 million users worldwide.

The most relevant question from a corporate use

standpoint is when these technologies reach a tipping

point and become essential in your workplace for

productivity advantage. For its fi rst two years,

Facebook was a must for 18-to-24-year-olds – not a big

concern for the corporate world. But about a year ago,

it reached a tipping point and became ubiquitous across

all generations. The age boundaries

are gone for social networks. At 92,

actor Kirk Douglas communicates

with his fans via MySpace. When

a technology cuts across all

generations, you know it’s ready for

the workplace.

2. The User-Generated

Content Shift

Another tipping-point trend

is user-generated content –

information created by end

users (consumers and employees). We all

rely on Amazon reader reviews and Trip Advisor

recommendations. We often put more credence into

information that is user-generated than from formal

news sources. From a consumer standpoint, what

we deem authentic and how we send and receive

The Changing Workplace:That Gap is Technological

Point of View

Rich BerensPresident and Chief Operating Offi cerRoot Learning

Please turn to page 7.


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This Root Learning Map® visual is a product of Root Learning® Inc., Sylvania, OH 43560 www.rootlearning.com

Try this with your team!


dy foral Wave?

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I wonder how thisprocess works in our

Denver office…

I miss myFacebook.

The Watercooler_volume4_Issue2_autumn2009_101509 ©2009

This leader has a major challenge. The “digital wave” is washing over him and he may not be prepared.

Do you see yourself or your company in this picture? These questions may help you and your team to

determine whether you’re ready for what’s ahead.

1. Look at the three images at the left of the picture, representing user-generated content such as

blogs and wikis, rich media like YouTube, and social networking. What expectations have these

technologies created for us as consumers in how we communicate and connect with each other?

2. Think specifi cally about blogs or wikis. How are you or members of your team currently using

them as consumers?

3. Now, consider rich media sites like YouTube or multimedia news sites. Which ones do you access,

and what have you come to expect in how the information is presented?

4. What about social networking sites like Facebook? How do you currently use them, and what is

the benefi t in connecting with friends and family compared to how you communicated before?

5. All these technologies are riding the mainstream technology wave – they have been widely added

by most demographics in day-to-day consumer use. At the right of the picture, we see that these

technologies are getting limited play so far in corporate environments. Why do you think that is?

6. Knowing that the three types of technologies we mentioned now have widespread common

adoption, let’s brainstorm about where each might provide the greatest business impact for us.

Current Consumer Benefi t Possible Business Benefi t

Blogs/Wikis

Rich Media

Social

Networking

7. Given your initial brainstorm, what are the top two or three applications that could both make sense

for your organization and bring you the greatest business benefi t?


Because virtual communities save costs, there is less baggage attached to failure, and this leads to building trust.

Anthropologists know that trust is built from very small acts, like simply allowing someone else to say or do

something. In Second Life, this may mean moving one’s avatar out of the way of another who may be speaking.

Even in virtual communities, trust is built from the possibility of failure, but also because the scope for social action

is broad enough that people are inspired to do little things that make others comfortable.

THE ENGAGEMENT FACTORUnfortunately, many companies view social networking as kind of “anti-institutional.” For people to want to

participate, people need to see their virtual world as a place where they could say what they say after work

over drinks. This is the part that concerns business leaders, who see social networking sites as ungovernable.

For corporate virtual communities to be meaningful, businesses will have to give up some control. The desire

to regulate information and employees’ comments could seriously get in the way. It would be marvelous if the

corporate world felt less compelled to govern their employees’ social networks.

THE RETURN ON RETURNINGThe key is to get people into the habit of returning to the virtual

community day after day. People are attracted to online games

because they have uncertain outcomes, and they can interact in ways

that affect those outcomes. Games command our attention because

we want to see what happens next.

In games that require partners (or colleagues), there is a shared objective for building interaction and trust. Without

objectives, the site may look nice, but people will have no reason to go there. The goal is to make people want to

work together, and as they do, they create a framework for social interaction.

Clever companies use this pull to get people to do work for free. For example, Google has an “image game.” All

of their text is searchable, but images are almost impossible to fi nd easily. Google invented a game where users are

paired with someone, somewhere in the world. With your virtual partner, you look at the same image and give it

a tag name. If your tag names match, you get points. This gives you the incentive to not just invent your labels, but

to choose those that most people would use to search for the image. So people have fun and

compete, and Google gets a list of usable search tags for images.

Now, think how something like this would work in your own business, pairing colleagues

to work virtually in a way that they’re familiar with and enjoy. You may fi nd it well worth

exploring.

Thomas Malaby is the author of Making Virtual Worlds: Linden Lab and Second Life (Cornell

University Press, 2009). Contact Thomas at http://thomasmalaby.com.

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information is very close to a tipping point. Companies

like Intel and others already use it for signifi cant

business benefi t. For organizations, the question is,

“How can we harness user-generated content to share

best practices and communication so we can take

advantage of the technology that our employees

now expect?”

3. The Rich Media Quality Shift

You may have seen a story on the

band Journey and its search for a

new lead singer to replace the

legendary Steve Perry. As

the band agonized over

traditional talent searches,

one of them discovered

their new singer on a

video on YouTube. Arnel

Pineda, a 40-year-old homeless

man from the Philippines, had posted his

spot-on rendition of a Steve Perry vocal. (For a

more detailed story, go to: http://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=89_2UivtEhs.) The band solved its problem

in a way that would never have been possible without

new technology. Imagine using this kind of method to

fi nd your own “lead singer” for your critical projects at

the right time – using technology!

The point is that rich video-based media is becoming

a standard we all use and expect on a daily basis to

learn and share information. We can now convey

the emotion and passion of our product or service

to employees and customers in a way that can’t be

matched by any traditional media. Rich media has

reached a tipping point, but we are not very savvy at

using it yet in the corporate world to engage

our employees in the business better.

All three trends have hit

a tipping point and are

entering your corporate

culture whether you want

them to or not. If you channel

these trends, you can create

greater engagement and business

productivity for your company.

In 2009, Rich partnered with Procter &

Gamble to host a summit on “Changing How

We Change.” Leaders from various industries focused their

experiences on new ways to think about change. In 2008,

Rich was appointed by the Governor of Ohio to serve on

the state’s Workforce Advisory Board.

SOCIAL NETWORKS and BLOGS are the 4th most

popular online activity, and member communities are visited

by 67% of the global online population. Nielsen Online

FACEBOOK was the fourth most

visited website in June. Techcrunch

LINKEDIN has 7.7 million unique monthly visitors. Adage

The average MYSPACE user now spends 4.4 hours

on the site every month. Comscore via Techncrunch

TWITTER had 4.43 million unique visitors

in December 2008. Mashable/Compete Tech

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5470 Main StreetSylvania, OH 43560

We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual

threads from one to another that creates something.

– Sandra Day O’Connor

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ASTD TechKnowledge, January 27–29, 2010, Las Vegas, tk09.astd.org.

Social Networking Conference, January 28–29, 2010, Miami Beach Convention Center, www.socialnetworkingexpo.com.

SHRM Annual Conference & Exposition, June 27–30, 2010, San Diego, www.shrm.org.

Root Learning 2010 Webinar Series – Information and registration links coming soon.

The next issue of the Watercooler will be published in January 2010!

Creating Virtual Communities

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