Extending your developer network through Web 2.0 online communities

ISV and Developer Relations

© 2006 IBM Corporation

Extending your developer network through Web 2.0 online communities

Rawn Shah ([email protected])Community Program ManagerIBM developerWorks


© 2006 IBM Corporation2

Community: another means to draw a population

In this talk:

– How is community different than a content approach?

– What is Web 2.0 and how is it relevant?

– What is important in a community?

– What approach do I take to selecting Web 2.0 tools?

– Is it all based on the tools I pick?



What is a community?

GeneralPopulation

Audience (SpecializedPopulation)

SocialNetwork

Community

Organization

Specific Interests

Direct Interaction

Group Identity

Formalized hierarchy & defined budgetsIncreasing

Levels of Focus,Formalization,and Shared

Identity

Increasing Levels of Involvement, Organization,

and ComplexityIndividuals

Individuals w/ Common Interests

Informal, Ad-hoc, or Transitory groups

Formal groups w/Voluntary members

FormalTeams w/ Assigned members

Organizationally-led Content sites

Organizationally-led Content sites w/

community interactions

Mixed Content & Community sites

Community-led sites

Social networking sites



The three software patterns driving Web 2.0

• User-driven adoption

• Value on demand• Low cost of entry• Public

infrastructure• Tight feedback

loop between providers and consumers

Software as aSERVICE

Service, not software

COMMUNITYmechanisms • Recommendations

• Social networking features

• Tagging• User comments• Community rights

managementUser-to-user communications

Users add value

SIMPLEuser interface

and dataservices

• Responsive UIs (AJAX)• Feeds (Atom, RSS)• Simple extensions• Mashups (REST APIs)

Easy to use, easy to remix

Web 2.0

Source: based on IBM Lotus material



Web 2.0 != Community

If you can’t share, it ain’t there– Look for Web 2.0 tools that go beyond each user’s own personalization and customization only, into

community mechanisms

No freebies for just tossing up a site unattended– Simply having a forum, chat, or other Web 2.0 service on your site does not automatically give you

a community; although you might still get lucky

No input between members != community– Just having comments != community, but it is a step in the right direction

Creating one-off interactions != community– 10000 feedback messages to your site admin without any ongoing conversation between

members != community– Web 2.0 applications make it easier to link and create relationships, but maintaining relationships is

what builds a community

Anonymity or relative obscurity devalues community – Membership should count and be valued over anonymous contributions

There is hope:– Web 2.0 sites can evolve into communities given the right conditions and tools.



What is your community?

Important to ask– Do you have a single community? A collection of separate communities (a multi-community)? A single top-level

community w/ many subcommunities? Etc.– Do you have a community based on forums? In a wiki? in chatrooms? In some mix of those?– Do you have a community of developers? Business partners? a general audience? Some or all of those?– Can you take your community beyond your site? Is your community even on your site?

With so many permutations possible, what exactly is a community?

Good ideas for any community– Start with a reasonably-defined objective, purpose, topic, scope or ideology– Clarify ownership and/or rules of conduct– Provide commonly understood means of interaction and publishing– Build effective “leadership” and influential members– Share the control and direction of the community – Give a sense of value in its member’s contributions– Understand how to progress members– Give it time to stabilize



What is the purpose, scope or ideology of your community?

Purpose or goal : Are you trying to – Bring attention to a topic

• Buell Duncan’s blog – http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/Buell – Get feedback on your ideas

• Bobby Woolf’s blog & wiki – http://www.ibm.com/developerWorks/blogs/page/woolf – Workgroup or Group-effort problem solving

• Cross-industry standards development, customer team workgroups• IBM WebSphere Instructor education wiki -

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/wedevexchange/IBM+Websphere+Instructor+Wiki

– Product/service peer-to-peer self-support• Many product discussion forums throughout dW – http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums • IBM Rational ClearCase forum - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/dw_forum.jsp?

forum=333&cat=24 – Community-developed product documentation

• DB2 wiki - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/DB2/DB2+wiki – Involve others in product development

• Mary Beth Raven’s blog – http://www.ibm.com/developerWorks/blogs/page/marybeth – Develop business or contact relationships

• SE SOA User group - http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/wikis/display/SOAUserGroup/Home



What is the purpose, scope or ideology of your community?

Topic or scope

– Declare the one or more topics that the community should center on

– Members may diverge but unless it is generally evolving to a new topic, try to stick to main topic

– Generally limit the scope but keep options open

Ideology

– Statement of values

– Storytelling and community culture

– Empathy across members

– Iconography & symbolism



What are your community’s means of interaction?

Start with a base set of tools for your community

Expand to other tools as the community needs them

Provide some help info or documentation on how to post, comment or interact

Declare any moderation or intermediary process you have

Declare what rights a site visitor has to use or reuse posted information.

Declare what rights your organization has to use or reuse posted information.

Define user-generated (UGC) and organizationally-produced content (OPC) publishing policies



IBM developerWorks community-related services

Community interactionservices

Community interactionservices

Wikis

Blogs

Exchange

Discussion Forums

Chatrooms

Community informationservices

Community informationservices

Community promotional& distribution services

Community promotional& distribution services

Podcasts

Grass Roots

Syndication

Web feeds

Social tagging



User-generated vs Organizational publishing process

Various scenarios for your site:1. Purely OPC – no user input or feedback

2. OPC with separate direct-to-organization (closed discussion) feedback

3. OPC with user comments in separate off-page open discussion forums

4. OPC with inline user comments (separate from main text)

5. OPC with inline user annotations (next to main text)

6. OPC initiated with UGC editable derivative works

7. Mixed bag but separately identified OPC and UGC content types, select users only

8. Mixed bag but separately identified OPC and UGC content types, any user allowed

9. UGC with OP-rating, selection, focus or highlighting

10. UGC with some automatic topic filters, policing & spam controls

11. Purely UGC (no controls)

Many of these functions can be enabled with different types of Web 2.0 tools, but you need to pick which scenario(s) first before finding the tools



Who are the leaders?

Share control and direction:

– You can’t always lead. Even a benevolent dictator is hard for communities to deal with

– Most communities assume that if they participate they have a say; in other words, it’s a democratic environment

Communities over time gain influential voices

– Communities, especially public & democratic ones, have self-emerging or voted leaders. Mandating leadership may not be effective

Different types*:

– Catalysts – initiate and support the community and its operations: site support; community managers; knowledge and resource brokers (connectors); event organizers; community marketers (sellers); very often, just you

– Champions – lead efforts, draw attention, encourage participation based on their expertise or influence: topic leaders and subject matter experts (mavens); activity and project leaders

* terms from The Starfish and the Spider, The Tipping Point.



Who are the leaders?

For example, on some developerWorks forum communities:

Catalysts Champions General members

Member

Visitor

One-time or occassionalContributor



Do you value member contributions?

Give value to quality contributions by the membership– You define what “quality” means; involve the community

Contributions do not guarantee quality, but may initiate further discussions

The quality value of contributions may be relative to your community– Community listens to its people. Known influencers may be considered higher quality

– Community lifecycle – initially (startup vs mature) may have a less stringent measure

– Population – larger population may hold quality items in relatively higher value

– If it makes it into community documentation (FAQs, articles), its usually considered of value

The reward for a quality contribution should also be relative to size, purpose, topic, ideology, lifecycle

Even one member’s accomplishment for the community outside that community == the community’s accomplishment

Do you keep track? – Ratings mechanisms are also available in Web 2.0 tools– First you need to define why you need them



Do you value member contributions?

Implicit Rewards – value only relative to community

– Popularity or fame derived amongst the membership • Announcements: “member of the month”• Linkages: URL links to the member• Attributions: press mentions, published references, quotations

– Ranking or status symbol – indicates relative importance to others in community• Ranking charts• Special status icons

Explicit rewards – of other extrinsic value

– Winnings, special giveaway items

– Access to special resources, people or events

– Free upgrades

– Personalized items (in conjunction with status symbols)



New, Returning, Contributing & Influential Members

Member Role progression

– Anonymous visitors are nice to have since they have potential to join and register as new members.

– New members are important since they bring fresh ideas and potentially more active or influential people to your community

– Returning members are necessary to long-term survival of your community and once they feel comfortable or compelled enough, they may become contributors

– Contributors who participate frequently are the lifeblood of your community

– Influencers come from the top ranks of contributors, and help focus the community, set direction, and define leadership

Focus on returning, contributing, and influential members to drive further growth to recruit more new members; e.g., a referral recruitment program

All this takes time and effort (of a catalyst) to drive along the progression



Beyond your site

Exporting your community

– Static feeds with Atom, RSS, etc. are a good starting point

– Dynamic feed generators (e.g., dW-Build-your-own-feed, Yahoo Pipes) let others pick and select combinations of feeds

– Make it simple: e.g., dW Build-your-own-feed allows you to cut and paste HTML/Javascript to import content from a community to another web site

– Integrate tagging to well-known social tagging and bookmarking sites to help draw attention to your community content

Communities forming elsewhere

– Your site may not be the only one with a community around your company’s products or services

– These others may come in all forms: group blogs, wikis, forums, spaces, etc.

– Locate, keep track, and cross-populate with other communities

– Examine if your site needs any tools or features available in these other communities

Social tagging



Conclusions

Building communities is a combination of people, tools, and time

There is no one-product-meets-all solution: communities are like people; every one of them is different. Base your tools on what your community needs

A community has a better chance of survival if you have people to lead it

Start with a good definition and a general plan on how to progress your members. Consider recruitiment plans, reward plans

Start by agreeing on what balance of content you will produce versus what you’d like the community to contribute. Define how that works

Community & Web 2.0 share a common state of mind: Be prepared to relinquish some degree of control

“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others that have been tried from time to time.” (Sir Winston Churchill, 1947).



Books that may help

Understand decentralized organizations and peer relationships– Read: The Starfish and the Spider, In Good Company, The Wisdom of

Crowds

Understand community-shared brand building– Read: The Culting of Brands, Wikinomics

Understand working with influencers– Read: The Tipping Point, The Hidden Power of Social Networks, The

Elements of Influence

Understand memes and word of mouth behavior and tracking– Read: Unleashing the Ideavirus, Buzzmarketing

Understand SEO for communities– Read: Search Engine Marketing, Inc.



Sites that may help

Navigating the Media Divide – IBM Institute for Business Value– http://tinyurl.com/yopbed

Bill Johnston– http://redplasticmonkey.wordpress.com/

Communities dominate brands – Tomi Ahonen & Alan Moore– http://www.communities-dominate.blogs.com/

Community and Social computing – Rawn Shah– http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/rawn (http://tinyurl.com/24gmue)

CP Square – The Community of Practice on communities of practice– http://www.cpsquare.org/

Future of Communities blog– http://www.futureofcommunities.com/

Millions of Us – Virtual Worlds. Real Brands– http://www.millionsofus.com/blog/

Social networking and massive amateur integration – Carol Jones– http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/jcarol

ForumOne’s Online Community Report– http://onlinecommunityreport.com/



IBM Sessions this Week

DRIVING SALES FROM DEVELOPER

CAMPAIGNS:

Considerations to keep in mind

Lindsey Lurie

Manager, Developer Campaigns & Programs

Tue 11:00 – 11:45

Business Track

SUCCESSFUL CONTENT AGGREGATION and

SYNDICATION: Issues and Best Practices

Jeanne Murray

developerWorks Strategy

Mon 1:45 – 2:30

Marketing Track

EXTENDING YOUR DEVELOPER

NETWORK THROUGH WEB 2.0

COMMUNITIES

Rawn Shah

developerWorks Community Program

Manager

Mon 10:15 - 11:00

Technical Track

Extending your developer network through Web 2.0 online communities

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