Community Guy – Jake McKee

Friday Fun

It’s a bit late, but it makes this comic no less funny – Standing in line for Star Wars Episode III.



The best part of the comic is the very last bit. We’re all suckers for our geekiness. Everybody has their kink, eh?

Microsoft and Blogging

Lee from Common Craft has been doing some work with Microsoft lately. He has some very interesting observations about MS and their blogging overall. Here’s a few of my favs:



The demand comes from individuals. More than a couple of times, I’ve heard quotes from employees saying “I’m tired of Microsoft being called an evil empire”. Employees see blogging as a way to show Microsoft is a different and more human company.

And this is why it works so well. The funny thing is that many many people in business operate on the "but something bad might happen" mindset. They won’t do anything until Legal has signed off on it. This comes from a combination of fear and lack of comfort with risk. After all, if something bad happens and Legal signed off on it, the likelyhood of loosing your job is much lower , right? Maybe.



One of my favorite phrases from the dot com era is "Launch and Learn". In order to be able to operate like this, you have to have management and senior management who believes in that mindset too. If you’re going to be judged by results six minutes after launch, you don’t have support from management, and it’s time to either work on changing their mindsets or finding a new job.

Advocates are incredibly important. They teach colleagues what things are all about in the particular subject they’re being charged with. OK, beyond teaching, it’s about pushing. It’s about breaking that initial comfort level and then helping to get that person comfortable again. Then breaking that comfort level a second time. Rinse, repeat, have great company success.



More on this in an upcoming Community Guy post.

Of course it’s working! And like so many things, small success are leading to big success, which in turn is leading to increased buy-in. And how do you get total buy-in (or at least as near to total as human nature will allow)? Let those big success roll into huge successes.



Check out the full list on Lee’s site – some great observations. To me, this shows clearly that, when done right, blogging (and more importantly – participation in social technologies) can do great things for a company.



Also be sure to check out this Scoble interview with Steve Ballmer. Great interview – how much did this cost? Uh, nearly nothing. Yet, the insight into Ballmer as a person, and the reality of MS work is priceless.

Fast Company article

Interesting article:

What does it take to build an online community?

Talking about the promise of community is one thing, but what are the design principles that make it easy for community members to find one another and to share their interests? Are all community members equal, or are some of them more equal than others? Do community and commerce mix?

Those are questions that occupy the minds of Net-company leaders for whom community is a crucial element of their business strategy — whether their business is a highly specialized B2B site or an entertainment site aimed at teenagers. And Cynthia Typaldos has been asking and answering those questions for years.

Conversational Terrorism

I was recently turned on to this great article called "Conversational Terrorism". For anyone that spends any amount of time online, it’s a must read.



Her’es a snippet of the intro:

Internet Finds

When surfing lately, I’ve come across a few cool finds and thought I’d share.

• Nabble
• Groove
• RawSugar
• Experts-Exchange
• Group Sense
• SoloSub

Community Best Practices

The blog is brand spanking new, but the first entry shows real promise. From engage Community Blog, the 5 Best Practices for setting up an online community. (I’ve also inserted a few additional thoughts of my own – expansions only, not at all "corrections")

1) Establish and post community guidelines: Community Guidelines set the tone for the community. They are the official agreement between the site host and each member regarding use of the site. They set members’ expectations for the kind of conduct that is and is not appropriate on the site and outline the actions the community manager will take to address any violations. Links to the community guidelines should be persistent on the site and it should be made clear that by participating in the community members are agreeing to abide by these terms of use.

Jake’s Note: Derek Powazek has a great bit of this in his book. His advice is to keep these short, clear, and written for people, not lawyers. The guidelines aren’t (or shouldn’t be) about protecting yourself as the Webmaster. Rather they should be the foundation of what you hope and want your shared culture to be.

2) Make it easy for people to register: In most public communities, any user is free to browse the site but must be a registered member to submit a post or provide contributions. Requiring too much information during the registration process is likely to become cumbersome or be seen as intrusive, thus driving away many would-be contributors. So your desire for detailed customer information must be tempered with the user’s desires for privacy and ease of use. During registration, the key pieces of required information should be a username, password and e-mail address. (Some sites will employ an e-mail verification process to ensure the e-mail address is indeed valid.) You can still ask for additional information (such as first and last name, geography, products owned, etc.) but consider making those fields optional. You will still end up gathering additional information on some of your customers but are more likely to have users complete the registration process and become active participants.

Jake’s Note: The key in determining how to create registration is to really think hard about the process. In fact, this is probably the most important thing you’ll do in designing your community. Since a community is really just a group of people, having the right group of people is the basis for success or failure. Additionally, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to ask for quite a bit of information from your about-to-be-new user. After all, if they’re not interested in filling out a bit of info to gain entrance, what kind of user will they make? Probably a hit-and-run user, only in for single question. If the community you’re building is one of a support nature, this could jive fine with your goals. If it’s a hobby community where your desire is to have longer term users, this may not be inline with your goals. The key is to figure out what the "right" info and the "right amount" of info actually is.

3) Ensure the community is easy to navigate and to use: When users come to your site will they know where they are supposed to go and what they are supposed to do when they get there? Is your customer support community isolated off to the side or is it well integrated into the other support options available to customers? Are your users tech-savvy or are they Internet newbies? Having a strong understanding of the needs and habits of your end users should play a key part in the layout of your community and in the functionality that is deployed. Consider having a beta group of potential users explore the site and provide feedback before finalizing design details and rolling out to additional users.

Jake’s Note: OK, I’ll be the one to say it – If you’re designing a community without getting input from your current users, key consumers, and/or early users of the site, you’ve failed already. Don’t consider having a beta/early-user group… do it.

As a starting point, include a forum specifically dedicated to feedback from users. And make sure site/company leadership is responding, even if only "Gotcha, thanks for the input – we’ve passed it along".

Most community applications will include lots of bells and whistles and configuration options that you can choose from. However, sometimes less is more. Do your users really need four different ways to view your forums or will this end up confusing the lion share of your members. For newbies, and they are out there, consider adding instructions to key community web pages or providing links to short community tutorials. They will help new users from feeling overwhelmed while they get comfortable using the new tools.

Jake’s Note: Features are wonderful – if handled correctly. Try to start out with a basic amount of features, as mentioned. But as requests come up, and/or as time goes on, slowly roll out new features. This does a couple of things

• Shows clearly that the community is trying to stay up with the technology – which, as much as content sometimes, gives a feeling of freshness.
• Gives the community something to talk about
• Creates a sense of "expert knowledge", where existing old-time users can help newbies as they come into the community.

4) Provide a mechanism to receive feedback: It is important to include a mechanism on your site where users can provide feedback about their experiences using the community and provide recommendations for future enhancements. Allowing users to contribute in this way will improve the community, increase loyalty, and build stronger bonds between your company and the members of the community. This can be done in a special forum or through a web form that is submitted directly to the community manager. Using a forum allows users to respond to each other’s comments creating, in effect, a 24/7 focus group. In addition to a feedback forum, the community manager should have an e-mail alias posted in plain view on the site where users can send questions about using the community or report technical problems.

Jake’s Note: As much as possible, try to ensure that all help/feedback requests stay in the public forum. This helps eliminate repeat questions by allowing people to see if others have had their same issue. Additionally, the way that this type of help/feedback is handled by a sponsor company is a huge reflection of the relationship between that company and its consumers. That means that it’s crucial for there to be a clear understanding of when the company will show up and assign someone to ensure that it happens.

And totally agree about showing clearly how to get ahold of a community manager. They should also be clearly identified in their own forum postings as well. And any type of bio information can be highly encouraged – show off your leaders! The more they seem like real people, the more their decisions will be accepted.

5) Be prepared to “seed” content early on: Prior to launching the community, each of the forums should be seeded with some initial content so that the community already looks like a vibrant place. Just like nobody wants to be the first person on the dance floor, the same applies to participating in an online community. Even after launch, it will take some time for people to find the community and for participation to grow. During this time, you should be prepared to not only post additional seed Q&A, but also to provide answers to actual customer questions. Typically, you will need to have your own people support the forums during the first few weeks to ensure that a customer coming to the site always gets an answer. This can be done by setting up alias user accounts so that the community thinks these posts are coming from other users. After a few weeks, as the community develops and your base of participants grows, you can slowly cut back on the presence of your support people.

So what do you think? What else should be added to these Best Practices?

New Putnam Book

Robert Putnam, author of the terrific Bowling Alone has a new book out: Better Together: Restoring the American Community. I’m sure he’ll be getting tons of attention about this book, so I’ll certainly be checking it out.



From the Amazon listing:

Yes, Remarkable.

I recently received a package from Conference Calls Unlimited that included a one page letter and an advance copy of Seth Godin’s new book The Big Moo.



The book is a collection of 33 quick case studies of people "doing it right".



And the letter from the CCU CEO is titled "Remarkable".



It says (any typos are mine):

1. Enjoy the book
2. Say, "I can’t believe Conference Calls Unlimited sent me this new book that’s not even out yet, just because I’m a customer".
   
   

I wasn’t expecting this at at all, and I have to tell you, I was blown away. It’s a marketing campaign without marketing. And it’s genius. Not only am I sharing this (including retyping the letter to make sure others understand how cool it is), they’re now my first choice when I need conference call services.



Oh, and the book is worth picking up too – the quick hit, short write approach makes it an easy way to digest a ton of cool, real world ideas.

AA Debacle: AA responds again

American Airlines sent another response, this time much much better. And to think, all it took to get them to treat me decently (not well, but I’ll touch on that in coming days) was either speaking with 4 people, or the appearance of this Debacle on Google Alerts.



The response:

Good response – personal, appreciative, and acknowledging that there is a time to set aside the standard policies. I’d like to see a better way to refund the money, but a refund and this mail makes me feel pretty good. I’ll be following in the coming days about my thoughts on the subject – namely the reaction that other readers have had to this story (including calling me a liar, self-centered, and otherwise clueless).



This mail arrived while I was on a flight (AA, by the way) to NYC. So that puts resolution time at about 5.5 days, I’d give the resolution a grade of C+ overall – acceptable, and even passing. Not wonderful, certainly not amazing, but completely acceptable. Basically, I won’t cut and run, but I’ve not yet made up my mind to stop questioning my future loyalty.



I will pass along a bit of praise for AA, however. Good job to both the ticket agent and security line agent today who both asked me for my license extension. I’m waiting on my new license to arrive in the mail, and since it didn’t come in time for this trip, I have my passport as a supplement. I was very happy to see that both times it came up, the AA employees were spot on in their checking. Great work.

Find great music

One thing I enjoy about the Internet is that there are so many helpful folks out there. For instance, want to find some cool new music that’s not part of the Top 40, but don’t want to slog through tons of indie bands to find the gems? No problem!



Here’s a few music blogs from some kind folks who want to help you on your search:

• Soul Sides
• Music for Robots
• Said the Gramophone
• Pandora