Comments on: Starting an Online Community

By: Christine

Christine — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:29:33 +0000

In response to the question above about which toolset to consider, you might also check out Helpstream – they have a free community platform available

By: Harold Jarche » Adding value to information

Harold Jarche » Adding value to information — Tue, 12 May 2009 22:39:11 +0000

[...] You could use this chart of Dave’s as part of the job description of anyone starting a community of practice. [...]

By: Harold Jarche » Emergent practices need practice

Harold Jarche » Emergent practices need practice — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 12:50:11 +0000

[...] You can’t really build a CoP, it has to emerge through practice; but you can put in systems and processes to support CoP’s. As I learned this week, you know you’re in a real community of [...]

By: Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:37:45 +0000

Thanks for the additional ideas, Beth. The first point – identification of go-to people would be very important.

By: Beth Chmielowski

Beth Chmielowski — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 07:56:17 +0000

Harold, thanks for a simple yet practical post on how to get communities started. Some additional tactics to help get the ball rolling and to drive adoption might include:

• Identifying current go-to people (similar to your recruiter/mavens) and working with them to mine their emails and hard drives to help seed the initial content

• Integrating the community into relevant formal training offerings

• Setting up a cross-generational mentorship program (especially for businesses on the verge of losing the knowledge and skills of a retiring workforce):

o Pair younger workers with baby boomers as a two-way mentorship: baby boomers provide OJT experience and insight; younger workers provide tutorial on using the community and technologies

o Have younger workers own the knowledge capture from the baby boomers during their mentoring sessions, and post it to the portal

o Have baby boomers rate and comment on the information that has been captured

By: Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 19:28:19 +0000

Some thoughts, Chris:

Easy set-up – Ning
Ease of Use & Familiarity – Facebook

BUT: Controlling your content/data – Elgg or some other open source system

Other platforms to consider – Drupal, WordPress multi-user, SocialGo, and many others

I have no preferences as it depends on what is best for the context (people, technology, constraints & regulations, budget)

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 18:16:13 +0000

I’m curious as to whether you have any preferences with specific online learning community environments. We’re comparing Ning, Facebook and other existing options. Any thoughts? Our main goal is to build an online community for gardeners and some of the primary concerns for us are around ease of access to the environment, i.e. login, familiarity of conventions and whether keeping the community closed as opposed to open has any real benefit.

By: Harold Jarche

Harold Jarche — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:17:41 +0000

Good review article, Ken, thanks. Yes, we can learn from the past, can’t we?

By: Ken Allan

Ken Allan — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:48:49 +0000

Kia ora Harold! I go along with what you say about 'one relationship at a time'. This is so true. There's not a lot of research findings available on this, but a year ago I did some scraping around and came up with enough to give me a clear picture of how it was in the 'olden-days' of online community growing. By all accounts, what was successful in those days is still successful today - at least that's what I've found, and you're saying it here. Catchya later from Middle-earth

By: David Corcoran

David Corcoran — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:44:17 +0000

Nice topic…look forward to reading more about collaborating and working online.