1. Strategy and tactics: There needs to be a clear vision for the development of the community. This vision needs to be translated to types of activities the members should be encouraged to engage with. You need to develop multiple scenarios because some activities catch on and others do not. If activities do not catch on one should be able to quickly shift into another scenario. It is important to take into account the ‘What’s in it for me?’ question from the participants perspective and to check if there are no barriers that get in the way of these activities.
2. Change management: To many organizations, achieving a state where people openly share, connect with each other, collaborate, and innovate requires a significant change in culture. Even though we believe that culture does not dictate our behavior, but it is the aggregation of our behaviour that defines culture; you need to actively promote the right behavior and deal with barriers such as fear, hierarchy, and knowledge as power. Senior management plays an important role by setting examples and endorsing exemplar behavior.
3. Reactive moderation: There are numerous standard tasks that need to be performed. Examples are: making sure people have a complete profile, contacting inactive members, managing login issues, dealing with unwanted behavior, etc.
4. Proactive moderation: This role is what we often refer to as ‘the magic’. You need to constantly scan the community for activity that, often with some orchestration, can help you realize your strategic vision. This role requires to ‘see through’ a standard question or idea and envisage its potential. Then try and identify and connect participants that can contribute. If the activity has significant potential, we often co-opt a senior manager to publicly endorse the initiative.
5. Relationships and stakeholder management: This role lies within the client organization. There needs to be a very well networked person to make the connections with relevant people within the organization or with senior management to find people to further activate initiatives selected through the proactive moderation.
6. Role models: You need commitment from senior management to behave as a role model. They should endorse behavior that is in line with the vision of the community, activate people to take ideas they post a step further, and ask the community questions or challenge them from time to time.
7. Content management: Communities are enriched by content. Interviews need to be sourced with members, senior management, industry experts or other interesting and engaging people. Content needs to be well planned and prepared in advance so it can be deployed at appropriate times, such as during lulls in platform activity.
8. Technical management: A plan needs to be in place to role out functionality related to the maturity of the community. Technical management works closely with the other community management roles to create a road-map of functionality. A close coordination with the scenarios is needed to match the functionality to the scenarios being played.
9. Project management: Moderating and activating a community typically requires performing a great number of tasks. These tasks are either dynamic or routine. Dynamic tasks are responses to what is happening in the community and routine tasks cover things such as contacting all people that have not completed their profile. Rigorous project management is a must to make sure all tasks are covered and completed. We have developed software tailored to managing communities and these tasks in particular.
10. Champions management: Your community will have members that are more active and set the right example. It is important to build relationships with such users over time and involve them in activating the community. The most important role these champions have, is being an antenna for ideas, problems, or solutions that are worth sharing. They then convince people to take their ideas, problems, or solutions to the community.

If you are interested in how this ties into our methodology and vision, you may also want to check out these earlier posts:

1. Successful implementation of communities part 1
2. Successful implementation of communities part 2
3. Successful implementation of communities part 3
4. Community management in innovative projects
5. Start hiring guy #3
6. Stop pitching social media to management

No related posts.

During the third exercise you check the activities against 8 barriers that can hinder the community performing these activities. If the activities or the people involved in these activities are hindered by any of the barriers described below, it is best to find other activities that are less hindered. There are ways to deal with these barriers, but I will discuss these in a later post.

Freedom and time

In many cases engaging in online collaboration or knowledge sharing does not tie directly to peoples day to day work. This becomes more the case as the work people do is more standardized. The moment someone helps solve a colleagues problem in another part of the business, this will take up time without direct benefits to the helpers business. Of course on a larger scale this does add value to the company as a whole. However, we see many cases where management does not want to allow people time to engage in such activities because the results do not add directly to their bottom line. If people aren’t given enough freedom and time to engage you will be dependent on those that will engage in their own time. Ask yourself if that group is large enough to make your community vibrant.

Transparency

The use of enterprise 2.0 technology within your company will increase transparency in your organization. It will be more transparent who is competent in certain areas and who contributes. It will also be more transparent how decisions are made. There are many people within organizations that believe transparency will not benefit them. The resistance stems from the fact that people think they will be held accountable for certain actions or colleagues will think less of their competences than before. Because this barrier is so personal and threatening to people, you can expect them to put up a big fight against transparency.

Knowledge is power

There are people that hold their position because they have valuable knowledge. These people are often afraid to share because they believe it will make them obsolete. This barrier is also a fear barrier and hence very powerful.

Fear of stupidity or fear of being ignored

There is nothing worse than looking stupid or being ignored where everyone can see. This barrier has most impact in the initial stages of a community. If a community is not very vibrant yet, the barrier to engage with the community is larger than in situations with a lot of vibrancy. Have a close look at the people that are to engage in the activity to make sure the percentage of fearful people is not too large.

Negative marking of people

In many communities there is a small group of very active people. Especially in the early phases of a community you need to manage their activities a little bit. In the early stages the community often still has to prove its usefulness to the company. Skeptics and threatened people will be looking for ways to damage the initiative. An easy way to do so is to target enthusiastic people. In almost all communities I’ve seen, very active people are marked as “having nothing better to do.” Be prepared for this and subtly protect these people from themselves and the skeptics.

Confidentiality

The fact that confidential information could leak easier when using a community with so many people involved, is a valid concern but also an important weapon of the more skeptical people. It is the most heard reason for people not to engage.

Competition

Map out other community initiatives within the company and analyze if your community, when successful, will threaten them. Also talk to IT to establish if the platform you are likely to chose does not conflict with their plans. If so, plan to deal with it. There is nothing more deadly for a community than a change in technical platform for any reason other than an improvement for the community.

Management participation

As with everything you want to achieve within an enterprise, if management does not endorse the initiative, forget it.

If you are starting a community it is best to start the community with activities least hindered by the barriers described above. As the community becomes more vibrant and gains more trust you can start initiatives that have more barriers to overcome.

Of course there are strategies to deal with the barriers described here. I’ll write about these in the near future.

No related posts.

We like the term ‘Connected Business’ as it better describes what this technology does. It is set of tools to break down silos in large enterprises and have their employees connect to one another. Employees that are connected to one another have access to each other’s knowledge, skills, and experience. This connectedness then leads to more problems being solved in less time and more innovative ideas being tested and enriched in less time. On the back off these advantages enterprises can save  money because there is less need to purchase knowledge through consultants and commissioned research.

So you become more operationally excellent because of the improved problem solving, you become more competitive because you become more innovative, and you get all this at lower costs. Yes, it’s as simple as that.

No related posts.

The key value gain for enterprises that engage with social platforms is that employees are enabled to solve more problems, improve their practice and test or enrich new ideas.  All without raising the costs of doing so.

The knowledge and experience of thousands of colleagues can be easily accessed through a social platform. If you have an idea or a problem you can search the community for shared knowledge or discussions on that topic or find experienced colleagues by searching profiles or discussions they participated in.

Many enlightened enterprises have recognized these benefits, however most struggle to create and maintain vibrant communities on social platforms.

I recently wrote a post on the importance of addressing the “what’s in it for me?” question for potential users of an online community. If potential participants do not clearly see what they can get out of participation, they will not engage. We regularly run workshops with participants to identify how collaboration would add value for them, with who they would collaborate, and on what subject collaboration and sharing would add value.

If you have answered the “What’s in it for me?” question. There is another factor that has great influence on the potential success of an internal enterprise community. It  is related to the fact that enterprise 2.0 technology, or social media, help overcome a number of important barriers.

Firstly, space and time. If you have people in several different locations it is difficult and costly to bring everyone together to collaborate. It also makes it difficult for employees on different continents to know what their colleagues are up to. By having rich personal profiles, listing your projects, and having technology for online collaboration, you can lower the barrier of space and time significantly.

A second barrier has to do with the fact that, without tools, people are only capable of effectively networking with about 150 people. This phenomenon is often referred to as Dunbars’ threshold. Online networked communities can help overcome Dunbars’ threshold by what is called ‘loose ties’. An on-line community with loose ties and search capability can let you access a multitude of other peoples skills and experience, beyond the scope of your physical network of 150.

Imagine you have a problem or an idea; you can enter a community and do a very focussed search on profiles within the community, quickly identifying relevant people to talk to. You can also ask the community an open question and the people with the relevant knowledge will reply. Finally, and Linked-In is a good example of this, you can have loose connections with a large number of people. The platform then updates you periodically of all the activities of the people in your network.

For the third barrier we go back to Dunbars’ threshold. It is the reason why small companies are able to have successful collaboration and large enterprises struggle. W.L. Gore is an example of a company that is very collaborative and innovative. To maintain this level of collaboration they cut up any business unit that grows over 150 people.

The traditional answer of most governments and enterprises to this issue has been hierarchies. With hierarchies Dunbars’ problem can also be solved. When it comes to collaboration and innovation hierarchies also have a number of significant downsides. The main reason hierarchies hold back collaboration is that communication needs to travel great distances, up and down the ranks, to reach it’s destination. Add to that the fact that there is a lot of internal competition, power play,  politics and there is a big barrier to surmount if collaboration (and innovation) is to occur. Communities can help get around this barrier because the participants interact directly without having to work through the hierarchies. We call this the democracy of participation.

When companies plan to start a community, the barriers are often overlooked. Having defined the “What’s in it for me?” question and created a list of things people will do together on the platform, you need to test all of them to see if they actually lower one or more barriers. The more barriers are lowered, the better your chance of creating a vibrant community.

No related posts.

If it isn’t clear to an employee how he or she will benefit from collaborating with others on an internal community, most will simply not engage. Add to that the fear of asking a ’stupid question’, not giving the ‘right answer’, or being ignored when asking a question and internal communities often quickly grind to a halt.

We use a simple slogan when we help enterprises set up communities: ‘People Doing Things Together.’ When setting up a community, you need to go into a great level of detail defining this and make sure they valuable. The definitions can be generalizations or actual examples. The more focused, the easier it will be to show potential users ‘what’s in it for them’ and get them engaged.

Some examples:

• Product managers ask for available market research for a new concept they have.
• Marketeers test a new proposition amongst peers.
• R&D tests the market potential of a new application with marketing and sales colleagues all over the world.
• Controllers share and discuss their annual budgeting spreadsheets to get best practices for next years budgeting rounds.
• HR searches the community for a person suitable for a certain role based on expertise and experience shown in peoples’ community activities.
• A product manager wants to make a manufacturing investment but his market will not give him sufficient revenue to justify the investment. He asks product managers in other markets for their potential revenue. Their combined markets may justify the investment.
• An insurance product manager in Belgium asks his colleagues in The Netherlands if they have implemented a specific coverage in their insurance, and if they have how it was done and what the result was.
• Before testing his new campaign in an expensive survey, a marketeer tests the campaign, at no costs, in his own organization.

No related posts.

From our experience one of the most important success criteria of implementing social media is having clear vision and intention. Social media very often lead to changes in the way people work (together). The intention therefore needs to be changing patterns and empowering people, not successfully implementing software.

Best buy is using social patforms in 5 different ways:

1. Blueshirtnation: Their “Myspace” like network that allows workers to connect to each other. They have many stores throughout the country and they find that it improves job satisfaction if employees feel they are part of something larger than just their store.
2. Watercooler: This online discussion forum is used widely by teams or in stores to spread information quickly and discuss it.
3. wiki’s empower people to all contribute.
4. Loop marketplace: is a space employees can post ideas. Other employees discuss and enrich them.
5. Prediction markets: By trading stocks employees predict future business outcomes. Examples of the outcomes can be sales figures or the completion of projects. This system harnesses the collective knowledge of all employees to help make the best decisions.

No related posts.

A recent online study conducted under 7000 Tripadvisor users also supports this increasing role in the planning and booking processes. This study found that 82,5 percent uses the Internet as their primary information source for booking a holiday. Furthermore, we see that web 2.0 like functionalities influence the selection process. 57,5 percent of the participants read online reviews to narrow down their choices and 75 percent of these people think that reviews highly influence their choices and give the most objective view (Gretzel, 2007).

But more is coming. The shift to travel 2.0 will offer new means of planning and booking a dream holiday.

Three main characteristics
In this article we will get into three main travel 2.0 characteristics and show some examples. Travel 2.0 centralizes sharing digital content in numerous ways and gives a user more control. Travel 2.0 has three main characteristics:

1. User generated content
2. Comparison services
3. Social Networks

User generated content
Sharing user generated content is not a new concept but combining user generated content to a conventional holiday booking website is. The user experiences more freedom of choice by receiving user-generated information and commercial information. An example of this crossover between travel 1.0 en 2.0 is a website called Holidaycheck.de. It is a conventional holiday booking website, however it also offers reviews, photo’s and video’s on holiday locations made by users. Now you can read how others experienced the accommodation and you can see their amateur pictures of it. Another website is Travelpedia which is a collection of information on countries, locations and hotels. Written and edited by travellers it gives you almost the same information as the lonely planet but then for free, although it is still in its infant state.

Comparison
Travel 2.0 tries to improve search ability by comparison services. Using mash up technology a holiday seeker is enabled to search multiple databases or websites instead of only one. The first examples are found on websites like Farecast and Kayak. They predict the best time to buy your airline ticket (not to confuse with the best flight). Airlines have dominated prices over the years; they in fact adjust prices regularly according to demand, time and season. With these new services we have some extra control on booking a cheaper flight. The wait is for a website that compares holidays across all suppliers, yet I haven’t been able to find one yet.

Social networking
Communities are the word on the web 2.0 buzz. While travelling we connect with fellow travellers, meeting people who like the same activities and we form groups. Travel is in fact an ideal industry for communities to be formed. Imagine connecting people with the same interests and hobbies. This would give you a great reference on where to go, what to see and maybe even find a travel companion. A good example is Gusto this is a social community website for travellers where you can organize, simplify and create and book your dream trip.

Another trend is emerging in the field of group travel, sites like Triphub create small communities; remember those skiing trips with a couple of friends and the hassle of chain like email on who will be present, when and where to go etc. Through mash up technology the formed group can plan, discuss their trip, send invites and let the participants communicate with each other. This website gives your group trip an early start and hopes to make the pre-holiday experience more fun. I expect to see more of these small social networks which will form the bases on pre-holiday experience, the holiday it self and the after experiences. Through mash up technologies the possibilities are endless. For instance one can think of many interesting future services, like proximity broadcasting, real time gps-tracking/recording and much more. A Holliday will become more digitalized than you think.

As you may have noticed travel 2.0 consists mostly of one or more of these three characteristics. To summarize the user gets a more central position, has the ability to create a dream trip and uses information from others and also contributes to this information. Currently we see primarily changes in the booking and selection processes, but that is just the beginning of this voyage.

Source:
Online Travel Reviews Study; Role & Impact of Online Travel Reviews, Dr Ulrike Gretzel, 2007.

Hotel marketing, 2007.

No related posts.