Previously, I mentioned a poorly supported community of practice behind the firewall which was showing steady decreases in traffic over time. Fortunately, a small group of early adopters from the business unit approached me about rebooting the community and making it happen. We’ve decided to implement a very basic content strategy.

Ask why
The first thing we did was spend 30 minutes brainstorming why people would ultimately use the community. Once we had a good understanding why people would want to participate, we shifted gears.

How could we present our value proposition in such a way as to make trial of our community easy? We decided we would take turns posting “conversation starters,” discussion threads on timely topics, in the forum.

Schedule
As only three of us were able to attend this first meeting, we decided to come up with three conversation starters; one apiece. For the next three Mondays in a row, we would take turns posting to the forum. Then, each of us would make a point of responding to the discussion, as well as sharing the conversations with other, potentially interested parties across the organization via hyperlink.

Evaluate
We set our “threshold of success” at 9 total forum posts – 1 conversation starter and 2 replies each.  At the end of three weeks (3 February 2012), we will evaluate our progress based on a very loose adaptation of ROI (return on investment).

Did we deliver what we set out to deliver? How many people outside our small group participated? Did our actions inspire anyone to pose their own topic? How did this strategy play out?

In our first week, we made our three posts each (the initial conversation starter plus one reply from the other two of us), but we ended up with 15 total posts, six of which were by people other than us. So, at the risk of inciting the wrath of Olivier Blanchard, we calculated our “ROI” as follows.

(15 posts – 3 posts)/3 posts = 400% “ROI”
(6 posts by others – 3 posts by us)/3 posts by us = 100% “ROI”

*ROI is in quotes here because, as we’re not yet tying this social activity to revenue, this is not actual ROI.

Next steps
We’re very excited at how well this is playing out. So far, for every post one of us makes, someone else in the company replies. Will this trend persist?

Before the end of this week, we’ll be meeting again to come up with our conversation starters for the month of February. We’re also reaching out to various members of management whose staff would be part of this community to get their feedback on potential performance indicators we can keep in mind when brainstorming our new conversation starters.

What do you think?
Have you ever tried anything like this with your community development efforts? What did you do differently? How did things play out for you and your team?

In the glovebox:

• Wyld Stallyns on Community Development
• Social Networking: Is 1 Hour a Day All It Takes?
• Building Communities for Multi-Generational Sustainability

I'd appreciate hearing what you think about Community Development: A Simple Content Strategy

Mind Adventure: Atomic Action in Action – It’s Happening!
(01.20.12)

I love the idea of real meetings of the minds. In just a quick series of back-and-forth emails with a business partner at this end yesterday, we both discovered a whole new ecosystem which could (scratch that) WILL rise up out of this current adventure.

John Falchetto: How to Get Clear About Your Goals
(01.23.12)

Here’s my Big 3 for 2012:

1. Penmanshift.com > Complete beta testing, complete with user feedback on program quality and pricing by the end of April. (Note: 7 beta testers signed up and ready to launch on 6 Feb!) Why? Because this baby seems the quickest way to self-employment which will enable me to devote more time to the rest of my business ecosystem development efforts.

Conversation Agent: The Truth About B2B Social Media Adoption
(01.24.12)

Why would anyone want to read this stuff?
How will the stuff we write help them?
How will we know we’ve helped them?
How will our helping them impact our bottom line?
How do we tie social activity to increased revenue or reduced costs?

If we can’t put our finger on why we’re doing something, why are we even bothering to do it?

Craig McBreen: Can We Discuss Personal Branding & the Power of Authenticity?
(01.24.12)

There is a segment of the population which knows me as “Captain Halfass.” They know me as getting way too drunk in Ohio parking lots, almost getting tazed by Houston PD, and “eyeballing” piston ring end gaps in an otherwise $3,000 high compression engine build.

Want to see more TWICs posts? Thank you for inspiring me this week. Keep going fast with class, pressing on regardless, and doing it yourself (or doing what you can).

In the glovebox:

• TWICs XXI
• TWICs XX
• TWICs, XIX

I'd appreciate hearing what you think about TWICs XXII

This Week In Comments (TWICs): Why Twitter vs. G+ matters, multi-author blogging 101, sucky business blogs, and signature content.

The week of January 13 – 19 2012.

Geoff Livingston: Why You Should Care About Twitter vs. Google+
(01.17.12)

I’m still very much on the fence about this. I can see Twitter’s point, but I can see Google’s too. It also seems a good way to drive more meaningful, strategic connections on g+ and other social networks. Curate a strong personal network, reap big rewards when you search.

FBBB: Multi-Author Blogging 101
(01.17.12)

For all the added complexities of running a multi-author site, the one really big perk is how we can all share the load together. When my partners get twisted IRL and I have to dust off my one-man-band hat, it’s obvious just how much work we get done as a team.

FBBB: Your Business Blog Sucks, Part I
(01.19.12)

There’s a special space in the digital world where upper management basically gives us permission to set things in motion they ultimately will not be able to control – to start revolutions – but we’ve got to get people to care. Nobody cares about things they don’t even know exist.

Neiman Journalism Lab: The Newsonomics of Signature Content
(01.19.12)

Signature content. Sounds like a charge to specialize; do one thing and do it better than anyone else. What a novel idea, ya know? Instead of trying to be all things to all people, delivering an overall compromise, signature content stands on its own two feet; strong, meaningful, valuable.

Want to see more TWICs posts?

Thank you for inspiring me this week. Keep going fast with class, pressing on regardless, and doing it yourself (or doing what you can).

In the glovebox:

• TWICs XX
• TWICs, XIX
• TWICs, XII

I'd appreciate hearing what you think about TWICs XXI

I was thinking about a reboot strategy for a poorly performing community behind the firewall the other day.

We need people to get people participating. We need management to support these initiatives beyond lipservice. And we absolutely need something better than SharePoint 2007 to power all of this. Of course, nobody is going to try out our community if there’s no clear value in doing so, which means management isn’t going to see much value either, which means no budget for even a free forum program.

Chicken-and-the-egg territory, for sure, but it got me thinking – if Bill S. Preston, Esquire, and Ted, Theodore Logan had been in community development and Wyld Stallyns was going to be their super community…

Ted, while I agree, in time our community will be most triumphant, the truth is, Wyld Stallyns will never be a super community until we have Eddie Van Halen in the house.
One of the best ways to demonstrate value to would-be community members is to get big names to join the community. From a social media standpoint, having an a-lister like Chris Brogan or Scott Monty join a community is all but a shoe-in for overnight success. Behind the firewall, leadership can play this role; from team managers to the CLO. People like to feel they have a connection with authority.

Yes Bill, but I do not believe we will get Eddie Van Halen until we have a triumphant community.
So how do we attract those big names to participate in our communities if our communities aren’t triumphant? No doubt the big names – on either side of the firewall – have limited time to invest. They need to see immediate value in participation. The CLO might be willing to participate in forums and do a little blogging, but he needs to see these as efficient and effective communication tools.

Ted, its pointless to have a triumphant community before we even have decent tools.
Which brings me to tool selection (or lack thereof). How many tools are available to those of us looking to build a community these days? A lot. I’ve personally built communities on phpBB and Simple Machines forums and used numerous others like DCforums and the now-a-household-name vBulletin. Behind the firewall, there’s Chatter, Yammer, Jing and Jive, and SharePoint.

Ah, SharePoint. There’s no way we can build a triumphant community using SharePoint 2007. Right?

Well how can we have decent tools when we don’t really even know how to use them?
Technically, we don’t need any special tools to build community. We’ve got phones and email and conference rooms, don’t we? We need vision more than we need tools. If we know why we’re investing in community development and how said community will benefit our people, what we can do with our current tools is multiplied.

Community development is all about connecting people and ideas – neither of which is dependent on platform. Get people together. Get them talking about something relevant.

That is why we need Eddie Van Halen.
So we’re back to getting people to participate; not just celebrity A-listers and/or C-suite executives, but exceptional people at every level. But where do we find exceptional people? Simple. Treat everyone as if they were exceptional. People who feel important tend to act the part. Ask them for their feedback and act on it. Give them status, access, power, and stuff. Give them a sense of ownership in their community.

And that is why we need a triumphant community.
Which brings us back to thinking about why anyone would want to participate in the first place and how to make sure our community has a clear value proposition. We need to make it (painfully) obvious that joining this community delivers the goods. Our members enjoy the time they spend within our digital borders, their lives are better for it – whether for business or pleasure. This is the place where stuff gets done.

EXCELLENT!!!
Now that we know why people are going to want to be part of our community and how the community is going to support them, what we need to do is gather our early adopters, develop a strategy, and get to implementing. (And I’ll share that story very soon.)

And, if none of the above made any sense at all, I hope considering the source material at least brightens your day.

In the glovebox:

• Community Development: A Simple Content Strategy
• Social Networking: Is 1 Hour a Day All It Takes?
• Building Communities for Multi-Generational Sustainability

I'd appreciate hearing what you think about Wyld Stallyns on Community Development

This Week In Comments (TWICs): 2012 – The results of conversation, resisting the commoditization of what, why our businesses exist.

The week of January 6 – 12, 2012.

Brave New Org: Interlocutor – The Word of 2012
(01.09.12)

More and more, we need to participate – in the conversation, in what happens as a result of the conversation. What I think is particularly interesting is how the state of culture when social media began to take root influences its development.

Confused of Calcutta: Know-How & Know-Why vs. Know-What
(01.09.12)

The only cricket stats of any concern to me is how many set up camp outside my window on nights I cannot sleep, but the revelation of how ‘gamification’ *should* work, paired with the relationships between why, how & what are worth all the confusing mathsport discussion necessary to bring the topic to light.

Conversation Agent: Why Does Your Business Exist?
(01.12.12)

We might have felt burned when we got excited about something we thought would be all about us (remarkable), only to misfire in reflecting the REAL us to the rest of the world, but it’s important we not let the opportunity to help write the next chapters pass us by.

“I owe you a ten second car.”

Want to see more TWICs posts?

Thank you for inspiring me this week. Keep going fast with class, pressing on regardless, and doing it yourself (or doing what you can).

In the glovebox:

• TWICs XXI
• TWICs, XIX
• TWICs, XII

I'd appreciate hearing what you think about TWICs XX