The Future of Online Communities

by Kent Aitken

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Within online communities, there are different types of users with different levels of engagement. These might be called "power users," "contributors," and "lurkers," and this tends to apply to everything from Wikipedia to political discussion forums to Amazon reviews.

However, within these levels of engagement (measured in edits, comments, visits, or whatever), there are also different motivations, and this should have an impact on how we consider digital communities, crowdsourcing, or engagement.

A rough divide:

Strategists

This group is largely agnostic about engagement methods. Their motivation centers on the recognition that a given community represents a means of advancing their goal: connecting to an audience, or getting the ear of key players. Strategists could be those building goodwill with communities as inbound marketing, lobbyists looking for influence avenues, or activists looking to have their voices heard.

Subject Matter Enthusiasts

These are the people for whom the community ostensibly exists. They are part of a give and take of knowledge, learning, and contributing. The health of the community strengthens their field and enables networks and relationships. There may be a degree of strategy among this group, but it's secondary to enthusiasm about the subject matter.

The Collaboration Community

It is unlikely that those Wikipedians with 100,000+ edits are either subject matter experts or economically rational time maximizers. They are instead part of the Collaboration Community, those who contribute based partially on subject matter interest but primarily on community interest (if you’ve never watched The Internet is my Religion, please do so). That is, they are interested in the network itself and want it to succeed. This happens on the Government of Canada's internal networks, as well. Regardless of the topic, alongside the subject matter experts there's always a noticeable contingent of "usual suspects".

Novelty Explorers

Novelty Explorers are the group that engages because the opportunity to engage is new and exciting. A chance to help scientists make discoveries, a way to see their name and contribution immortalized on the internet, or an opportunity to weigh in on the activities of their government. This is the logic of "Holy ___ — [large organization that I read about in the news] wants my input!"

The Attention Economy

Novelty Explorers are a particularly fascinating group, because government is increasingly asking for the time and attention of citizens at the same time everyone else is: citizen science, crowdsourcing campaigns, crowdfunding campaigns, TripAdvisor, Yelp, as well as all of the discussion forums and Usenet groups that came with the early internet days.

But now everyone wants people’s input, and asking for it isn't special anymore. This fact demands recognition and a change in tactics. People are contributing at their whim, and the novelty will wear off. Not all explorers will turn into collaborators, strategists, or experts.

So far online communities have thrived* through experimentation and a sheer volume of potential collaborators. But as demand increases and novelty doesn’t, those asking for the time, attention, and effort of online communities will need to up the ante in the years to come**. The question will move from “How can we get people to engage?” to “Who actually needs to engage, and why would they, in particular?” 

*Relative frequency of “thrived” versus “throve” since 1800:

**Blaise pointed to the concept of Evaporative Cooling in online communities before, an interesting read about how communities inexorably become less valuable to precisely those people that provide the most value to them. Which raises interesting questions about the value of such communities.

Coffee, Costs, and Collaboration

by Kent Aitken

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Espresso people are intense. Everything is purposeful: how finely the beans are ground, the temperature of the water, the relative amounts of each. So it's not shocking to find that online communities of espresso people have thoroughly investigated their price-per-cup. There's a range, but let's go with one person's assessment of $0.20.

Which, we all recognize, is hardly the full cost of enjoying espresso at home. Espresso people are intense about their equipment, too, which can easily run into the thousands of dollars for machines and grinders. (PhD dissertations could be written about the subtleties of grinders.) Which makes the first cup of espresso cost, say, $1,000.20, not $0.20. After 100 cups, you're at $10 per cup, and you get near Starbucks prices at around 500 cups or so.

There's a big difference between the marginal cost per unit (the cost of an additional cup once producing) and the total cost per unit.

One of the reasons for excitement about the digital world is "zero-marginal cost collaboration": connecting with anyone, anywhere, for free or cheap. I wrote a couple weeks back that we still have much to learn about online collaboration, and I think part of that is that we get excited about 'free' collaboration - we think about the price of the beans and forget about the machine. "Can we crowdsource this?" "Let's ask people for input." "Can we work with someone on this?" Etc.

Such collaboration is undoubtedly worth it - but have you bought the machine yet? That is, have you done the up-front work? Are you a part of that community, do you have credibility, do you know the lay of the land, have you built relationships?

Otherwise, it's like watching someone make espresso at home and thinking, "Man, how great would it be to have free espresso every morning?"

Motivation and Incentives in The Public Sector

Daniel Pink's TED talk on motivation is a must-watch. Watch it yourself, then send the link to your boss.

My Key Takeaways

1. Contingent motivators often do not work in complex situations because they narrow our focus
2. Solutions to complex problems are often on the periphery
3. If we want to discover those solutions we need a new approach
4. New approaches must be built on fostering intrinsic motivation which is based on three interrelated components: (a) autonomy: the urge to direct our own lives; (b) mastery: the desire to get better and better at something; and (c) purpose: the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

The Rise of Online Communities

My experience in the public sector has been that these three things are more easily achieved by participation in communities than by adherence to strict hierarchies. Community is not a new social construct; in fact it is probably one of the oldest. The difference, at least the one I see, is that the web has exponentially increased the speed at which they can form, communicate, and act (not to mention expand their reach, increase their longevity, and create digital legacy). In short, the more connected we are, the easier it is to find and share our niches and/or interests. I have a feeling that this may partially explain the popularity of professionally-focused social networks like Govloop.


The Connection Between Online Communities and Motivation

What sites like Govloop offer that the public sector organizations can't is a large pool of people who have all opted-in to the community (autonomy). Strict hierarchies, and the work we are paid to undertake within them, often fail to align well with where autonomy would take us.

For me personally, despite a significant interest and work overlap, there are many tasks that I perform in my substantive role that don't actually interest me. At a fundamental human level, I think that we are all working to bring our interests and our duties into complete congruence. While there may be other motivating factors, I would argue that joining a professional social network is a way to signal one's interest in improving one's skill set. My own experience with Govloop is that the network has expanded the pool of people from whom I can learn and has exposed me to a number of new social (free) learning opportunities. The community also reinforces my sense of purpose through encouraging comments on blog posts and interactions in discussion forums.


Online Communities: A Motivating Factor

This is incredibly important because the relationship between traditional motivators like salary, advancement opportunities and service to Canadians and autonomy, mastery and purpose is not always clear.

Somewhere at the nexus of employees and managers lies the responsibility to motivate. If participation in online communities does in fact motivate people the way I think they do, an argument could be made that they are the newest tool at the disposal of organizations looking to improve the motivation of their people.

However, this is deeply at odds with standard operating procedure in many public sector agencies. If we agree that participation in online communities can plug motivational gaps within the organization than we should be acting in a way that reduces the barriers to participation for those people in the organization who want to participate.

Why is it then that our organizations block access to these types of networks in the workplace? From where I sit, I see them filling a gap, and doing it at no additional cost to the organization, save some of the employees' time. What people need to understand is that a little time away from the desk now may actually mean a more effective use of the remaining time spent at it.


Plugging the Holes

Perhaps we need to start to rethink the public sector's relationship with social networking sites, maybe they aren't the productivity sink holes many people deem them to be, maybe they could actually be used to fill not only motivational gaps, but learning gaps, expertise gaps, and thereby perhaps even budgetary shortfalls (depending of course on how they are used).

Shouldn't managers then be looking to connect their staff to their communities of interest in a way that creates value for the organization?

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say that the ability to do this effectively is about to become one of the most important competencies for leadership.

I Made a Mistake, and I Apologize

Last week I reacted too quickly. I was upset and tried to prove a point. I still think my point is valid, but in retrospect I went about trying to prove it the wrong way.

My passion got the better of me, and for that I apologize to those I was trying to prove the point to. I respect them, and they deserved better than that.

Long story short, I tried to fake-scuttle something because I thought a colleague was being treated unfairly. This colleague, my friend, a brilliant and capable man, assured me that he could handle it. I didn't doubt for a minute he could, and he did.

My passion got the better of me, and for that I apologize to him. I took it personally when it was something far more important.

It was about many of us. It was about everyone who had stepped in on the ground floor, editing preliminary wiki pages, throwing out ideas, and taking time to sit around the planning table.

My passion got the better of me, and to everyone who put in time, I apologize. My intention was never to actually scuttle the project, but rather to induce a short coma to prove my point.

The point, the one I think is still valid, the one that got the better of me, is that in order to exert influence over the project in today's environment you have to be present, you need to participate, and the participation of any one individual is far outweighed by the collective participation of others. The influence of hierarchy, especially in collaborative cultures, is eroding.

It is a point that all of you who refused to let me scuttle the project proved to me through your actions, and through your refusal to simply let a good idea die because one person couldn't participate; and for that I thank you.

Making mistakes is natural. The trick is learning from them. One of the things that I have learned through this experience is that community - friends and colleagues - tend to know more than you think, and they also cut you slack if you have social capital. Making mistakes is a lot harder when you worry about alienating those you on rely for support. It’s a lot easier when you know they will be there to help you up when you fall down.

I made things personal. I underestimated you, and overestimated my own importance.

I made a mistake, and for that I apologize.

[image credit: mysunshine]

All I Really Need to Know (About Collaboration) I Learned in Kindergarten (Last Week)

Last week I volunteered in my daughter's junior kindergarten class. Afterward I realized that building online communities is not all that different than building trust with a large group of children. In the column below I will speak directly about my experience in the classroom; while in many cases the corollaries will be self-evident I have purposely employed parentheses to make the analogy more explicit.


Introductions and Credibility via Association

My afternoon in the classroom started with a simple introduction: “Today we have a helper in the class, his name is Nick, he is Larkyn's dad. Can everyone say hello to Nick?” … which was met with a resounding “Hi Nick!” from the children.

In retrospect, the introduction builds my credibility in two ways: the first is that it was issued by the teacher for whom there is an existing relationship of respect and authority within the organization. The second is that the introduction included a peer connection–in this case my daughter Larkyn. The combination of authority (teacher) and camaraderie (Larkyn) created a certain degree of comfort between us despite the fact that we are essentially strangers.


Building Trust One Person at a Time

After the introduction I was on craft table duty. I was tasked to help the children make a hand print using paint and construction paper. Essentially this involved me giving directions (a framework), providing materials (the tools), making the print (the expected behaviour) and of course, cleaning up.

The process by which the children were selected to do the activity was akin to the process anyone should follow when they are looking to build support for an initiative. The students didn't maul the table all at once, nor were they told to come under their own volition; but rather they proceeded one at a time, starting with Larkyn. Starting with my daughter was incredibly helpful because she was my strongest link to the rest of the class. Each child who completed the craft not only selected the next child to complete the craft but also notified them. The key to understanding the success here is that in each case the student who just completed the craft freely selected the person the next person to undertake the process. I think it is fairly safe to say that students chose the subsequent student based, at least in part, on affinity. This approach (to community building) creates a cascading effect whereby each subsequent participant took my direction (advice) readily because they were referred by someone in their peer group.

As a class helper (community manager), this one–on-one interaction also provided me an incredible opportunity to learn about each person in the class (community) individually. I learned their names, which hand was their dominant (work style), their comfort level with having paint on their hands (tolerance for change), their ability to clean up after themselves (self-sufficiency), and who they considered their closest friends in the class (relationship map).


Play Where the Community Plays

I was then advised by the teacher that I could play bingo with the children after their snack, and was given the requisite materials to do so. I asked the kids if they wanted to play and while they said they were interested, they immediately dispersed after their snacks, electing to play with something on the other side of the room instead. Instead of hollering at them to come play bingo I just left the table and walked over to where my daughter was playing with three other friends. We started to play house but after a few minutes of interacting with them on their terms, I told the kids I was far more interested in the large set of cardboard building blocks along the wall. They weren't really interested but I asked them if they minded if I explored the blocks in order to see if they could be put to good use (permission for a proof of concept). They didn't have a problem with it so I began playing (experimenting) with them. I started by walling myself in with the blocks and then I knocked them down in a somewhat raucous manner.


Scaling Participation and Activity Levels Naturally

What I learned was that building the castle wasn't going to incite interest (high barrier to entry), but knocking it down was (low barrier to entry). The prospect of being able to knock down a second iteration of the castle was enough to secure the attention of four of the children (early adopters). Given that the attention span of these new converts was relatively fragile, our first castle (project) was fairly simple. We used no more than half the blocks available and the castle was completely devoid of any windows or doors (had only basic functionality). The building process itself took only minutes (expedient). Despite the relative simplicity of the activity and the low number of participants it quickly started to scale as the students became evangelists for it.

The key here is that I didn't push any of the students to recruit others but rather we scaled naturally. In some cases children self-selected to actively bring in their friends; in others, observers simply decided to join the fray based on what they saw. In both cases the initial hook was the same: a chance at knocking down the castle. As our numbers scaled so did the number of blocks we used, how elaborate the castle itself was, and the rules that governed that activity. While I provided advice, all of the aforementioned factors were ultimately determined by the participants through a self-emerging consensus.


Learning from Detractors

The benefits of allowing the group to determine its own code of conduct is that when there is a need to amend the rules of engagement it is felt more bluntly by participants. For example, the look of panic on a young boy’s face behind the wall screaming “I have to pee!” (the detractor) was enough to not only cause the immediate destruction of the structure by the community but also to prompt a new strategic choice: the mandatory inclusion of doors and windows on all future iterations of the castle.


Emerging Enablers

In the final iteration of the castle I started to see enablers emerge. In particular three individuals stepped up and played more active (yet different) roles: Larkyn, Jacob and Ethan. Larkyn was on crowd control, she determined who was in, who was out, she made sure people were sitting, and that they weren't knocking down the structure prematurely (guidelines for behaviour). Jacob was bringing me the building materials, starting with the largest blocks down to the smallest so we could maximize the efficiency of the structure (usefulness of the platform). Ethan was building with me. I took the time to teach him how we could build the tallest and sturdiest structure given the materials at our disposal (community manager).

On the final iteration we had approximately 20 children in the castle, and 3 enablers emerged to facilitate the larger group. Interestingly, participation rates were not too dissimilar from the 90-9-1 rule of internet participation.


Expanding the Scope

For the most part, when the teacher told us to clean up it was all hands on deck. While that was not surprising (they are told daily at that time to clean up), what was interesting was that when we moved outside to the playground the majority of the kids looked to me, Larkyn, Jacob and Ethan (the enablers) to choose the games to be played given the change in the environment. In short, the community generalized its decorum to a different set of circumstances.


Parade of Hugs

When I left at the end of the day it was a parade of hugs. Everyone wanted to thank me for the spending the time in the classroom (kudos for a job well done). In retrospect, I'm so glad I took the time to thank them too (because reciprocity is so important).

[image credit: woodlywonderworks]

Column: With a Little Help From My Friends

Last week, the Web 2.0 Practitioner's (W2P) Community (of which I am a part) held its informal mixer as it does every 3 weeks. I happened to be on point for organizing the event this time, although truth be told I couldn't have done it without a little help from my friends.

Lend Me Your Ears and I'll Sing You a Song

Looking back I think the event was a huge success. There were approximately fifty people in attendance, a book exchange and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Wayne Wouters, came by, donned a nametag and introduced himself around. For those of you who don't know, the Clerk of the Privy Council is the most senior non-political official in the Government of Canada.

While I only managed to speak to him for a few minutes, it was a rewarding experience and firmed up what I had been hearing around town - that he has a keen interest in the confluence of the web and the public service. His interest, signaled by his attendance, is something we can all look to for encouragement and is coincidentally the reason I smiled the whole way home that night. Given what I have written previously about the risks of public servants innovating in the absence of leadership, the support of the most senior public servant moving forward is paramount. The Clerk's presence, coupled with some other moving and shaking that I have been privy to, make me feel as though we are turning an important corner.

Moving forward, I think one of the biggest wins out of the Clerk's appearance is leverage. If the Clerk can find time in his busy schedule to stop by and check in with the W2P community after hours, then surely other senior leaders can find time to discuss the use of Web 2.0 technologies during work hours, and when the time comes, make sure to try not to sing out of key.