BUILDING COMMUNITY A PRIMER 2018 UPDATE BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER PROJECT LEAD(s): Andrei Tolstopiatenko, Emilia Galiano WRITER: Ray Eisenberg SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS: Ivan Butina, Bruce Summers, Claudia Oliveira Neto Teixeira, Michael Haws and Fatbardha Ajeti GRAPHIC DESIGN: Corporate Visions / Michael Haws TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................5 How to Use this Primer....................................................................................................................................... 5 Feedback.................................................................................................................................................................. 5 I - COMMUNITY BUILDING....................................................................................7 Defining Community............................................................................................................................... 7 Community and Community of Practice Defined.................................................................................... 7 Sense of Community........................................................................................................................................... 7 Roles in the Community..................................................................................................................................... 8 Community Lifecycle........................................................................................................................................... 9 Planning Your Community...................................................................................................................11 Conducting a Competitive Analysis.............................................................................................................11 Conducting an Audience Analysis................................................................................................................12 Designing Your Community................................................................................................................16 Recruiting and Creating a Core Group........................................................................................................16 Principles of Good Community Design......................................................................................................18 Community Focus...............................................................................................................................................19 Creating a Community Charter.....................................................................................................................20 Defining Community Value.............................................................................................................................21 Specifying Measures and Return on Investment (ROI).........................................................................21 Convening Venues..............................................................................................................................................23 Launching Your Community...............................................................................................................25 Setting up Your Convening Venues..............................................................................................................25 Selecting a Collaboration Platform..............................................................................................................25 Setting up the Collaboration Platform........................................................................................................25 Expanding Your Community...............................................................................................................31 Community Manager Framework and Key Areas of Activity..............................................................31 Engaging in Key Community Building Activities....................................................................................31 II - COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT..................................................................... 39 Growing Communities..........................................................................................................................39 Growth Channels and the Community Lifecycle....................................................................................39 Reasons to Grow Your Community...............................................................................................................40 Reasons Not to Grow Your Community......................................................................................................40 How to Grow Your Community......................................................................................................................40 Growth Tactics and the Community Lifecycle..........................................................................................41 Growing a Community - Summary..............................................................................................................44 BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS continued Initiating and Sustaining Discussions in a Community.............................................................44 Discussions, Relationships, and Communities.........................................................................................44 Principles from Facilitation..............................................................................................................................45 Framework for Initiating Discussions..........................................................................................................45 Types of Discussion............................................................................................................................................46 Guidelines for Sustaining Discussions........................................................................................................48 Content and Content Planning..........................................................................................................49 The Purpose and Importance of Content..................................................................................................49 Making Existing Content More Social.........................................................................................................50 Creating New Social Content.........................................................................................................................50 Principles of Creating Good Social Content..............................................................................................51 Content Themes..................................................................................................................................................51 Creating a Content Calendar..........................................................................................................................52 Events and Activities..............................................................................................................................53 The Role of Events..............................................................................................................................................53 Shared Experiences and the Hierarchy of Social Presence..................................................................54 Types of Events....................................................................................................................................................54 Activities and Content for Creating Great Events...................................................................................55 Scheduling Round-table Discussions..........................................................................................................56 III - WORK BOOK.................................................................................................... 59 Defining and Planning Your Community..................................................................................................60 Designing Your Community for Success...................................................................................................64 (Re)launching Your Community.....................................................................................................................69 Planning for Your Next 3 Months..................................................................................................................76 CM Level 1 Checklist.............................................................................................................................................81 IV - ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.......................................................................... 83 Learning, References, and Links.....................................................................................................................83 Glossary..................................................................................................................................................................84 Useful Links...........................................................................................................................................................85 Community Building Checklist......................................................................................................................86 Community Examples...........................................................................................................................88 Jobs Gateway in South Eastern Europe Community of Practice (147 members)........................88 KnowledgeMatters! Community of Practice (521 members).............................................................89 Social Inclusion GSG Community of Practice (330 members) ...........................................................90 SecureNutrition Community of Practice (6,200 members).................................................................91 4 I INTRODUCTION This primer provides concrete steps and tools to help you build a community of practitioners and/or online community in the context of the World Bank Group (WBG). Here when we use the word “community” we mean either community of practice or online community in the WBG context. We will differentiate between the two where needed. The primer is divided into four sections: • Community Design and Building • Community Management • Work Book • Resources Community and community building will vary in its audiences—geographically, culturally, linguistically, politically, historically, and economically—and in its implementation given all these different contexts, but the principles remain consistent. This primer expands on these principles within the framework of the WBG. How to Use this Primer For those of you who have not taken the Community Management Training, and have not had any other formal community management training or experience, it is recommended that you go through the material in the order that it is presented. If you have taken community management training or are an experienced community manager, use this primer for reference as you go through the process of building your community, dipping into it where and when appropriate. Feedback We would love to hear from you about how you are using the primer, including any errors you find, omissions of material that you would like to see included, and other suggestions that you might have. If you are a World Bank employee, you can post your comments to the WBG Community Managers community on the Intranet. If you have accessed this document through the Open Learning Campus or the World Bank Documents and Reports, you can post comments at this link: https://olc.worldbank.org/content/building-community-primer-english BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 5 6 I 1 COMMUNITY BUILDING “A group of people who This Community Building section deals with the following topics: Here the stress is on the importance of the regularity of interaction among members, share a concern or ƒƒ Defining Community and on their professional development passion for something ƒƒ Planning Community through peer learning. Simply put, the goal of a community of practice is to help its that they do, and learn ƒƒ Designing Community members get better at what they do by interacting with and learning from each other how to do it better as ƒƒ Launching Your Community over time. they interact regularly.” ƒƒ Expanding Your Community A community of practice is definitely not defined by an online space; it is not defined Defining Community by a web site. In fact, a community of practice If you asked 100 people to define might or might not have an online space to community, you would probably receive meet and share. On the other hand, at the 100 different definitions. In this section, WBG communities of practice are only one we look at: type of existing online community. In fact, if ƒƒ Community versus communities we take a look at our collaboration platforms, of practice we’ll find online communities that also ƒƒ Sense of community belong to teams, departments, units, GPs, projects, and others. However, while there are ƒƒ Roles in a community structural differences between a community ƒƒ Community lifecycle of practice and an online community that doesn’t belong to a community of practice, Community and Community the principles of community management of Practice Defined are true for both. The World Bank Group defines a community of practice (CoP) as a gathering of individuals Sense of Community motivated by the desire to cross organizational A key characteristic of successful boundaries, to relate to one another, and to communities (successful meaning active, build a body of actionable knowledge through engaged communities that people want to coordination and collaboration. As you can see, visit, and where members contribute on a the focus is on members who are motivated regular basis) is a sense of community. to connect with one another beyond This concept was developed by McMillan & organizational boundaries. Chavis (Sense of Community: A Definition Here are two important concepts for today’s and Theory, David W. McMillan and David WBG: “actionable knowledge,” meaning M. Chavis, Journal of Community Psychology, knowledge that is actually integrated Volume 14, 1986). They state that a sense of and implemented in operations; and community can be broken down conceptually “collaboration.” into four elements: Another definition, by community of practice ƒƒ Membership guru Etienne Wenger, nicely complements ƒƒ Influence the WBG definition: “A group of people who ƒƒ Fulfillment of needs share a concern or passion for something ƒƒ Emotional connection that they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 7 Membership identification with that history, and a deeply Figure 1 is a diagram developed by FeverBee, Membership refers to who is in the felt connection between members. Ltd., a leading community management community and who is out. It shows consultancy, showing the multiple duties of a that people value being a member, and Roles in the Community community manager. being identified as a member. Fan clubs No single person can run a community by The diagram illustrates eight areas of a are an extreme example of the power of him/herself. There are several roles that need community manager’s scope of work: membership and are often characterized by to be filled if a community is to be successful. strategy, growth, moderation, content, symbols of membership: badges, t-shirts, This does not mean that there has to be a relationships, events and activities, business and so on. Professional associations are separate person for every single role but the integration, and user experience. also extreme examples of communities of roles should be identified and defined clearly Clearly, this is enough work for a full time practice. before those roles are assigned to members. position! We understand that not all When you are setting up your community, communities can afford to have a dedicated Role of the Community Manager you need to be clear about who is in and who full-time community manager, and there can is out. For example, is your community only Building a successful community of practice be alternatives. However, the dedication and for senior economists dealing with world or online community requires lots of effort. amount of work a community requires to economic issues at the macro level? Or is Ideally, a community should have a person succeed does not change. it for all members of the Bank who have a dedicated to working on it. The community manager generally reports to passing interest in these matters? Is it for the community leader (see Other Community Bank employees and contractors only, or is it for an external audience of partners, NGOs, and academic institutions as well? Figure 1: Community Manager’s Scope of Work Influence Influence refers to the notion that “my voice COMMUNITY counts.” When you speak, others listen and MANAGER’S SCOPE often act on your advice. At the very least, being a member of this community should OF WORK assure you of the opportunity to speak STRATEGY and ensure that you will be heard. At the same time you allow for other members to influence you because you value their opinion USER GROWTH and advice. EXPERIENCE Fulfillment of needs People belong to communities to satisfy one or more needs; in a community of practice, the primary need is to get better at one’s job or profession. In a community BUSINESS COMMUNITY MODERATION INTEGRATION of practice, strong relationships might also MANAGER develop between members but that is not the primary motivation for association. If the content is not appropriate, relevant, current, or useful, then attendance, contributions, participation, engagement, and membership will soon begin to fall. EVENTS/ CONTENT ACTIVITIES Emotional connection An emotional connection is the most RELATIONSHIPS nebulous aspect of the sense of community but for true community, often the most important. Emotional connection includes shared history and shared participation and 8 I COMMUNITY BUILDING Roles following), so until your community day, the more the sponsor is aware of and has achieved sufficient mass and budget, participates in the development of the TIP the community leader can function as the community, the more likely the community manager. will be valued and supported. Therefore, it’s The creation of subgroups often has important to regularly report to a sponsor— Other Community Roles to wait until the community obtains possibly on a quarterly basis—and to ask for sufficient mass to support any sub- Even if you are or have a dedicated input. division, and it is recommended that community manager for your community, you preserve the cohesion of the the manager cannot do everything alone, Knowledge Management (KM) Advisor community as a whole before creating especially if the goal is a successful and Some communities at the WBG have any subgroups. growing community that thrives. a dedicated knowledge management There are several other roles that can be advisor. This is a knowledge management delegated to different members: professional who might dedicate a percentage of his or her time—in FeverBee describes the community lifecycle ƒƒ Community Leader or Co-Leaders agreement with his or her manager—to as consisting of four stages: inception, ƒƒ Community Sponsor the support of the community. While most establishment, maturity, and mitosis. ƒƒ Knowledge Management Adviser knowledge management professionals In the inception phase, the community ƒƒ Community Manager Backup are knowledgeable about communities of manager and members with more formal ƒƒ Project/Subgroup Leaders practice in general, they can bring additional roles (See “Other Community Roles” One person can fulfill more than one of expertise on how to capture, package, organize, and disseminate the knowledge— preceding) create more than 50% of a these roles, and this is often the case when mostly tacit—that is shared in a community. community’s content and directly invite more starting communities. than 50% of the community’s members. As Community Leader Community Manager Backup these percentages shrink, the community A community leader might be able to tap graduates to the establishment and maturity Usually a community of practice or online into additional human resources by obtaining phases. community at the WBG has at least one technical expert that acts as the community a percentage of some staff time to be leader. A community can have a co- dedicated to the community. If not technical leadership model with usually two, but experts, these people can be dedicated to Figure 2: Four Life Stages sometimes three or four co-leaders. The specific community management tasks, community leader has a full time job in his or according to their time availability, and can serve as a backup for the community Inception Establishment her area of expertise and can dedicate only a small amount a time to the community. manager. The community manager is hired by and reports to the community leader, who Community Project/Subgroup Leader Finally, as the community grows and 4 provides the technical expertise that a community manager usually doesn’t have. expands, some community members can LIFE The community leader is mainly involved on the strategic level of the community and— take on dedicated roles as leaders of a community project or a subgroup. For STAGES because of an acknowledged skill set as a example, a health care professional’s of Community Management technical expert—is key in role modeling the community can create a project dedicated to behaviors expected of community members. reviewing the implications of new legislation If a community leader doesn’t have the on health care in a specific region. Mitosis Maturity budget to hire a community manager, then the leader has to cover that role. Community Lifecycle Image courtesy of Feverbee, Ltd. Like people, communities have a lifecycle: a Community Sponsor community is born, it grows, and eventually A community’s sponsor is the organizational dies; although as communities continue to be manager who provides the budget for the refreshed by new membership, communities community and to whom the community can often change significantly over time leader reports. While not expected to be without actually “dying.” very involved in the community day-to- BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 9 Figure 3: Lifecycle stages and task descriptions This primer focuses on the inception, establishment and maturity phases. Image courtesy of Feverbee, Ltd. 10 I COMMUNITY BUILDING “Both the community Planning Your Community leader and the Planning your community involves the following: ƒƒ Learn what works and what doesn’t from existing relevant communities. community manager ƒƒ Conducting a competitive analysis ƒƒ Identify opportunities to leverage should be involved in ƒƒ Conducting an audience analysis existing communities and collaborate with them. the planning phase.” ƒƒ Defining and refining your domain ƒƒ Defining and refining your audience A competitive analysis helps you visualize how your idea of community fits into the In this primer, the two analyses are presented domain’s existing ecosystem of communities, sequentially, with the audience analysis networks, and other relevant professional following the competitive one. However, you gatherings. can do them in parallel or do either one first. When conducting your analysis, refer to the Conducting a Competitive “Competitive Analysis Template” (see Work Book) where you can find a set of questions Analysis to help you research your community. Both the community leader and the community manager should be involved in Searching for Communities at the the planning phase. World Bank Group Planning your community involves the The WBG has several directories that will be following: useful to you when conducting a competitive ƒƒ Conducting a competitive analysis analysis of existing World Bank communities. Conducting an audience analysis ƒƒ Defining and refining your domain ƒƒ Defining and refining your audience TIP Whether you have been assigned the task of creating a community or you want to create a community, you definitely have an idea If you don’t find any community like of what it should be about, and for whom. the one you have in mind, it doesn’t However your idea for this community might necessarily mean that you have a genius not be unique. Maybe there are other existing idea that no one else thought of before. communities that are exactly like or closely It could be that no one cares enough resemble the one you have in mind or are about the topic! Make sure that you are somehow relevant to it. not the only one who thinks that this “community” is a good idea. A competitive analysis helps you achieve several objectives: ƒƒ Avoid duplication. ƒƒ Better focus your community by identifying a specific area or niche. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 11 One of them is the OLC Connect page: https://olc.worldbank.org/wbg-connect. Figure 4: OLC WBc Connect This is a database of WBG communities. Here you can easily search by topic, geographic focus, sponsoring Vice Presidency, or by using keywords in the Search function. Each community has a dedicated page indicating the community leader(s), and providing other key information such as its organizational mapping and a link to its online site, as well as its purpose, objectives, and activities. Other places where WBG communities can be found are: the Updated WBG Communities Inventory in the WBG Community Managers group and the Intranet Resource Center Directory. Conducting an Audience Analysis The audience analysis helps you get to know and understand your potential members—especially what motivates them and what they value. Why is this important? A community is made up of the people who Figure 5: Intranet Community Directory decide to join it and make it come alive. If you don’t have members who actively participate in the community, then you don’t have a community. But how do you make sure that members actively participate? This is the biggest challenge for anyone who has tried to build a community here at the WBG. You need to provide value to your members! Think of yourself: would you take time to participate in something that doesn’t offer you any value? Probably not. Your community members feel the same way! But how do you know what value you can provide to your members? Yes, you might have some ideas, but don’t assume! You might be wrong. You need to analyze your audience—your potential members—to understand what they value that you can offer them. Community is all about shared value. A community has to provide value, and this value is a combination of business value (what value does the community provide to 12 I COMMUNITY BUILDING the organization?) and member value (what talk about in the community and why they value does the community provide to its should go there. TIP members?). You also need to clearly define your audience by narrowing down your target audience— Defining the domain and the audience your potential members. Figure 6: Community means shared value is not a one-time event; it is a process A domain that is too vague, with a undertaken over time that will change membership that is too vast, will not work; as your analysis, your interviews, and for example, all professionals working in your interactions with the Core Group education. reveal the right members for the right subjects. These could also change as So, narrow down the target domain and think your community matures: a community of a more specific audience to start with, so initially set up for novices might that they have something more concrete morph or expand into a community for they can engage around. Have at least two experts. qualifiers. You can get even more specific and have more qualifiers but always have at least two. This can be easily collected if available online Use the following format for your audience or through a survey. Community Value and domain description: Value is discussed in detail in the section A community for {qualifier 1} who are Habits titled “Defining Community Value,” on {qualifier 2} Habits tell you what your potential members page 21. do. By analyzing members’ habits you’ll A community is not about you, your great Examples of Community Audience understand where they are most likely to idea, or what you need to get out of it. A and Domain Descriptions receive their information, what content Here are examples of community audience sources they read, who they interact with community is about your members. Always descriptions: within the domain, if they are members of put your members at the center. any other community or similar professional ƒƒ A community for water sanitation gathering, how familiar they are with online Defining and Refining professionals working in South Asia. networks, communities, and collaboration Your Domain Water sanitation professionals is the first sites, and when they visit them. All these are qualifier; South Asia is the second. examples of crucial information that will help The domain of a community is essentially the area and topic(s) your community will ƒƒ A community for gender professionals you tailor your community to your members. be interested in, your subject matter area who are working on primary education These questions can be posed through a or thematic area that the community will be for girls who are affected by the AIDS survey. talking about. It’s the “what” of community epidemic in Southern Africa. and the “why” it exists. If the domain—your In this example, there are four Psychographics subject matter area or thematic area—is qualifiers. Psychographics will help you understand too vast it becomes necessarily vague and what your members think, and what their members will not understand what they can Defining and Refining challenges and aspirations are. This is crucial Your Audience information particularly for the determination of the value your community can provide There are three elements to address in your to members. Psychographic information audience analysis: can be collected through a random sample TIP ƒƒ Demographics of potential member interviews. You could ƒƒ Habits interview 10-15% of your membership base. ƒƒ Psychographics When doing your audience analysis, you can If you deliver value to your members first, refer to the “Audience Analysis Template” they will exponentially deliver it back to Demographics (p.60) where you can find sample information you. If you try to extract value first, you Demographic data tells you who your and questions to ask for each of the three will fail. potential members are: information such as pieces of analysis. age, gender, and organizational mapping. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 13 TIP covering their demographics, habits, and psychographics. Survey design is an art and Here’s an example of a survey: science in and of itself, but here are some 1. Where do you go to learn more As a community manager, make sure suggestions: about your professional area? that you update your own profile in the ƒƒ Try to limit your questions to no more 2. Which social media channels do you SkillFinder: you want to make sure that than 10. use professionally? others can find relevant information ƒƒ Try to limit your demographic 3. What days and times of day are you about you, just as you hope to find questions (especially when you can most active on the Internet? information about your potential find the information from other members! 4. If you search the Internet for sources such as SkillFinder and professional information, when do Linkedin). you search most often? ƒƒ When conducting surveys online, try Using the SkillFinder Tool to use multiple-choice questions to 5. If you search offline for professional make it easy for your respondents to information, where do you search The WBG has an important tool that can most frequently? answer. help you with your audience analysis: the ƒƒ When conducting surveys in person, 6. Do you belong to any communities SkillFinder. make sure you get your questions of practice or professional This is a database of all WBG staff, with answered, but do not hesitate to associations (inside or outside profiles that include contact information, “go with the flow” and go in depth WBG)? areas of expertise and skills, present and past on issues that your interviewee is work experience, as well as short bios. 7. Are you active in any online interested in. It can open up new community (inside or outside WBG)? You can find the demographic information ideas for topics and themes for you need about any potential members who your community. Plus if you find 8. Are you active in any offline are internal to the WBG. somebody that is passionate about community (inside or outside a topic, you stand a good chance of WBG)? not only recruiting that person to the Creating and Conducting a Survey community but having them take on To find out more about your audience an active role as well. you can create and conduct a survey Figure 7: SkillFinder Tool 14 I COMMUNITY BUILDING particular, you should have a clear idea of our first 100 members, and then open it up to Here’s an example of a 10-question its position within the wider ecosystem of a larger audience. survey: its domain and about the member needs, This elevator pitch example is for a 1. What would you like to get from challenges, and aspirations it can address. community built around social inclusion: our Community of Practice? As a result, you should be able to develop Reducing poverty alone is not enough for What are your organizational and a short value elevator pitch about your ensuring that development benefits reach business needs that we can help community that is not informed by your all groups equally and so social inclusion has you achieve with our CoP? initial ideas but rather by the analysis you did recently become an important element of the 2. What other online tools and of what is out there already and what unique WBG’s twin goals and the new Sustainable platforms do you use such as value it can offer to its members. And you Development Goals. Social Inclusion Facebook, LinkedIn, and C4D? can use the pitch to attract new members to CoP brings together social development your group. specialists and other Bank staff already 3. Are you a member of other working on social inclusion and related sectorial networks such as Local Elevator Pitch Examples issues, such as inequality and gender, as Content groups on LinkedIn? well as practitioners who would like to 4. What sectorial events are you This elevator pitch example is for a incorporate social inclusion in their work. The attending such as workshops and knowledge management community: CoP’s main objectives are to connect people conferences? and identify, curate and share relevant This community is for Knowledge knowledge using a variety of media (online 5. At what time do you usually Management (KM) professionals to share best platforms, newsletters and regular events.) go online? Are you online on practices to improve their KM skills so that weekends? others might benefit from their experiences, This elevator pitch example is for a and so they can receive the recognition 6. What are the key issues that you community built around credit reporting: for their expertise from their peers and are interested in regarding local managers. This community also provides The Credit Reporting Community aims content? resources, tips, and ongoing support so that to bring together WBG staff interested in 7. What are the main struggles new practitioners do not have to “go it alone” finding the best ways to help individuals, in terms of local content and do not have to start from scratch every and micro, small and medium enterprises implementation in your country? time. make use of ‘reputational’ collateral to gain 8. Where do you get your information access to finance. Besides helping connect, regarding local content? What sort This elevator pitch example is for a stay in touch and interact with each other, of materials do you read online and community around employment in the oil, the community aims to share best practices offline? gas, and mining industries: as well as challenges and failures. Also, the group will be able to provide a one-stop 9. What are your biggest The World Bank has created a Community of shop to gain access to relevant documents, achievements in terms of Local Practice on Local Content Development that is publications, templates, etc. Last but not Content policies? promoting the creation of local employment least, the group will provide a platform to and local procurement resulting from the oil, 10. Would you like to become a core share fun humor as well as encouragement gas and mining industry. member of our Community of and appreciation for its members. Practice and share one specific We want to bring together policy makers, topic? business professionals, civil society organizations, academics and donors who are working on this emerging topic. You can use the Creating an Elevator Pitch about We want to connect our members from all pitch to attract new Your Community over the world in order for them to learn from each other and share best practices. We want members to your After having completed the competitive and to avoid that policy makers, for example in group. audience analyses you should know if your Mozambique, have to reinvent the wheel community should exist at all—meaning when implementing a local content policy that it is unique and it can provide value. In that government officials in Malaysia have already solved. We want to get the Community of Practice off the ground with BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 15 Designing Your “Who should your Community perspective directly into the design of your community, thus making it even Core Group members Designing your community involves the more member-centric. be? You should following: ƒƒ Sense of ownership—By participating in the design process, these members choose those people ƒƒ Initial conceptualization ƒƒ Recruiting and creating a Core Group will develop a sense of ownership of who are the most ƒƒ Co-designing the community with the the community. In turn, this means that they’ll be committed to its enthusiastic about Core Group success, and will be available to help you as it develops. You’ll definitely your community idea.” ƒƒ Identifying value ƒƒ Establishing a measurement system need and appreciate their help! ƒƒ Role models—Core Group members Initial Conceptualization will be role models as they will practice The idea or request for a community will those community behaviors that you often come from a senior manager. At the expect from members. WBG, a TTL or above who has a vision to form a community of practice, gathers a few Composition of the Core Group colleagues and develops a Knowledge Note You should identify a number of people that or Concept Note outlining the goals of the is large enough to be representative of the community (usually before a community broader audience of potential members— manager is designated or recruited). think of different member profiles based on regions, areas of expertise, organizations, The TTL becomes the Community Leader etc.—but small enough to foster developing or Co-Leader and together with other strong relationships with one another, thus roles like Community Sponsor, Knowledge contributing to the sense of community. Management (KM) Advisor, Communications Manager, and later the Community Manager, A good number would be between 8 and create the initial concept of the community, 15 people, depending on the size of the as well as doing the initial planning and community, but this is not set in stone. If you outlining the broad goals of the community. have only 30 to 50 potential members, a Core (See also the section titled “Other Community Group of 4 to 5 might be sufficient. On the Roles” on page 9.) These individuals are also other hand, you definitely don’t want more responsible for creating a Core Group. than 15 people because then they won’t be able to quickly develop close relationships with each other. Recruiting and Creating a Core Group Who should your Core Group members be? The Core Group is made up of potential A mistake some might make is to nominate members who are interested in (and often the top experts or representatives of different passionate about) the community you’d like organizational structures. The problem to build and are committed to its creation with that approach is that those who are and success. In some instances, over time, the appointed might be experts in their domain, Core Group replaces the Core Team (although but might not necessarily care much about the Community Leader role always remains). the community and not be committed to it. Instead you should choose those people You should identify a Core Group of potential who are the most enthusiastic about your members and co-design the community with community idea. You might have a sense them, for several reasons: of who they are because of your existing ƒƒ Members’ perspective—While the relationships and past conversations. You audience analysis gave you initial could also identify some from the audience insights on members’ needs, now analysis, e.g., those who have been the most you’ll be able to include members’ enthusiastic when answering your interview questions. 16 I COMMUNITY BUILDING While Core Group members don’t necessarily need to be the top experts within the Figure 8: The Core Group is the heart of your CoP domain, it is very important that they be recognized as peers by their colleagues and Core other practitioners. Otherwise, they will not Outside Group be able to function as role models because Public it is unlikely that other members will wish to replicate their behaviors. Active Members Centrality of the Core Group Figure 8 demonstrates the importance of the Peripheral Core Group. Members As you can see, the Core Group is at the center of different levels of community membership and they are the smallest membership group. In addition to the Core Group, every community has active members, those who contribute to an online platform or an e-mail thread, or come to events. Finally, every community has peripheral members who only consume the Larger online communities often show community’s content but never contribute } to it. Nevertheless, the periphery is still important: every community needs 90-9-1 profile 90% periphery, 9% active, and 1% core consumers, and the members of this population are all potentially active members. 70-20-10 profile 70% periphery, 20% active, and 10% core Larger online communities often show a 90- 9-1 profile (90% periphery, 9% active, and 1% core); or a 70-20-10 profile (70% periphery, Domain conflict will be dealt with. This aspect is the 20% active, and 10% core). Questions on the domain help you “who” of your community. Generally, the larger the community, the understand what topics the community higher the number of peripheral members should be concerned with and which it Practice it will have. Smaller communities have a should not, how the community would Questions on the practice help you clarify proportionally lower number of peripheral be legitimized within the organization, how the community will become an effective members. Very small communities might and around which topics members can be knowledge resource for its members and even have more active members than engaged. Basically, the domain provides a other constituencies that might benefit from peripheral members. community’s identity. It is the “what” and the it. You need to address how knowledge will “why” of your community. be stored and shared; how learning activities Interviewing the Core Group will be organized; what should be recorded In order to co-design the community with Community and what should be “off-record”; what the Core Group, you should discuss with the Questions on the community are related development projects should be undertaken, Team key aspects of the community. In doing to its audience, its operational model, and so on. This aspect is the “how” of your so, you can refer to the “Core Group Interview the desired behaviors, and the way community. Template,” p.66, where you’ll find questions to communications among members will discuss divided in three areas: happen. This element addresses what roles ƒƒ Domain people will play, how “newbies” will be ƒƒ Community integrated into the community, and how ƒƒ Practice BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 17 Principles of Good Community Design Before embarking on the design of your community you should be aware of some of the major principles of community design because designing a community is not like designing any other organizational structure. A community should not mirror the institutional structure— even when institutionalized, such as the Global Solution Groups at the WBG. Remember, its membership is voluntary and there are no reporting relationships. We recommend that you follow 10 key that have a set term. If a Core Group principles of community design when member decreases her or his level If you would like to explore designing communities at the WBG. of participation, they should not be TIP these principles further refer forced to continue to be a Core Group to “Cultivating Communities ƒƒ Design for evolution: The member. Likewise, it should be easy for of Practice” (Wenger, community you create is not set an active member who becomes more McDermot, and Snyder, in stone as designed and will not committed to the community to move 2002). stay that way in perpetuity. up to become a Core Group member. It evolves as the domain evolves or It should also be easy for peripheral members change or practices consumers to move up and become cease to exist. (The concept of value change. The community has to active members. is explored in greater detail in the adapt to those changes to survive. ƒƒ Develop both public and private section titled “Defining Community ƒƒ Open a dialogue between inside and community spaces: We often think that Value,” on page 21.) outside perspectives: It is useful to a community is about activities and ƒƒ Cultivate trust: Because a community listen to external perspectives when discussion by everyone with everyone. is about relationships that lead designing a community. This means However, a community also needs to a free exchange of knowledge, listening to stakeholders who are private spaces for one-on-one or small expertise, and collaboration, it is outside the community’s domain yet group conversations. The stronger crucial that members develop a sense can provide useful insights that will the relationships members develop of trust towards one another and allow you to position your community with one another, the stronger the the community at large. This means well inside the organization or within community will become. So, these that you need to ask yourself what the larger industry outside. It also connections should be encouraged. behaviors and actions will foster the means fostering relationships between On an online platform this means that development of this sense of trust. your community of practice and you should have a feature that allows Because if the membership does external groups that your members members to find and message each not trust the community, they won’t also belong to, such as professional other. If you use an e-mail group for feel comfortable asking questions associations. You will often find that face-to-face meetings, it means that or sharing what they know with one your audience consists of people who you should also facilitate individual or another. are members of multiple communities small group connections to allow them ƒƒ Combine familiarity and excitement: and you should look to leverage those to have their own e-mail exchanges A community should have some internal/external networks. or private discussions, while always elements that become familiar to its ƒƒ Invite different levels of participation: encouraging members to share members. This can be visual branding, You should design your community content of value to the wider audience a common language, or shared and keeping in mind the three different in the community at large. expected regular activities or events. categories of members (Core Group, ƒƒ Focus on value: Community is all about However, there also needs to be some active members, and peripheral shared value. To be successful, your spice that brings excitement from members) and not address only one community has to provide value, and time to time to the community. For of them. Also, members will move this value is a combination of business example, you could organize a special from one level of membership to value (the value a community provides retreat or have a special guest that is a another over time and you should to the organization) and member value superstar in the domain. make this transition easy. For example, (the value a community provides to its ƒƒ Create a rhythm for the community: the Core Group members you initially members). Always remember: unless Rhythm is about having regular identified are not official positions your community provides value, it will activities (for example, blog posts, 18 I COMMUNITY BUILDING Community Focus Coordination A community can deliver on many aspects of Coordination may seem pretty elementary, value. However, especially at the beginning, but it is especially important in a context it’s important to have a specific focus. A such as the WBG. Coordination is the primary community of practice can be focused on focus of communities whose members come five different areas (for specific examples in from different parts of the organization events, newsletters) that members will each of these areas, refer to the Additional or different organizations and work on become familiar with over time and Resources section): very similar projects or possibly with the come to expect from the community, same clients. These communities facilitate ƒƒ Practitioner support eventually committing their own time the exchange of information on who is ƒƒ Business support doing what in order to avoid duplication to them. Often called the “cadence” of ƒƒ Learning of effort and encourage efficiency through a community, it’s a huge factor in the development of a sense of community. ƒƒ Innovation cross-support, integration, and pooling of ƒƒ Coordination resources when appropriate. ƒƒ Achieve stakeholder alignment: If you have a distributed community, A community could eventually deliver meaning that members are in different Practitioner support on several or even all five functions, but countries of the world (which is usually Practitioner support is the most basic and it is important to start small and focused the case at the WBG), you need to probably the most common area of focus. and expand as the community develops. make sure that the design of the This is about practitioners asking specific However, this does not mean that you should community includes perspectives, questions, seeking references, providing discourage members who become active needs, and interests from different materials to the community and getting in a different area. In fact, the development regions. One way to accomplish this responses from other practitioners of the should be allowed to be spontaneous. For is by making sure that you identify community. Many communities start their example, you could decide with your Core Core Group members from different lifecycle like this. Group that the focus will be on business geographies. If you can’t do that, support. If a member asks a question to the then you should interview potential Business support community at large, you shouldn’t prevent members from different regions. Business support is about focusing on or ignore her/him, but rather encourage ƒƒ Create a structure that promotes both supporting an organization’s business—in responses. This doesn’t mean that you local variations and global connections: the case of the WBG, its operations. Examples are switching focus from business to This aspect is also related to of business support would be helping practitioners support; you’re simply allowing distributed communities and it means with the recruitment of technical experts members to find the value they’re looking that you should allow for the creation for project teams, providing the best of for in the community and are allowing the of community subgroups if there are knowledge available to a project, or ensuring community to develop organically. It might significant numbers of members in the quality of areas relevant to the domain in be that your community is better suited to a specific country or region. These that project. practitioner support than business support members should also be allowed to and that the focus of the community will shift have their own structure and culture. Learning organically over time because that is what is However, it’s important that such Learning is the primary focus of communities of value to the members. Similarly, a support subgroups are well coordinated with where members learn from one another community can engage from time to time in one another and with the larger by sharing their knowledge, expertise, innovation and brainstorming ideas for new community. This can be achieved and experience or collaboratively creating processes or new approaches in their field. by having each subgroup appoint knowledge repositories. representatives who will ensure the exchange of knowledge and Innovation collaboration at the larger level. Innovation is the primary focus of communities whose members want to find new approaches and solutions to specific challenges and problems and want to do so collaboratively within the community. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 19 Creating a Community that you’ll be able to answer many of ƒƒ What are the resources needed— these questions thanks to the “Core Group including budget? Charter Interview” template and the conversations ƒƒ What are the key domain topics— The community charter is the output of you had with your Core Group members. including what are the key issues? your design process. The following template ƒƒ What convening venues will be used was developed internally to help you define The charter defines the following: for members to communicate? Online everything you will need for your community. ƒƒ What is the purpose of the venues include C4D or Yammer, It’s a guidance document for you and your community—including its value, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on; team, but it is also a resource for your primary scope, and goals? offline and face-to-face venues include members so that they’re reminded of what events, conferences, meetups, brown ƒƒ Who are its members? the community is about. bag lunches (BBLs) and lunch-and- ƒƒ What is its operating model—including learns, and so on. (See the section This “Community Charter Template” has how it will be organized? titled “Convening Venues” for more different sections with suggested questions ƒƒ What are the desired behaviors of the details.) you should be able to answer. You’ll notice membership? ƒƒ How will the community be measured? Figure 9: Community Charter Sample Template them? 20 I COMMUNITY BUILDING Specifying Measures and Return Figure 10: Value Matrix on Investment (ROI) One aspect of community design that is often Short-t rm v lu Lon -t rm v lu overlooked but is really important for the community’s success is measurement and H lp with ch ll n s Prof ssion l d v lopm nt ROI. If you neglect to establish a system to Acc ss to xp rtis R put tion measure your community outputs, outcomes M mb rs Confid nc Prof ssion l id ntit and impact, and report its ROI, you won’t be Fun with coll u s N twork able to prove its value and might not get the M nin ful p rticip tion M rk t bilit support you need. S ns of b lon in Identifying and communicating ROI is crucial to finding and keeping sponsors. However, measurement can also be important for R pid probl m solvin Str t ic c p cit buildin members since it shows them what they tion are able to achieve as a community, thus Tim nd cost s vin Productivit boosting their pride and sense of community. Improv d qu lit Knowl d -driv n proj cts S n r i s cross units K pin br st The Importance of Outcomes ni R sourc s for op r tions Innov tion Communit -support d R t ntion of t l nts When thinking of ROI it’s important to Or N w str t i s & c p bilit focus on outcomes. Often we focus only on risk t kin outputs such as materials produced, number of views, events organized and number of participants, or e-discussions facilitated and About Behaviors In addition to this distinction, you also have number of contributors. However, one then An often overlooked area is that of behaviors. to think of short-term and long-term value, has a legitimate question: “So what?” What However, behaviors are truly crucial because for both the organization and the members. is the impact of those materials being read, a community is about behavior change. A participants coming to an event, or members The long-term value is the substantive community is about people developing trust contributing to an e-discussion? and strategic impact a community can and respecting each other, and feeling free to have. However, sponsors and members Therefore, it is important to focus on ask, share, provide feedback, and collaborate might not have the patience to wait to see outcomes, which are the series of concrete publicly within the forum. How does that this impact from the community. Hence, impacts a community creates on improving happen? It’s really crucial that you think hard it’s also important to identify short-term, projects, operations, development about this together with your team and Core more immediate, value. In the case of the challenges. Group! If you don’t have a strategy on how to organization, this is important if a sponsor achieve the desired behaviors, you probably needs some evidence in the short term that won’t be able to develop the sense of trust a community is worth supporting. Members WBG’s outcomes needed for the community to succeed. also may need evidence because if they are supported by don’t see immediate value, they simply will Defining Community Value not come back! VPU’s outcomes are supported by A community should provide value both to the organization and to its members. If it Value Example—Short-term and Department/GP’s outcomes doesn’t provide value to the organization it’s Long-term Value are supported by irrelevant and will not be able to obtain any In Figure 10—which is by no means meant Unit’s outcomes kind of support. Similarly, if members do not to be exhaustive—you can see some are supported by find value in the community they simply will examples of short-term and long-term value not participate. for both the organization and the members. Community’s outcomes BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 21 As you can see outcomes are strictly related sponsors who can then see immediate value TIP to value and, in fact, they define the value created by the community. created by a community. When thinking of As you can see outcomes are informed by desired outcomes for your community, make Make sure that you assess all three outputs, which are in turn created thanks to sure to align them with your organizational measures: inputs, outputs, and inputs. structure. This is important to ensure outcomes and select the indicators relevance for your community and support Measuring Community Outcomes informed by conversations with both to it. your sponsor and the members. How can we measure community outcomes? You should be able to relate your There is no quantitative way to do it. community’s outcomes to unit, department, Community outcomes can be captured only or GP outcomes, and finally to WBG through members’ stories that connect outcomes. community activities, their outputs (resource creation), and their outcomes (resource “A community should application). This approach, proposed by Etienne Wenger, is called “systematic provide value both to anecdotal evidence.” the organization and to Anecdotal evidence consists of the stories that make these connections between its members.” activities, outputs, and outcomes. However, a story is not enough to prove that a The relationship between outcomes and community is providing value. institutional hierarchy you see here might Anecdotal evidence needs to be collected not necessarily apply to your case: it’s just a in a systematic way: on a regular basis and general example to help you visualize the covering the entire range of the community concept. and its diversity, capturing both failures and successes, and adding quantitative indicators The Importance of Small Wins where possible. While the long term is strategically crucial, Quantitative indicators can usually be it’s also important to think of the short term. captured at the output level—for example While outcomes define the long-term value views, shares, presences, interventions, etc. of a community, small wins will define its short-term value. The community needs to Finally, when we talk about outcomes in achieve some smaller outcomes—the small terms of community resource application wins—that are achievable in a relatively in projects, we can’t claim that the short time. This is very important for creating improvement seen is exclusively due to this enthusiasm among members and adding to their sense of community, as well as for Figure 11: Examples of Outputs and Outcomes The following table shows examples of how outputs and outcomes relate: Inputs Outputs Outcomes Hours worked Connections created Solutions sets created Blogposts written Unique commenters Projects impacted People invited Discussions occurring Practitioner hours saved Conversations initiated Discussion depth Support requests deflected Platform management Files shared New business sourced 22 I COMMUNITY BUILDING particular output. In fact, there can be many ƒƒ Face-to-face (events such as conferences, Nonetheless as a medium- to long-term goal, more factors. meet-ups, trainings and so on) convening members either regionally or on ƒƒ Email content-related events such as international It is crucial then to ask the member who is ƒƒ Virtual meetings, for example local content expositions could become a sharing the success story to let you know teleconferencing or video conferences viable, more direct means of interaction, if how much of the improvement can be endorsed by the Steering Committee and attributed to the community’s resources in ƒƒ File sharing and collaboration supported by our membership. The need for percentages. Then to give the claim even ƒƒ Online collaboration platform, these face-2-face meetings can be assessed more credibility, she/he can also say by for example at WBG, Yammer or via member surveys, announced through the what percentage she/he is sure about that Collaboration 4 Development (C4D) CoP calendar and participation registered via statement. That way, if you have a dollar ƒƒ Online knowledge repository number you can put on the improvement the “attend event“ feature of the latter. of the project because of hours saved or ƒƒ Social Media Groups (Linkedin, additional opportunities identified, that Facebook) WBG Collaboration Platforms number can be multiplied by the true At the World Bank we currently have a set of percentages thus giving a credible figure on Importance of Convening Venues diverse internal platforms, based on Microsoft the ROI created by the community for that products, for different kinds of collaboration: specific project. As part of your community design you should select the convening venues for your Yammer Groups – these are meant for highly Importance of a Culture of Sharing community. interactive cross-organizational community But how are you going to collect the stories— This example of convening venues is from building and are well suited for Communities the anecdotal evidence— that will show the the community of practice for Extractives for of Practice. You may want to request your value created by your community? To do so, Local Content Development: group to be set up with a SharePoint content your members need to be used to and willing library, for additional content management to share their stories. Therefore, you need Online Platform C4D: Given the target features. to develop a culture of story sharing in your audience of experts from all over the world, Teams – This collaboration spaces are meant community. the online forum is the principal medium for project teams mainly, and may be less well of engagement. Autogenerated C4D suited for the more informal communities Because it takes time, it’s crucial that you Summary-Emails will keep not so active of practice. That said, they may be a good start doing it from the very beginning, with members informed about things going on choice if the group is planning to work on the Core Group in the design phase of your and potentially re-engage them. At a later specific outputs (like knowledge co-creation). community building process. stage we will curate these summary-emails ourselves, even though this would imply a Planner – This product is mainly for task Convening Venues significant amount of work. management and it can be added within A convening venue is the way your members the context of a Team, for additional project connect and communicate. It is crucial that Face-2-Face meetings: Given that our management features. you decide on where and how and when your members are located in different areas of Intranet sites (SharePoint) – Depending on community will meet, communicate, and the world, convening them physically poses your dissemination and engagement needs, collaborate. a significant challenge. The online platform a hybrid solution combining SharePoint and therefore represents the pivotal channel Yammer, with blog and discussion features, A convening venue can be in person and/or of member interaction and engagement. may be the right way to go. This is also the online, synchronous and/or asynchronous and can include: option with the greatest overhead and would require time to set up and manage properly. To learn more about these options, you Figure 12: Measuring Community Outcomes can visit the Collaboration Tools Help page: https://worldbankgroup.sharepoint.com/ Systematic Anecdotal Evidence sites/wbsites/collabtools/Pages/home.aspx Anecdotal Evidence Systematicity Some of the options mentioned above allow the community manager to invite external Activity Diversity and Range participants as guest, but there are some restrictions and limitations related to the Resources creation Failures and successes types of accounts that can be invited (usually Microsoft work or school accounts that have Resource application Quantitative indicators access to the Office 365 suite of tools). BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 23 TIP Figure 13: Examples of Convening Venues This example of convening venues is from the community of practice for Secure Nutrution: Your community might have multiple convening venues. It might meet face-to-face at its annual conference, the conference presentation materials might be stored and shared on One Drive, and ongoing discussions about the conference and follow-up activities might continue in discussion forums online. The suite of collaboration options is slightly responses were on questions related to different for IFC staff, but it does include online participation and similar topics. Teams and a hybrid intranet site solution. Locations—Think of the different physical WBG staff can also set up an externally locations of your members and what would facing collaboration space on Collaboration be the best way to connect them. for Development (C4D). C4D is for external use, meaning that non-WBG staff can also Support—Consider also costs and support access it which is essential if you are dealing available. For example, if you decide to build with external clients, partners, NGOs, or in- your own online community instead of country institutions that do not have access using what’s offered by the WBG, you’ll incur to our Intranet. significant expenses initially and will have to think of a budget for ongoing maintenance Deciding on Convening Venues and support. When choosing the convening venues, you Multiple Venues—Be aware that most have to make sure that your members will communities use a combination of convening use them. So, how can you determine what’s venues. However, you must make sure that right for you? there is a minimum of duplication and there is clarity on which venue is used for what. Habits—Refer to the habits part of your audience analyses and see what the Survey 24 I COMMUNITY BUILDING 1 “It is crucial that you Launching Your multiple types of venues: face-to-face venues (events such as conferences, meet-ups, decide on where Community trainings and so on), email, teleconference and video conference, virtual meeting, file and how your Launching your community involves the following: sharing and collaboration, and an online community will ƒƒ Setting up the convening venues knowledge repository. meet, communicate, ƒƒ Selecting the collaboration platform ƒƒ Setting up the collaboration platform It is crucial that you decide on where and how your community will meet, and collaborate.” ƒƒ Creating the community description communicate, and collaborate. ƒƒ Creating anchor content As part of your community design process you should have selected the convening ƒƒ Onboarding the Core Group venues for your community. Setting them ƒƒ Implementing a soft launch of the up will vary depending on which venue you community decided on and what tool you are using. Setting up Your Convening Online collaboration platforms can be requested through the Intranet Resource Venues Center: https://irc.worldbank.org/site/ A convening venue is the way your members home. Should you select a hybrid solution connect and communicate. There are a wide (Yammer and SharePoint), you may need range of convening venues at your disposal. to spend some time to develop your online (See “Convening Venues” in the previous collaboration platform in collaboration with section). As described earlier, you can have ITS. Selecting a Collaboration Platform If you choose to have a hybrid collaboration platform as your main convening venue, its design will involve some care as the site will be the main link between you and the members, and more importantly, the links between the members themselves. Setting up the Collaboration Platform If you choose to have a collaboration platform as your main convening venue, its design will involve some care as the site will be the main link between you and the members, and more importantly, the links between the members themselves. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 25 Designing the Home Page Figure 14: Examples of Home Pages There are many ways you can design your home page. Two Contrasting Examples of Home Pages Here are examples of the home pages of two communities of practice set up on a collaboration platform. The home page in the first example might look neater and better organized, but it does not put members at its center. In fact, it looks like a web site. On the other hand, the home page in the second example is all about its members: you can see easily and immediately what the most recent member content is, who the new members are, what the latest discussions are with the newest questions, and who the week’s leaders in the community are. It’s true that it looks messy and its layout can definitely be improved, but what is much more important is that it puts members at the center. When you see this home page you can tell it’s a community! As a result, the community in the second example has much more member participation than the first one. Many people focus on having a fancy design for their community’s home page. While visuals are important and it’s good to have a well-executed design, that is not a determining factor for the success of your community and it definitely should not supersede member focus. Remember this: an online community is not a web site! When members—and, just as importantly, potential members—see an online community, they need to see that members are engaged and participating. “Remember this: an online community is not a web site!” 26 I COMMUNITY BUILDING WBG Home Page Example Let’s take a look at a WBG example Figure 15: WBG CoP Example of a community home page, the KnowledgeMatters! community. The KnowledgeMatters! Community is one of the more active communities at the WBG. The key elements in the home page design are: ƒƒ Members—Member activity under “RECENT ACTIVITY” is visible at the center of the home page, signaling to visitors that this platform is about members ƒƒ Relevance and Timeliness—The latest content is featured prominently under “Recent Activity.” Note also the call-to-action: “Don’t forget to @Mention your posts,” a feature that notifies the person you are referring to directly. So, three elements make this an eye-catching home page that will encourage participation: member activity is front and center, content is relevant and timely, and there is a clear call to action. When designing your community’s home page, these three elements should be the core concern. In addition, bear in mind Creating the Community Description that your call to action (where you ask your When you set up an online platform for TIP When crafting your members or visitors to do something) can a community, you should also have a community description, use change as your priorities change. Also, you community description: this is the first thing the “Community Description can have more than one call to action, but that visitors will look at to learn more about Template,” (p.74) where you you should try to limit it to three because the community. can find an example for each when you ask people to do too many things of these points. In closed communities, visitors can usually they might not do anything. see only the community description with a little additional information before joining it. So, if the goal of your community description ƒƒ Start by welcoming the visitor, then is to convert visitors into members by clearly state who this community is TIP attracting your target audience, a good for, and show that you understand community description will help them decide your audience’s needs, challenges, or whether they should join or not. aspirations. You can use the “Welcome” Make sure that you have mobile- template on p.77. friendly online venues. Check that Guidelines for Community Descriptions ƒƒ Be specific about the concrete benefits recent member activity is also visible When crafting your community description your community would offer. on laptop, tablet, and other mobile use these guidelines: devices as the screen resolution and ƒƒ Optionally, you can conclude by aspect ratio changes depending on ƒƒ Try to use around 50 words. mentioning the larger vision for your the size of the device and its screen, ƒƒ Cover three core points and two community’s impact if it makes sense so some content might not display optional ones. for your audience. correctly or might not display at all. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 27 “Once you have chosen Examples of Community Descriptions The following are examples of community able to access learning resources and discussions on various topics related the priority topic, select descriptions from C4D: to inclusive and sustainable cities; find out about relevant events; and connect the pieces of content— ƒƒ Private Equity and Venture Capital with people from all over the world Community Description Example timely, relevant, and The PE/VC Community is an active including city leaders, policymakers, thought leaders, employees of interesting—to forum for knowledge sharing and collaboration among all stakeholders in international and civil society organizations and students to name a populate your platform. the industry whose work contributes to few. Together we can make sure that the inclusiveness agenda remains a the common goal of broadening access This will be your anchor to long-term capital for early-stage priority in development. content.” and growing companies in developing countries. ƒƒ Local Content Development Community Description Example Engaging with this professional This community connects policy network will open doors globally so makers, companies, academics and you can find answers, obtain valuable practitioners, to share and create introductions, access hard-to-find data knowledge around local content and share perspectives. development in the extractive This Community of Practice is jointly industries. It is a one-stop shop owned by the Capital Markets Practice for current debates, peer-to-peer of the World Bank and Emerging exchange, events, and critical research Markets Private Equity Association. that will allow you to deliver better results. A little long at 86 words but it is a well-crafted Our vision is to build an active forum community description. The description for mutually beneficial knowledge starts by saying who this community is for. exchange enabling experts worldwide Then it continues by showing understanding to implement the best possible local of the work of the target audience and its content solutions. common challenge. Finally, it ends by stating very clearly what someone would gain by Creating Anchor Content joining this community. Once you have set up the platform, It also states who owns this community. discussions with your Core Group should Sometimes a community’s sponsor requests enable you to identify the priority topic this ownership statement, especially (or topics) you can engage your members when different organizational units or around. If you choose more than one topic, organizations are involved. If you have to be careful that you do not choose too many add it don’t commit the mistake—which as you will risk losing focus, and diluting often happens—of starting the description members’ participation. with such a statement; add it at the end as a Once you have chosen the priority topic, separate note instead. select the pieces of content—timely, ƒƒ Inclusive and Sustainable Cities relevant, and interesting— to populate your Community Description Example platform. This will be your anchor content. Welcome to the Inclusive and Anchor content should be relevant and Sustainable Cities Community of compelling to your members, thus providing Practice! This is a community for all immediate value to them and enticing people who have an interest in issues them to visit and continue to revisit your of lack of inclusion in urban areas. As a community. member of our community you will be 28 I COMMUNITY BUILDING TIP “The Core Group is Examples of Core Group Onboarding Activities the heart of your This example itemizes Core Group If you post all your content community.” onboarding and pilot activities for a community based on social protection and immediately, it can be overwhelming for members, and some members will labor: risk missing pieces of content relevant and anchor content you chose. Pilot activities ƒƒ Work through the Community Charter to them. You’d miss the opportunity of can include: exercise together specifically focusing having something to share after the ƒƒ Discussions (including Q&A and on: the purpose, key topics and immediate launch, building quality Working Out Loud) measures conversations around each single piece ƒƒ Blog posts ƒƒ Draft a community description and of a thread. So, don’t share everything ƒƒ Introductions then modify it to one that we all agree you have immediately, but select your on ƒƒ Document collaboration anchor content relevant to the priority ƒƒ List specific discussions that can be ƒƒ FAQs topics you chose with the Core Group. held within the community and decide ƒƒ Community “netiquette”—the type on the top 5 of behavior you expect to see on the ƒƒ List activities and events and decide on community which ones The important thing is that you decide ƒƒ Pilot online discussion with core group exactly what you want to do, indicating also Anchor Content Posting Guidelines who will do it and when. When doing so, This example is for a community based Follow these guidelines when posting make sure that no one overpromises and on governance, anticorruption, and content: that everyone can deliver on what they have accountability: ƒƒ Make sure you stick to content relevant committed to. ƒƒ Introductions: Have core members to the priority topics you selected and introduce themselves in a discussion The pilot activities are very important keep the rest for later. post (much like the CM community because they create the initial interaction ƒƒ Don’t post all your content at one time. does), This would introduce them to on the platform—although only among If you have lots of content on a certain posting on Yammer and navigating Core Group members—thus showing future topic, don’t post it all immediately, but the site. This is important because members when they join that there is activity keep some for later. That way you’ll our community targets a very broad in the community and that it’s not a silent have something to offer over time and audience and it is important that they empty space. you’ll be able to keep the attention of get to know each other and start to Also, these activities are important because build up trust if we expect them to members. they anchor the behavior you want to see share their experiences. Onboarding the Core Group from your current and potential members. ƒƒ Core Group: Use the original Working They model what is acceptable and expected Group, now the Core Group, to decide The Core Group is the heart of your behavior and behavior that you want to on initial topics to tackle and solicit community. However, it cannot go from zero encourage. participation from that group. Ideally to full speed immediately. They will need to ramp up gradually and there this would involve a different member are several activities that they can be involved Online and Offline Pilot Activities starting a discussion each week and/or in. Pilot activities do not have to be limited contributing blog posts. The Working to the online platform. You can apply the Group served as the impetus to create Starting Pilot Activities same principles to an email group or you the CoP and has a vested interest in its could select some initial face-to-face event, success. You should discuss with your Core Group webinar, VC or teleconference activities to ƒƒ Practical Advice Series: Include the which pilot activities to undertake in order pilot. In the case of face-to-face events, you Core Group in both determining and to start generating some interaction in the should also invite some potential members creating the Advice Series our team community while allowing the Core Group to to attend so that you can see what works for produces—these are 2-page leaflets begin to learn how to use the platform. Your them and what doesn’t. that explain an aspect of governance & decision will be informed by the key topics BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 29 anticorruption in operations, we have to help you onboard future members and to Continue with those individual invitations produced them on governance and step in for you when you are not available. and spread your invitation net more broadly accountability action plans, different as your community takes off. kinds of audits, and what to do if Implementing a Soft Launch of your As well as inviting people whom you know, your project is under investigation. Community have your Core Group members invite They simplify complex topics and Once you have set up your convening venues people whom you don’t know personally provide resources for further questions and your online platform if you want one, but who they suspect might be interested. on the topics. In bringing the Core have selected your priority topics, anchor Make it easy for them to do this by preparing Group members into this process, we content, and pilot activities, and have trained a standard email for each of them to create content that is relevant to the your Core Group, you are ready to launch personalize and send to their contacts. community (as they would select the your community. topics) and involve the Core Group However, this launch should be soft. Some actively in our work (and us in theirs). people like to start with a big launch: that is This example is for a community based on not recommended until you have something health and nutrition: more to show. So, do a soft launch by piloting “Your Core Group ƒƒ Provide training to all Core Group members to ensure comfort when some activities and expanding the number of members participating along the way. should be comfortable navigating the online Yammer page, as Give yourself a target of a set number of with all tools and well as other online resources utilized by the CoP. The intent is to build people to invite each week. This number will vary depending on whether your should be able to use confidence in our Core Group members community population will be 30 members them as well as you to be able to show our general audience members how to navigate our or 300 members at maturity. Make sure that your invitations are personalized (see next yourself. It is important online space. section, “Inviting Initial Members”). Point people to existing resources and activities in not only for the ƒƒ Review/Update community charter. ƒƒ Develop quarterly/semi-annual the community so that you can show value group to use the tools calendar scheduling: immediately. efficiently but also ƒƒ Upcoming CoP meetings (both Core and general membership Inviting Initial Members for them to be able levels) As part of the soft launch, you should invite to help you onboard your initial set of potential members to join: ƒƒ Knowledge exchanges/learning events ƒƒ Invite specific individuals—You future members and ƒƒ Planned community outreach might know people personally and to step in for you via online discussions professionally who have a high likelihood of wanting to be involved in when you are not Training the Core Group your community: invite those first. available.” ƒƒ Invite event attendees—People Involving the Core Group in pilot activities may have attended an event such will enable them to start learning how to as a workshop, training session, or use the platform, however you should also conference around the topic of your involve them in more formal training on the community. Because they attended, platform. you already know they have expressed Formal training is important for your an interest in the topic and have made online platform if you have one, but also some effort to learn more. Invite for any other tool you decide to use as a those attendees (and sign-ups who convening venue. Your Core Group should did not attend) especially if you have be comfortable with all tools and should be the presentations and other event able to use them as well as you yourself. It is materials or video to share on the important not only for the group to use the platform (a major value to members). tools efficiently but also for them to be able 30 I COMMUNITY BUILDING “The community Expanding Your the entire lifecycle of the community, as new members come onboard manager should not Community and continue to do so over time. focus on all areas of There are several areas of activity that a community manager should focus on when However, it is especially important in the inception phase, when the activity equally and/ starting to build and expand a community, foundations of the community are being built. If relationships aren’t built or simultaneously, and within those areas, specific activities to engage in. at this stage, your community will but should prioritize never graduate to the next stage. those that are relevant Community Manager Framework and Key Areas of Engaging in Key Community for the stage of Activity Building Activities the lifecycle of the There are eight key areas of activity for a Given the key activity areas for the inception stage, you should be involved in three main community.” community manager. activities for the remainder of the inception ƒƒ Strategy phase: ƒƒ Content ƒƒ Creating a community calendar ƒƒ Growth ƒƒ Staging initial content and ƒƒ Activities/Events engagement ƒƒ Moderation ƒƒ Inviting and converting new members ƒƒ User Experience ƒƒ Influence/Relationships Creating a Community Calendar ƒƒ Business Integration There are several types of community calendar that you can create: The community manager should not focus on all areas of activity equally and/ ƒƒ Detailed community calendar or simultaneously, but should prioritize ƒƒ High-level community calendar those that are relevant for the stage of the ƒƒ Shared community calendar lifecycle of the community. Initially, you need strategy—without which you are unlikely Creating a Detailed Community to succeed—relationships— with a focus Calendar on the Core Group—and user experience— A detailed community calendar helps you making sure that all the tools you choose focus on the right tasks to accomplish in your as convening venues are user friendly for community development work. Refer to p.76 the manager, the Core Group, and future for the detailed “Community Management members. Calendar Template” adapted for the WBG However, when first beginning to grow your from FeverBee. community through the inception phase, the Community managers should use this first phase of community building, there are calendar to plan their work and to know three areas of activity that the community exactly what to do day-by-day. It is manager should focus on: important that each day, community ƒƒ Growth—because you still don’t have managers first focus on what they have any members except the Core Group planned in order to move the community ƒƒ Moderation—because you have to do along the planned strategy, and only react to a lot of work to initiate discussions and what is going on in the community later. Of solicit responses course, there can be exceptions, but planned ƒƒ Relationships—because community daily tasks should be accomplished every building is about relationship building day. among members. Relationship building is very important throughout BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 31 Figure 16: Example of a Detailed Calendar Growth Moderation Content Relationships Events/Activities User Experience Business integration Strategy Discussion 1: Introduce Yourself. Prompt core group Monday None members to introduce None None None None None None themselves Tuesday None None None None None None None None Week 1 Wednesday None None None Have a call with a core group member None None None None Prompt selected core group Thursday None members to comment on CL's Community Leader blog post None None None None blog post Friday None none None None None None None None Saturday None None None None None None None None Sunday None None None None None None None None Prompt selected core group Monday None members to comment on Core member blog post Have a coffee with a core group member None None None None blog post Tuesday None None None None None None None None Prompt selected core group Wednesday None members to contribute to Document collaboration None None None None None document Week 2 Thursday None None None None Core group meeting/VC None None None Discussion 3: Challenge/specific post. Friday None Prompt selected core group None None None None None members to participate in discussion Saturday None None None None None None None None Sunday None None None None None None None None Discussion 4: What is the best way to….? Prompt a core Post update about Monday Directly invite 2 people group member and the 2 new community activities / Have a call with a core group member None None None None members to participate in newcomers discussion Relationship building with members of the community - this requires high levels of Tuesday Directly invite 2 people None None personal contact (ask questions, give None None None None Week 3 compliments etc…) Discussion 5: Opinion-seeking Wednesday Directly invite 2 people post. Prompt 3 members to Member interview Introduce new members None None None None participate in discussions. Thursday Directly invite 2 people None None Introduce new members None None None None Friday Directly invite 2 people None None Introduce new members None None None None Saturday None None None None None None None None Sunday None None None None None None None None Discussion 6: Specific tech Continue relationship building process as Monday Directly invite 2 people question? None per Week 3. None None None None Continue relationship building process as Tuesday Directly invite 2 people None Content about launch per Week 3. None None None None Prompt 5 members to Continue relationship building process as Wednesday Directly invite 2 people participate in discussions. None per Week 3. None None None None Week 4 Continue relationship building process as Thursday Directly invite 2 people None Content interview per Week 3. Webinar None None None Discussion 7: Expertise- Continue relationship building process as Friday Directly invite 2 people seeking post None per Week 3. None None None None Prompt 5 members to Saturday None participate in discussions. None None None None None None Sunday None None None None None None None None 32 I COMMUNITY BUILDING In the following example of the detailed calendar template, there are three weeks Figure 17: Example of a High-Level Community Calendar of activities planned with Core Group pilot The following graphic shows an example from the “Incubating Innovation for Rural Electrification” activities planned for the first two weeks community. shown: ƒƒ There are three planned discussions scheduled. ƒƒ There are two blog posts scheduled— one by the community leader and one by a Core Group member. One document collaboration is planned. ƒƒ Outside the platform, there is a meeting with a VC planned for the Core Group. ƒƒ Under Moderation, action is planned to initiate discussions and solicit responses ƒƒ Under Relationships, it is planned to engage Core Group members. You can also plan and allocate your work hours based on your total availability. Figure 18: Example of a Shared Community Calendar Creating a High-Level Community The following graphic shows an example from the calendar of the KnowledgeMatters! community Calendar of practice. A high-level community calendar helps you plan the major activities for a specific timeframe, whether it’s a semester or a year. This type of calendar should be planned with the Core Group and should be shared with them and your team. It can also be shared with members if you wish, so that they know what major activities are on the horizon. The nice thing about this calendar is that it’s visually very clear and straight-forward, using icons to indicate e-discussions on the online platform (the “@” symbol), webinars (the camera), and face-to-face events (two people shaking hands). Also, in this high-level calendar you can see how the community has an e-discussion before and after each webinar or face-to- face event. This shows you how they planned to leverage webinars and face-to-face events for e-discussions (offline and online) and vice-versa. Creating a Shared Community Calendar A shared community calendar is a calendar where members can also add items. Most BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 33 online platforms have one, as well as email services. This type of calendar helps members Figure 19: Example of a Staged Engagement find out what is going on in the community on any given day and provides another vehicle for participation by members because they too can add events such as conferences • Original Post and meet-ups to the shared calendar. Reminder It is most similar to the standard desk calendar we are all familiar with. • Member Contributions Member Staging Initial Content and Targeting Engagement Staging content and engagement helps you • Spontaneous Contributions Mass spur member participation in the community. Message Staged Engagement Example Let’s say the activity is an online discussion and it will be between Core Group members. members, you’ll also target them. Of for staged questions and comments about These are the activities you might engage in course, member targeting can’t be a presentation to trigger a lively and quality and the order of those activities: random, you need to know which discussion. 1. Initiate the action: You as a community members can contribute on which topics. Inviting and Converting Members manager will reach out to a Core Group 3. Mass communication: Once you have Adding and onboarding members are key member gently reminding her/him the other members, you can take a third components of building your community, day before about the discussion she/he action: sending out a mass message and the success of your community is often committed to initiate. You could start by to the community. So, now that you measured in terms of numbers of members asking if she/he needs anything. Also, have a discussion with a few comments and rates of membership growth. take the opportunity to confirm the time you can send its link to the entire she/he plans to initiate the discussion. community letting members know that Sometimes we see people inviting their Your reminder will ensure that the Core this discussion is going on and that some entire list of potential members at once, Group member publishes the original post members have already contributed. whether they total 30, 100, or 1,000. That opening the discussion. Those who are interested in the topic, approach is definitely not the most effective 2. Target one or more members: The especially if they’re knowledgeable for member engagement. The best way to second action you’ll take is to reach out about it, will probably want to contribute invite members is to do it in waves, inviting to another Core Group member the day themselves as they will not want to be them in small groups every 3 to 10 weeks before the posting telling her/him at left out. They will also want to show depending on the total number of your what time the discussion will be initiated their expertise. Therefore your mass potential members and your available time. and asking her/him to comment as she/ message will stimulate more members’ spontaneous contributions. Inviting Members in Waves he is also knowledgeable about the topic. You should repeat this action with Why invite your members in waves? The staged engagement process is certainly 2 to 3 different members. This action is time-consuming. However, you should ƒƒ Active appearance: The cool thing is called member targeting and it will result stick to it and repeat it until your members that because of the pilot activities in other members contributing to the get used to the platform and become you did with your Core Group, new discussion. Each of the members you comfortable with the community activities. members will find that they just joined contacted knows that you contacted her/ When you see that members start initiating an active community instead of a him, but she/he doesn’t know that you activities on their own and contributing “silent” space. You want to build on this did so with the others. The result is that to each other’s activities you can stop momentum by introducing a number you have a discussion with some initial using or use only sporadically the staged of members who can both get and add contributions from multiple members. engagement process. value to the existing activities. While undertaking the pilot activities ƒƒ Member familiarity: You also want to This process can also be applied to email with the Core Group this process will get to know the new members and discussions, where only the tool changes, or involve only members of the Core Group. introduce them to the community to face-to-face events, where you can plan However, once you start inviting other 34 I COMMUNITY BUILDING one-by-one. This way they will be more likely to be active in the community from the very beginning and you will learn what each new member is TIP interested in so you’ll be able to make specific asks. Conversely, if you invite too many members at once, you won’t SkillFinder Profile—For each new be able to focus on them individually, member who is WBG staff, you can do and they will be much less likely to some research online by looking at their become active in the community. SkillFinder profile. Inviting Members en Masse Of course, if you have a large potential membership base of, let’s say more than 500 members, you should stop the process of inviting members in waves and start doing larger group invitations, or invite everyone left at once. You should only do this when you see that there is enough activity and timely and relevant content to make the community attractive per se to new members. “Adding and Learning about New Members onboarding members There are several ways that you can get to know new members, especially if they are are key components WBG staff: of building your ƒƒ SkillFinder Profile—For each new member who is WBG staff, you can community” do some research online by looking at their SkillFinder profile. ƒƒ Blogs—Find out if they have a blog— whether it is WBG-hosted or external. ƒƒ Journal articles—Research their articles for journals to familiarize yourself with topics they write about. ƒƒ C4D Profile—If members are already on C4D you can look at their C4D profile (if they completed it). ƒƒ LinkedIn—You should also search for TIP the new member on LinkedIn as most professionals use this social network. ƒƒ Twitter—Twitter is another great Because of LinkedIn’s degrees platform to get to know people if of separation system, the more your new member tweets. In fact, connections you have in LinkedIn, professionals mostly use Twitter to the more likely you are to have tweet and connect around issues they access to profiles you are not directly work on or that they’re passionate connected to. about. ƒƒ Google—You should always try to Google someone: you might find very interesting information around BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 35 which you can connect with the new The welcome message is your first interaction acknowledge them. You might never member! with a new member and is usually done get another chance. privately, through the direct message ƒƒ Right tone – You must address the Creating a Welcome Message function in an online platform, or through an person that you are welcoming using After you have invited a new member you email otherwise. the right tone, whether formally or should always welcome her/him, especially The goal of the welcome message is to get informally. You know which tone to in the inception phase of your community. her/him to take a specific first action in the use because you know your audience Later, you will continue doing this for the community. well thanks to the audience analysis entire lifetime of your community if it’s and because you did some research on relatively small or if it’s closed and you don’t In addition, you’ll make the new member feel the new member. have many new members. On the other good about the community because there is ƒƒ Relevant/personal references - Show hand, if you create a large community with someone responsive and interested in her/ that you know your new members by a constant influx of members, you can him. mentioning something relevant about stop welcoming them individually when it her/his background that you found out becomes too time-consuming; however, Guidelines for Welcome Messages from your research. some form of automated welcome message The welcome message should be around 50 ƒƒ Call to action - Have a clear call to should be generated. But, now in the words long and it should cover three—and action with a direct link taking her/ inception phase, you should definitely do it. possibly four—points. him to where to respond. You could Just because you have not sent an invitation, ƒƒ Always welcome - First, you must have 2-3 calls to action but never if somebody joins that does not release always welcome a new member. It is more than that. It’s very important you from the obligation to send a welcome hard enough to get people to come to to not overwhelm the new member, message. Welcome messages are possibly your community and when somebody increasing the likelihood of a positive more important for those who are joining does make the effort to come, and reaction. who have not been invited, since they have the extra effort to join, you must ƒƒ Your availability - Finally, let the spent the extra effort to find you. member know that you are always Figure 20: Example of a Welcome Message Here’s a good example of an informal welcome message from WBG C4D community based on megadisasters. Ivan!! Welcome to our community! So you are interested in learning more about megadisasters. :) Please introduce yourself to the rest of the group! To learn more on how to navigate the site, please click here: https://collaboration.worldbank.org/docs/DOC-2150 To introduce yourself to the rest of the team, please click here: https://collaboration.worldbank.org/docs/DOC-2120 Finally, feel free to suggest topics you would like us to cover on future online discussions. Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any question. Best, Rasha 36 I COMMUNITY BUILDING available as community manager in the new member to those existing members and collaborating, should also apply to case she/he needs something. you think she/he should get to know. communities. Thanks to the competitive This message has a very informal welcome analysis you did, you should already know and tone, which is appropriate for that which communities are relevant to yours, audience; it has a clear call to action by asking enabling you to start suggesting some new members to introduce themselves; TIP common activities. This will also allow you and it also lets new members know that the to get more exposure, possibly attract more community manager is available. members, and learn from other communities’ Don’t forget that you also have a practices. However the message could be improved Core Group and that—based on their in the following ways: the link to introduce availability—you can ask them to help Example of Community Coordination her/himself should immediately follow the you with many of these actions, such Here you have an example of a talk organized call of action; there is no reference to the as welcoming members or making member’s background; and, it doesn’t say jointly by two groups: the Social Inclusion introductions. CoP and the Global Group on Indigenous how and where to suggest topics for online discussions. Peoples. These collaborations could also be explored Connecting Members at the level of the Community Leaders Your member onboarding doesn’t stop with enabling them to achieve broader goals and Coordinating with Other Communities the welcome message and the call to action. leverage synergies across organizational As your members become more comfortable boundaries. Since communities are about relationships with the community, it’s important that and your most important job is to make sure you also start connecting with other Promoting Activities Within the that members build relationships with one communities relevant to your domain. In Community another, always make sure that you introduce fact, all behaviors you expect from your Promote the activities happening within members in terms of sharing knowledge, the community rather than the community itself. Rather than say “join the community for these special things,” promote an upcoming event or discussion to someone outside the community. Ask them to give their opinion, or have them join a panel. By inviting someone to participate in a particular activity directly, you make an appeal to their social needs. Once they join and participate, they’re far more likely to continue participating, rather than forget about the account they’ve just created. Big Launch Now that you have a community with active members who are engaging in quality activities, if you still want to do a big launch you can do it. Then if you organize an event and introduce a wider audience to the community, visitors to your community will find not an empty shell of a website, but a community with active members and great content and they are much more likely not only to join but to keep coming back, and become active. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 37 38 I 2 COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT To grow or not to grow This Community Management section deals with the following topics: In Maturity, the objective is to reach the point where the community has reached its depends on where ƒƒ Growing Communities initial maximum potential. And in Mitosis, your community falls ƒƒ Initiating and Sustaining Discussions in the objective is to sustain and increase the level of both activity and sense of community on the Community a Community ƒƒ Content and Content Planning through facilitating multiple, smaller online communities. Lifecycle, on the ƒƒ Events and Activities To grow or not to grow depends on where objectives of your Growing Communities your community falls on the Community community, the You’ll often be asked “how many members Lifecycle, on the objectives of your community, the charter you’ve created, the charter you’ve created, are there in your community?” - the core team, and the members themselves. the core team, and the implication being that bigger is better and that you constantly need to be growing your See page 11 for more detail on the community lifecycle. members themselves. community. However, not all communities actually need to grow so you need to be clear Example 1: Growth -Learning from whether, when, and how your community Megadisasters CoP should grow. Ideally this decision should be driven by the community itself and the The Megadisasters CoP wanted to grow, but community leader. they grew in waves. First, they developed In this section, you’ll look at: a Core Group with subject-matter experts who were committed to the topic and the ƒƒ Growth Channels and the Community idea and success of the community. The Lifecycle: How to identify and leverage community manager sent out personal the most appropriate channel for invitations, targeting each member and the growth. There are several different value they would bring and receive from growth channels that work better at participating in the community. The fact different stages of the community that there was already engagement in the lifecycle. So you need to be sure you’re group, attracted new members. The CoP using the channel that best supports was originally closed. The CoP then had a big your efforts at each stage. launch in Japan, with now open membership. ƒƒ Reasons to Grow: Five reasons to grow Their Primary focus is on growth and your community dissemination. ƒƒ Action Plan for Growth: How to develop an action plan to recruit Example 2: No Growth –Teacher members and grow your communities. Motivation Working Group Growth Channels and the The Teacher Motivation Working Group is Community Lifecycle primarily a working group, not an ongoing community of practice that is active FeverBee defines the community lifecycle periodically on specific topics. as consisting of four stages: inception, establishment, maturity, and mitosis. At the Inception stage, the objective is to achieve critical mass. In the Establishment phase, the objective is to increase growth and activity. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 39 Reasons to Grow Your Tackle potential problems (data-driven) – Heavy focus on growth emphasizes the You might notice potential problems in your wrong metrics – An overly strong emphasis Community community based on what your data says. on growth tends to place a focus on the We’ve identified five reasons to grow your For example, perhaps you’ve exhausted all wrong metrics. This can come at the expense community: the possible members in your sector, or the of activity levels, content quality, and the average age of your members begins to sense of community amongst members, ƒƒ Sustainability (early-stage increase significantly, then you’ll want to start which can ultimately affect the return your communities) to increase the appeal of your community to company sees on its community investments. ƒƒ Regeneration (fading/struggling a new audience to prevent it from declining communities) In conclusion, you do need growth, but you and eventually failing. ƒƒ New opportunities (mature must make sure that you’re growing for the communities) Replenishment (mature communities) – If right reasons and at the right time so that you have a mature community, you will you don’t destroy the work you’ve already ƒƒ Tackle potential problems (data- want to replenish the membership. Every done. Growth is not always the best solution driven) mature community needs a steady flow of for problems within a community. ƒƒ Replenishment (mature communities) new members joining. Over a long period of time, you’ll notice that many, (sometimes How to Grow Your Community If your community does not fit within one of most), of the members in your community these five reasons, then you should seriously leave. They’ll lose interest in the topic, their Once you have determined whether you consider whether or not you actually need to priorities change, or perhaps they take a need to grow, you now can consider how grow. new job that takes them away from the to grow using each of four channels. The community. Whatever the reason, community challenge is to know when to use each Sustainability (early-stage communities) members will move on, so you need to have channel to drive the growth you desire. – You are working on an early stage a steady stream of new members available to Direct Growth – Direct growth is, perhaps, community, and you need to grow to reach replace them. the easiest and most reliable form of growth, sustainability, or, critical mass. A community and it happens when you are appealing to an needs a certain level of active members to Reasons Not to Grow Your audience that you already have access to. This maintain its momentum, otherwise it’s at a greater risk of failing. Community can be done via direct invitations, mailing lists, and related partnerships at the WBG. Most communities are squarely focused on Regeneration (fading/struggling growth. They want more numbers. More communities) – You are working on a fading Word-of-Mouth Growth – Word-of-mouth people. A bigger audience. However, there or struggling community that you want to growth can happen when community are several factors that mitigate against this regenerate and reinvigorate. Communities members share content with their goal of growth. struggle for different reasons - It might be connections, and when they individually refer because they never reached critical mass. It Member desires and balance – Most groups someone to the community. It can happen might be that their regular members moved are actually quite happy as they are. A at an event where there is a hashtag that on, and they were never able to replace sudden influx in growth can throw off this is related to the community, or if someone them. Growth is absolutely a way out of a balance. is invested in the community. Meaning, struggling community. With regeneration, Impact on community spirit – Growth it’s in their best interest to push people new members can help to bring new ideas can actually hurt a community. Imagine towards the community. Finally, word of and experiences, and breathe fresh life into you’ve been a part of an online group for mouth growth also happens when you the community, an added bonus. a number of years. You have relationships host more involvement activities in your New opportunities (mature communities) established with these people, and suddenly, community. The more a community member – You have a mature community that is 200 new people join. You don’t recognize feels involved, the more likely they are to looking to expand into new opportunities. who is participating, and you no longer feel recommend the community to their friends People’s interests grow and change, and new like you’re a close part of the group, one of or peers. innovations and techniques are introduced the very reasons you joined. This is what Promotion – Promotion is when you reach to communities. You want to position happens when you strive for an influx in out to audiences that you don’t already have community growth to embrace the next big growth. Communities can grow beyond the access to. There are a variety of different thing, rather than ignore or overlook it and point where the people in the community promotional channels that can be used to risk losing your audience. still feel that they have a strong sense of appeal to an external audience, for example, community with each other. events and competitions, newsletters, 40 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT Segment – You’ll want to target segments Figure 21: Community Growth of your audience, one at a time. Mass email blasts have very low conversion rates, that is, converting non-members to new members, and new members to Direct Growth Word-of-mouth active members and for this crucial stage Personal invites Referrals in the community building process, you’ll Email lists Content sharing want to make sure that you achieve these Partnerships with other CoP’s, Recogni�on conversions. Audiences can be segmented by GPs, Units, etc... Investment demographics, habits, and psychographics. (Refer to your Audience Analysis.) Look for Involvement ac�vi�es clusters within the groups to target. HOW Have Specific Reasons – When you’re deciding which group to target, you’ll also want to think about why you are choosing Promo�on Search to target them. It’s much more effective if you have a specific reason for targeting a Events/compe��ons Community Finder Profile particular group or person and tailor your Adver�sing CoP search on Open Learning Campus requests and messages accordingly. You Newsle�er should have tailored calls to action and be specific when asking them for their thoughts and opinions. Promote Activities – When inviting people to join your community, make sure that you and exposure to the Collaboration For the community is thriving, this is the moment are promoting activities that happen within Development (C4D) platform. you want to engage in promotional tactics. the community rather than promoting the Search – Search is what happens when The next sections focus on two of the community itself. Give them a reason to join. an audience organically finds your channels: direct growth and word-of-mouth. Give them a reason to participate. Data shows community through searches online, such that the earlier you can get members to participate, the more likely they are to as CommunityFinder, and the Open Learning Direct Growth Principles Campus. remain long-term members. When it comes to direct growth, here are several principles to follow. Growth Tactics and the Community Lifecycle Referring to the Community Lifecycle, we Figure 22: Community Lifecycle can also categorize the growth tactics by where your community is in the lifecycle. The Lifecycle begins with direct growth as you’re starting the community. Most of the initial growth will come from you directly reaching out and inviting people to join the # OF NEW MEMBERS community. In sending invitations, you need to target the audience that is the best fit for your community. As the community grows, more of the growth can and should come from referral or word- LIFECYCLE INCEPTION ESTABLISHMENT MATURITY MITOSIS STAGE of-mouth growth. Once more than 50% of DIRECT DIRECT REFERRAL DIRECT growth and activity in the community is TYPE OF DIRECT REFERRAL REFERRAL PROMOTION PROMOTION GROWTH GROWTH WORD-OF- SEARCH PROMOTION generated by members, you want to initiate MOUTH more word-of-mouth growth tactics. Once BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 41 Stagger Recruitment – Stagger your Figure 23 is an example of an initial outreach Stagger distribution – Do not email your recruitment efforts over time. The reason for email for a prospective community member. entire mailing list all at once. doing this is two-fold. First, you don’t want to Promote activity – Share and promote exhaust your mailing list all at once. Second, Mailing Lists what’s happening in the. you’ll get better at recruiting the more often you do it. Staggering your approaches Plan the first 3 weeks of activity – If you are Follow these guidelines when using mailing enables you to experiment and find out what choosing to invite people by mailing list, plan lists: works best, so that you can gradually adapt the first 3 weeks of community involvement and optimize your approach. Segment the list – When using a mailing list, for them. If you can get them participating make sure that you ruthlessly segment the multiple times within the first 3 weeks, list. they’re far more likely to become regular Direct Growth Tools And more than just age, gender, or location. members of the community. Two tools for direct growth are; If you can, segment by interest or by date ƒƒ Individual direct invitations that they joined the community, and point ƒƒ Mailing lists. them to areas that are directly relevant for them. Ruthlessly segment and aim for high conversion rates. That should be your motto. Individual Direct invitations Follow these guidelines when sending direct invitations: Figure 23: Initial Outreach Example Send to those interested – You should send direct invitations to people who might be interested in the community – search [Name] their profile on the Intranet or LinkedIn, and see why they would be a good fit for the Thank you for finding SecureNutrition on LinkedIn, (name), and for your community. For example, does their work engagement in the seminar on February 23rd. Here is a link to some align with the mission of the community? Are they considered a subject matter expert in follow up materials that I’d think you would find useful. the topic that your community is focused on? Develop relationships – In this invitation, I’d be really interested to hear your thoughts, good or bad, about you should seek to develop a relationship first. Your outreach must be done in a the seminar. Are you able to post them to our group? https://www. genuine way. If the emails feel fake, or if they linkedin.com/groups/4737415/4737415-6107956172793339907 feel like you want something from them, you won’t find them to be very effective. Offer Also, if you’re looking for anything in particular by joining the group, let something first; give before you ask. Be specific – When you reach out to me know and I’ll do my best to help with any resources or connections. someone for the first time, make sure that you’re reaching out to only them… not to a Best, group of people. Then, make sure you have a specific reason for reaching out to them. Aaron Ask for their ideas or expertise, and keep the email short using open-ended questions to SecureNutriton garner a response. Do not close immediately – Do not try to NOTE: If you are planning an “invitations in waves” process, it’s important to target the right close on the first contact. Meaning: do not ask people. You can target people based on their position in the adoption lifecycle. You should be them to join your community the first time able to identify people based on your personal knowledge, from the personal knowledge of the you email. Establish the relationship first. Core Group, and from the audience interviews that you have conducted. 42 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT Increase status (self-serving) ƒƒ People who want to increase their status inside the community People want to increase their status outside the community EARLY ADOPTER FOLLOWERS LATE ADOPTER LAGGARDS Help people (altruistic) ƒƒ People who want to help people inside the community Figure 24: Early adopters People who want to help people outside the community Target early adopters after you have Regardless of how the referrals are recruited a Core Group. Early adopters will stimulated, word of mouth is the ideal source Tactics Based on Self-Serving join because they are by definition are keen of growth for most communities as it tends to Motivation and enthusiastic, and because they see the have the highest conversion rates. Core Group’s example and how community is The self-serving reasons tend to have the working for them. Even though they are the Influencing Word of Mouth Growth biggest success in driving referrals. least risk averse, there is also a lower risk of To influence word of mouth growth: Ranking and badging features can be set up adoption for early adopters as someone else in accordance with word of mouth activities ƒƒ Ensure that the content on your has tested the community already. to motivate users to achieve them. You can community is easily shareable, and that it looks good once it’s been also give them areas of responsibility or Followers are the next group to target. They increased involvement in the community, as shared. will join only after seeing that the community this tends to drive referrals as well. Another ƒƒ Think of ways to feature or highlight is becoming popular and useful to others, so option is to have a poll or debate where positive word of mouth contributions. they will also want to try it. members can choose sides. Those involved in Community members love to see their Late adopters will join only after having seen the debate are highly likely to invite people words featured on the platform or a critical mass (by the time the followers are from outside of the community to join their featured in the newsletter. You can engaged, the majority of target audience has side. interview members, and add their joined). picture. Those who are interested in increasing their Finally, laggards join only when everyone status outside the community are swayed Direct Tactics to Stimulate by tactics that encourage them to impress else is there. Referrals others. For example, offering a limited Word-of-Mouth Principles amount of invitations to join is a common Let’s look at the direct tactics we can use to tactic used widely across the web, or stimulate referrals. There are 2 kinds of word of mouth growth: invitations to a specific event. fertilized and unfertilized. You can break the motivations for word of mouth into four distinct groups: Fertilized word of mouth – is what happens when you prompt the growth. Perhaps you ask your community members to tweet Figure 25: Direct Tactics something or write something for you, or encourage them to share an article. Unfertilized word of mouth – is purely Inside the Community Outside the Community organic, meaning, you didn’t directly Increase My Status • Recognition • Exclusive invites influence the growth at all. It happened • Responsibilities • Grant awards/interviews naturally. • Debates/Polls Word of mouth is quite rare during the inception phase of a community, which is Help My Friends • Clear purpose and goals • Create shareable content why it’s so important to have a referral plan • Advance the cause • Tackle challenges in place once your community moves on to the next phase. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 43 Also, anytime someone is given a feature Slow and steady wins – It’s much better what the best sources of growth are, and or attention inside the community, they’re to have slow and steady growth instead optimize your time and efforts accordingly likely to share it externally with their family or of a large, viral explosion of growth. Large friends. Feature them in an article, newsletter bursts of growth are challenging for the or event. community to absorb, and they’re much more challenging for you as a community Tactics Based on Altruistic manager to convert into active members of Initiating and Sustaining Motivation the community. Converting someone into Discussions in a a regular, active member takes a lot of time Generally, having a clear goal for the and effort. With a large amount of growth, Community community that community members can you won’t have the same time available resonate with is often a sufficient motivation If you can successfully initiate and sustain to convert these members, and you risk for spreading the word. Also, it helps if you discussions, you will have higher levels of missing members that would have otherwise have a specific problem that you’re trying to participation, greater quantity and quality converted because you don’t have enough solve, or perhaps even a fundraising goal that of information being shared, and improved time. you’d like to hit. relationships and social capital development Promote activities within the community between members. Additionally, if you want specific individuals – Make sure that you’re promoting the from a certain field or background to join, It’s not as easy to initiate and sustain activity that happens within the community put that information out to the community. a discussion as you might imagine. It’s rather than the community itself. When Motivated individuals will invite their friends common for someone to post a discussion many people try to grow a community, they’ll to help. linking to an article and ask members say “join the community for these special Newcomer-oriented content is always useful things” and be done with it. And that really what they think of the article. However, in attracting members from outside the doesn’t put the community member in a that in itself does not lead to a natural community. Especially if the content helps participatory mindset. Rather, it’s smarter fluent discussion. It’s common for people them to solve some other problem. Identify to promote an in-community activity like an to participate once, it’s far harder to get common problems that community members upcoming event or discussion to someone someone to participate multiple times. The have, and then create a guide illustrating outside of the community. Ask them to following sections tackle the key challenges how to solve them. Publish the guide, and lend their opinion, or have them join the community managers face to generate and encourage community members to share. panel. By inviting someone to participate sustain ongoing online discussion in their on a particular activity directly, you make communities, but the principles also apply Figure 25 (previous page) is an example of an appeal to their social needs. Once they to designing in-person conversations and activities and outcomes based on direct join and participate, they’re far more likely activities, for example, at events. growth tactics. to continue participating, rather than forget Growing a Community - about the account they’ve just created. Discussions, Relationships, and Summary Optimize your time – When you’re Communities increasing the number of members that are Unfortunately, growth is often something Discussions build relationships, relationships joining your community, you’ll also need that is done wrong. Community managers build communities. Relationships develop to increase the time you have available tend to ignore the reasons why members along a fixed line. A relationship starts for converting these folks into active participate and join the community to begin with a common interest, then there will be participants. What good are your efforts in with in favor of tactics that deliver sheer some sort of interaction or spark. Through driving people to your platform if they don’t volume. Or even worse, they just hope that interactions, members will disclose some convert into active members? You’ll also growth will take care of itself. information about themselves. Perhaps it’s want to optimize the conversion process for an experience they’ve had, some attribute So when you’re thinking about growth, keep long-term members. (More about this later in that they have, or their thoughts or emotions these principles in mind: the Primer.) on a different but relevant topic. By sharing Grow for a reason – Make sure that you’re Measure and repeat – Measurement itself experiences through self-disclosure, growing for a reason. Take a good look at is such an important thing to community emotional connections start to form and your community and determine whether or growth: inputs, outputs, and outcomes. relationships begin to develop. not it even needs growth to begin with. What It’s important for you to measure (posts, is the real benefit from growth? comments, questions and answers, time to respond and so on), so that you understand 44 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT popular, and point them what to participate in. Common Self- Shared Emo�onal Framework for Initiating Interac�on Interest Disclosure Experiences Connec�on Discussions Use the simple framework in Figure 27 for initiating discussions online. You want a great topic, a good subject line, a decent length of about 5-250 words, a good opening sentence, self-disclosure about why you’re Figure 26: Features of Successful Discussions asking the question now, and then highlight the impact – the benefit to the community Community managers need to ensure that Give recognition – When people make from answering. they’re initiating and sustaining both those a contribution, they need to see that interaction and self-disclosure discussions they receive something for that action. Asking a Question in the Subject that lead to further connection down the Recognition is an easy way to reward a Line of a Post road for their members. The more discussions member for contributing, and keep them Along with the name of the poster (often and you have, the greater the levels of self- going back for more. Knowing when to especially early in the life of the community, disclosure, the stronger the relationships, and recognize a member for their contributions is that’s you), the subject line will very much the higher the volume of information sharing an important skill. determine whether people open the post taking place within the community. Highlight popular material and common (and of course, people receive notifications of Community managers often post information thoughts – Highlighting the popular material posts via email) or e-mail or not. and expect that information to lead to a also drives the motivation to participate. Tell When we’re going through our lists of posts discussion. Remember that you’re using a people via newsletter, on the front of the or inbox we tend to classify them mentally. community tool because you want thriving community page, and even via email what’s There are posts and emails that need our discussions. If we want thriving discussions attention and those that don’t. A lot of then we definitely need to post and distribute information in a way that makes it alluring for discussions to take off. The following sections Figure 27: Discussion Guidance take you proven concepts to achieve that result. GREAT TOPIC INFORMATION, OPINIONS, VALIDATION (on the edge of the domain) Principles from Facilitation Many of the principles around initiating and SUBJECT LINE ASK A QUESTION sustaining discussions come from the art and (or as a provocative statement) practice of facilitation. LENGTH OF POST 50-250 WORDS Initiate discussions – Initiating discussions is practically an art form in and of itself. OPENING ASK A QUESTION AT THE VERY BEGINNING The goal is to ensure that there is a regular stream of discussions taking place in the community. SELF-DISCLOSURE EXPLAIN WHY YOU ARE ASKING THE QUESTION (explain need) Solicit contributions – It’s very common for the community manager to initiate a lot of IMPACT HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFIT TO YOU discussions in a community upon launch, OR THE COMMUNITY FROM ANSWERING and then expect that members will want to sustain them. It’s crucial, especially in the very early stages of the community, for the TIMELY SHOULD BE RELEVANT FOR THE COMMUNITY community manager reach out directly to (at that point in time) solicit contributions and responses to content from the core founding members. PRACTICAL SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE A PRACTICAL SIDE (that can be implemented) BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 45 community questions end up in the latter. To build trust and the habit of participating Types of Discussion It doesn’t matter whether your community in a community, you might want to ask a few is a mailing list, or uses an online platform. closed questions before moving on to open There are three types of discussion that take People scan through the discussions/emails questions. When initiating discussions you’ll place in communities. and open only those that they feel are need to have a balance of these different ƒƒ Problem solving (information-seeking) relevant to them. question types to reduce the social fear ƒƒ Bonding (exchange of opinions) that comes with participating in an online Your subject line has to stand out but without ƒƒ Validation (exchanges of self- community. As your community first grows, appearing like it’s trying to stand out. I’m disclosure) start with a heavier mix of specific questions, sure that you get a lot of spam which you and then as people begin to lose their fear of delete. It has to provoke curiosity. It has to participation, you can work in more open- appear natural - as if one human is speaking Figure 28: Online Discussion Example ended questions. to another. You might be surprised how frequently this rule gets violated. It also has to avoid being too long. Using the Opening The single best way to get a response is to Of course, once people click on the subject ask a question in the subject line itself. If line, they only give it a small amount of time you’re not sure, imagine asking the question before responding. So the opening matters of the person sitting next to you and write it a lot. We recommend you open with the that way. ‘call to action’ - that is what you want people to do. This call to action lets people quickly Ways to Ask a Question filter whether they need to read the rest of the message or not. Once you’ve opened the There are two ways to ask a question: e-mail with a question (both in the subject Open-ended questions - An open-ended line and the first sentence) then you want to question can be answered in many different move to self-disclosure. ways. The length of the response can vary. The quality of the response can be very Using Self Disclosure different too. Closed questions - A closed question is one By self-disclosure, we mean asking a member where the answer has a predefined value. to make it clear why that particular member Very often this is yes/no, a choice from a is asking the question now. What specific limited set of number, or where the answer is relevance is the topic to the member? What The biggest mistake made here is that limited to within a given range in their experience or activities has caused community managers focus far too much them to come up with that question? Second, on problem-solving discussions at the Open-ended questions produce the richer why now? What has provoked them to ask expense of bonding- and validation-related answers but are typically the scariest type that question at this moment? By disclosing discussions. This focus is logical. Mostly, we of questions for a community member to these two elements, people are far more develop communities for higher levels of respond as they tend to come with the likely to respond to the question and the information exchange, which helps members highest level of social fear. For example, questioner. solve their problems. However, there are asking something like: “What do you plenty of studies to show that more bonding think about today’s headline?” is a little intimidating. As a member, I don’t know how Emphasizing Impact and validation-orientated discussions lead to higher levels of problem solving. long my answer should be, or in what format, Highlight the impact of the discussion. Try and it can also take me quite a long time to Bonding and validation discussions help to conclude discussions by explaining why ask my question. people in the community to get to know it helps you or the community. Highlighting each other better. The better people in your While open-ended questions can produce the impact of the discussion, of being able community know each other, the more they great responses, you do want to balance to answer the question, or come up with a know and like each other. The more they them with some closed questions that are solution, increases the odds that someone like each other, the more they participate; easier to answer. For example, asking a will respond. the more they’re likely to respond to their question that requires a simple “yes,” or “no” requests for help; and, the more they’re likely answer is much easier to respond to. to ask each other for help. 46 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT Guidelines for Problem-Solving Information-Seeking Discussions Figure 29: Information-Seeking Discussion Problem-solving/information-seeking discussions are easy to start and tend to be those that are most desired by the group. Follow these guidelines when initiating information-seeking discussions: Avoid “best” type questions – A common mistake in information-related discussions is for members to ask for ‘the best‘ way to do/ achieve something. The problem with asking for the best is that it often solicits poor quality information. For example, what is the best community platform? Does that mean the platform with the most features? Easiest to use? Most widely known and respected? Best customer service? Or does particular things really well? Encourage members to be specific – It’s important when you initiate and reply to members to encourage them to be really specific in the discussions for the type of information they want. Rather than ask for the best, solicit specific information. For example, you might instead ask: which platforms costs below $50k and allows members to create their own groups? This would solicit more useful information. Ask clarifying questions – When you receive a response, follow up with clarifying questions about the functionality they are recommending, or processes that they have followed, or results that they have obtained. Help make connections – When a member posts a question, and you know one or more people in the community that can answer that question, make the connection by providing their names and suggesting that they contact them. Example of an Information-Seeking Discussion Figure 29 is a simple example of an information-seeking discussion. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 47 In this example, one member in a SPARK on the right track with what we’re doing. Guidelines for Sustaining community is looking for examples of The more we know about other people, the pipeline development and safeguards in stronger the sense of connection. More Discussions municipal and infrastructure funds. Other so, the better that members can help one It’s all very well to get discussions started, but members respond providing and seeking another. how do you sustain them over time? Follow more information. Validation related discussions can also these guidelines to extend and sustain the be among the liveliest discussions. You discussions in your community: Guidelines for Bonding Discussions don’t have to spend a long time thinking of Respond within 24 hours - Make sure that Bonding discussions seek the opinions of prospective discussions. If you’re short on every participant receives a response to their others. In most communities, you want time and want a discussion to boost activity, discussion within 24 hours of posting. If they approximately 30% of your discussions to ask members one or more of the following. don’t receive a quick, useful, response they be opinion-seeking discussions in order to don’t participate ever again. It’s one of the create stronger bonds between members. ƒƒ What are you doing? simplest things to do but very often omitted. ƒƒ What are you thinking? Our biggest fear isn’t being criticized, it’s ƒƒ Ask members for their opinions ƒƒ What do you find difficult? being ignored completely. This doesn’t mean ƒƒ Solicit practical experiences ƒƒ What do you find surprising? that you need to be the expert on every ƒƒ Encourage diverse participation discussion and give a definitive answer. An example of a self-disclosure discussion However, you do at least need to ensure You might experience pressure from those is a process called working out loud (WOL), the other person knows they haven’t been that argue that their members are too busy an online thread where members share their ignored. They need to feel seen and heard. to participate in opinion-related discussions. work plans for the week: This is usually a false claim. Every sector is Acknowledge unique contributions - To learn more about working out loud, see too busy to participate in these discussions. Acknowledge useful contributions but do so the work of John Stepper, in particular his It’s all about the priority members assign to without sounding like you’re giving a generic, book titled “Working Out Loud.” the community’s value. The better they know the other members, the greater the value they assign to it and derive from it. Figure 30: Opinion-Seeking Discussion Figure 30 is an example of an opinion- seeking discussion. In this example the poster wants to solicit the opinions of other members. Sharing opinions leads to a tighter group where members get to know each other better. As a result of sharing their opinions, and seeing those opinions reciprocated, they feel a stronger sense of connection to other members of the group. Over the long term, this leads to them being more likely to help each other when they need information or have a challenge to solve. Guidelines for Self-Disclosure Discussions Self-disclosure discussions are those that allow people to disclose or reveal information about themselves. There are several reasons why they might do this. The most common is psychological. We like to compare ourselves to other people like us (sometimes known as status-jockeying). It also helps to see if we’re 48 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT template, response. Highlight something about the contribution or question which personally interested you. Avoid standalone generic thank you’s – Respond in terms that are specific and relative to the post. For example, “Thank you for posting updates about tomorrow’s conference and providing the link to registration.” Tag in other people - Tag in other members (that is, use the names of other members to notify them) that might participate in the discussion. Ask clarifying questions- Ask additional questions of the poster or of other members who you know have an interest or expertise in the topic. Add your own thoughts/views – Add your Figure 31: Tactics for Lagging Discussion own thoughts especially if you are also a subject matter expert but be careful about doing this too often. When you start to You might even have to bump up the ƒƒ How to generate greater participation comment on every discussion and dominate discussions of other members to ensure that with existing content by making that the community you will deter people from they receive a response. content more social contributing and produce the exact opposite ƒƒ How to create new content to get Some techniques include: effect of what you are trying to achieve. members to interact more and feel ƒƒ Soliciting responses to your own part of the community Add new evidence/information - If you discussions. Use back channels to ask know of new evidence or information, add it ƒƒ How to develop and implement a members of the Core Group to make to the conversation to keep the discussion content calendar for community the initial responses to your posts. going. This is very much the art of facilitation: members ƒƒ Having people working close to you knowing when to jump in to give the online discussion another nudge but not to take reply to the discussions you create to The Purpose and Importance of get discussions to the critical mass over the discussion. stage. Content Summarize and document - You might We often think of content as having one sole ƒƒ Making sure that discussions started want to add concluding thoughts on the purpose, and that is to provide us with useful by other members receive a quick and discussion, document the discussion, and information. While this might be the case prompt response. You want members post it as a resource for others to use should outside of communities of practice, for our to feel comfortable knowing that if they ever need it. work, content plays a different role. Content they post a discussion it will get a does inform people but also helps create a useful responses. You might need to Tactics for Lagging Discussions jump in if the discussion dies down to stronger bond between members. It’s these very bonds that lead to higher levels of As indicated in the previous section, initiating keep things ticking over. knowledge sharing later on. a discussion isn’t enough for the discussion to take off. Especially in the early stages of a Content and Content Encourages people to engage with community you will have to do more to spark the content – content brings people to the discussion to life. Planning community sites, whether it’s the latest If your discussions aren’t taking off, you will Content is one of the key drivers generating developments, news about events, latest often need to prompt them a little to get more activity in your community. The adage technologies or latest achievements of things started. is “come for content; stay for community.” members. This section on content covers: Encourages people to share and collaborate with each other - It’s important to ƒƒ The purpose and importance of content BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 49 understand that communities aren’t news Highlight key elements for feedback - You can Creates social hierarchy sites. If you only want to distribute news highlight key elements of a paper and ask if and get people to read you can use a simple people agree, if it matches their experience, Alongside helping to build a sense of like- mailing list. A community encourages or even if everyone full understands it. This mindedness and attachment, social content people to participate and collaborate. In helps the author get quality feedback and the also establishes a social order amongst a community people share information members of the community. Also, the more community members in the peer group. between each other, not just read your specific you ask a question the better the Social content creates a social hierarchy content. One implication of this requirement response. within the community. is that the way you distribute content Interview the author - You can interview the In group situations people pursue to members has to be done in a more author of a piece of content. There are many strategies to increase their status relative participatory manner. It has to be easier ways of doing this. You can host an ‘ask me to fellow members of the group. You can to participate within that content and give anything’ activity with the author, where any create content to shine the attention on feedback on that content. It has to be easier of your members can ask an expert questions those creating good contributions to to share that content. either related to a recent paper or not. You the community for others to mimic their Tells members about one another – The can do an e-mail interview. strategies and for those members to continue other implication of community sites not participating to remain as the star of the You can send over a few questions, have community. being simply a news site is that we also want them answer those questions and publish content that is going to tell members about the responses on their site. This is useful In this social order, those community each other. The type of content that unites because you can ask questions about their members who are frequently mentioned members and creates a sense of group own background and the key action steps are considered to be at the top of the social identity. from the paper they have produced. You ladder, which pushes others to strive to get can do this live as well and solicit questions there. You can see this ranking in the status Making Existing Content More from the audience. However with live of those in Spark and C4D communities Social interviews you incur obvious time barriers. where more frequent and higher quality It’s also potentially difficult to solicit enough contributions increase your status. You can take almost any of the existing questions from the audience, so you might content that you have access to and make it need to create your own as ‘questions you Creates relevant information far more engaging for the target audience. received earlier.’ Aside from the social bonding benefits, We’re not referring to social media here. We’re Use open-ended questions – Remember community newspapers also provide referring to adding a social, engaging, twist to use open-ended questions to elicit more a range of relevant information. This into the existing content you already have. expansive responses than a simple yes or no. information includes upcoming events, job The goal is to ensure that people participate advertisements, latest topical news and in the content. This means that they’re more summaries of what has recently taken place Creating New Social Content likely to acquire and share the knowledge within the community. from that item of content. Creating new content that is social means There are several ways you can do this: creating new content with the goal to unite Provides entertainment your members into a tighter group. New Interlink content with discussions - Social content, for example in a community social content also achieves several results. Interlinking content with discussions means newsletter, also provides entertainment in linking to relevant content items from the form of guest columns, gossip, interviews, Increases familiarity and sense of peer discussions you create and post in your reviews, previews, etc. Entertainment value group community. For example, you can create should not be underestimated. Just like discussions specifically for new papers that Social content increases familiarity with other newspapers, communities that do not have are being published at the World Bank Group. members and reinforces the sense that this is entertainment content struggle to sustain a peer group. In a peer group people return high levels of readership and engagement. You can also link to relevant discussions from to the community every day to see what’s In this role, the community is both the the content. You can do this at several of the new. They return to see what their friends are consensus of a community opinion and the most popular or important points. You can doing. In essence, content here acts for your determinant for the community’s opinion. link to a discussion within your community. community the way a local newspaper does While this duality might appear mischievous, A single paper can have several links back to for its community. It tells members what’s such a role is beneficial as it provides discussions where people can talk about key happening in the community. It talks about the community with a shared emotional aspects of the paper. what your members are doing. 50 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT connection, which is vital for a strong sense For more on creating effective social content, happenings within the communities. Most of community. see Buzzing Communities by Feverbee, and of the popular newspapers we read and TV the book titled Made to Stick by Chip and shows we watch are curated highlights. Examples of Social Content Dan Heath. Highlights can include a recent summary of Examples of social content include: industry news, a ‘best of the web’ highlighting Content Themes links externally worth reading, a round-up/ ƒƒ Guest columns There’s no shortage of possible content you key learnings from recent events, or top 5/10 ƒƒ Interviews can create for your community. This comes things members might have missed this ƒƒ Reviews/previews of events week. in the form of highlights, analysis, news, ƒƒ Pictures opinion, and interviews, as summarized in Likewise, highlights about the community ƒƒ Case studies the following table: may include the top discussion(s) of the week, top member(s) of the week/month, Principles of Creating Good Highlights – Highlights can include a curated a round-up of the community discussions summary of the latest information or articles Social Content or activity, or shared photos/images from about a topic or about the community. These are useful as they directly save time. Many various events. There are several principles of great community content: of the most successful communities were It’s important here that the filter quality has launched as curated summaries of the latest to remain high. Do not be tempted to post Timely – Good content is timely. It has something just to keep it going. The quality an urgency hook. It has to be related to something that is happening now. That might mean an action a member has taken or a Figure 32: Content Themes broader theme with a local community spin. ABOUT THE TOPIC ABOUT THE COMMUNITY Unexpected – Great content is content that HIGHLIGHTS • Summary of recent • Post/discussion of the week we don’t expect. It challenges an existing articles/news • Member of the week/month viewpoint in some particular way. • Best of the web • Roundup of what you missed in Mention names of members – By • Roundups/key learnings from the community mentioning members names, you get to events/conferences • Shared photos/images from compare yourself to other people. You get to • Time-bounded discussions activities follow the lives of people. Participatory – It should be participatory in ANALYSIS • Industry trends • Best practices some way. Even if you were not involved in • Greater context to daily news • Polls the creation of the content, you can still feel a stories • Summary of member opinions on sense of ownership over it because it is about • Greater detail or new an issue the community. The best content is that information submitted by members for your attention. • Book reviews Local newspapers don’t go out looking for • Flagship Reports news, they respond to tips. This is the high level you want to be working on. NEWS • Industry news • Member job changes • Snippets of articles • Member achievements Credible – Your content has to be credible - it • Daily news roundups • Member life news has to have some essence of credibility in the • Upcoming events and activities way it conveys the information. Concrete – Content has to be concrete, it has OPINION to paint a clear mental picture. The easier it • Weekly expert columns can be pictured, the more successful it will be. • Regular opinion columns Emotional – It should provoke an emotion, it should resonate with its intended audience. INTERVIEWS • Industry experts • Ask the Expert/Ask Me Anything • Industry influencers (AMA) (for an hour/day/week) Story – It should tell a story. It should have a • Individuals related to topical • Emailed questions beginning, middle, and an end. news stories • Live / recorded webinars • Podcasts • Live discussions BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 51 of the content is very important in its use. If from experts you have a relationship with. The rhythm or cadence of the community members think your filter doesn’t provide These tend to be most often about the topic, calendar (the regularity of when content gets them with what they need to read, they will not about the community. created and published) depends on you and no longer participate. Interviews – Interviews are a simple way of the resources that are available to you. Analysis articles – Analysis articles add building a powerful sense of community. The Steps in Creating Your Content greater context to topical stories. This usually themes of the interviews are a combination includes a collection of a larger amount of of all of the above. Interviews can be Calendar data or adding in new perspectives. Here highlights from experts of recent papers, Follow these general steps when creating you would connect relevant news stories an analysis of current situations, a place to your content calendar: into topical trends, and spotlight how data reveal news, or solicit opinions. They can be Review your community’s domain – To begin is guiding activity. You might also include with industry experts, influencers, and those creating your calendar, look closely at your things such as book or article reviews for caught up in topical news stories. They can community. Review you’re your community members. These have a practical element too. take the form of ask me anything, emailed domain: your community’s industry, the questions, live and recorded webinars, You can also analyze what’s happening in the major issues, media, and key influencers. podcasts and week-long discussions. community. You can do member polls and Look at both online and offline content surveys to summaries the findings. You can We recommend publishing an upcoming produced within the sector to identify the highlight emerging best practices between calendar to members. The calendar lets most popular categories. Check out the members and areas where members are them know what to expect and enables them number of comments and their placement on coalescing. to put forward anything they would like to the sites to determine popularity. contribute to or have the members discuss. News – News includes the latest news Identify the content types and the actual about the industry. This might be snippets of content – Strike a balance between topical articles or letting members know who/what Creating a Content Calendar content and content about members. is doing something new at any given time. A content calendar is a useful tool for you as From the categories of content, you Controversy and conflict, and by conflict we the community manager to schedule what need to identify what content you will mean two sides to the issue) is usually good you want to produce or have other people actually use. The content you have is very here. News about the community is just as produce and when you want to publish it. much dependent on how successful you good. You can mention members who have Essentially, it’s a project management tool for are in persuading people to make these recently moved jobs or to new departments. content. contributions. Welcome newcomers to the community. It can also include events especially where NOTE: The content produced for your Highlight things that your members have the events are driving content. For example, community should not rival existing online recently achieved. the community might be producing advance content. The goal isn’t to compete with other You may want to congratulate members on materials before the event to create existing media platforms, but you must their broader life news to build a stronger buzz; presentation and support content identify what categories of content are most sense of community. For example, if during the event; and post-event content popular. members get married or have children. such as reports and summaries including Identify your resources and tools – You It might be worth highlighting upcoming photographs and videos taken at the event. might only have 10 hours per month to events and activities which members will We also recommend that you publish spend on your community. Your tool chest be attending. They can collaborate meeting your upcoming calendar to members. The might not include applications for designing up, sharing taxis, and hotels and so on. (In calendar lets them know what to expect and elaborate HTML pages. These types of person events are a great opportunity for enables them to put forward suggestions constraints and others will have a big impact online community members to really deepen they would like to contribute to or have the on what you can deliver and when you can their connections and relationships.) members discuss. deliver it. Opinions – Opinions and guest columns are The content calendar identifies the Decide on timing – After identifying the designed to add fresh perspectives to the categories or content themes, the types of content (and this will be an ongoing process community. The goal is to find people with content that will be published, and when the as the need for content lasts for the life of fresh ideas or new takes on existing issues content will be published. You’ll want space your community), the final and critical, piece to discuss them. This can be in the form of a to denote key dates and events, and note of a content calendar is when to publish weekly/monthly opinion column that rotates who is responsible for delivering the piece of and distribute the content and the overall, authorship between different members. Or it content. ongoing timing. can be multiple opinions and guest columns 52 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT Categories must be repeated at consistent intervals. These intervals could be daily, Content Content By By Related Notes weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or even annually. Theme Type Whom When Event The goal with intervals is to find a balance between too much content and too little Industry Blog xxx dd/mm/yyyy Industry xxxxx content. Trend Conference Daily intervals are typically ill suited to a dd/mm/yyyy community as it’s too much content all at once. Annual intervals are generally too long AMA Discussion xxx dd/mm/yyyy Panel xxxxx a time frame for anything but content around discussion events or awards. (in the Typically, you want to have weekly and bi- future) weekly intervals for certain content types, dd/mm/yyyy with the overall theme and timing switching up 2-3 times per year. Irregular intervals make Industry Job Wiki document xxx dd/mm/yyyy N/A xxxxx it hard for community members to follow. Postings Calendars work as mental models, showing Member Announcement xxx dd/mm/yyyy Monthly xxxxx you something familiar to help you Update Community comprehend a large amount of tasks. When Roundtable you see your work laid out in a calendar, you find it to be much more manageable and fresh. Additionally, a simple, visual calendar greatly Figure 33: Content Calendar lowers its perceived difficulty. Cost-benefit analysis says that behavior is influenced by of content that will be published, and when This type of calendar should be planned with how easy or difficult one perceives an action the content will be published. Note that there the Core Group and should be shared with to be. An easy-looking, familiar calendar is space for specifying who is responsible them and your team. It can also be shared is more likely to gain a positive, visceral for delivering the piece of content, related with members if you wish, so that they know reaction, and you are more likely to stick with events, and for miscellaneous additional what major activities are on the horizon. it. comments. In this content calendar shared by Twitter in Events and Activities TIP a webcast with Buffer, you’ll notice that it’s Events and activities play an essential Once the calendar has been very visual, and gives a high level overview role in the growth and development of determined, you might consider of what’s happening in the month. Your communities. You should never confuse publishing it (in category form) content calendar can be incorporated in your an event with community, but events are to your community. Making your community calendar. great catalysts for community building and calendar public enables members strengthening. to volunteer to contribute This section on content covers: content, as well as give them the opportunity to give feedback into ƒƒ The role that activities and events play the process. Contributing to the in making communities successful calendar is an excellent way to ƒƒ The different types of events and increase engagement with and activities that you can use as a commitment to your community community manager and when to use them ƒƒ How to develop a framework for organizing events and activities suited Examples of Content Calendars for your stage in the community Figure 33 is a simple calendar that identifies lifecycle the categories or content themes, the types BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 53 The Role of Events The greater the level of social presence, the should be reflected in the community greater the idea that you are interacting with calendar. They provide a sense of stability By events we mean time-limited activities. an intelligent other person. This is why the to the community as members build their Events can take place online or offline, and breakthroughs, the bonding, and the best shared histories. However, regularity can can range in number of participants. success usually comes when we’re as far to sometimes produce predictability and Events serve several purposes. the top right of the social presence curve as boredom and an increasing lack of ƒƒ Events unite audiences. They drive activity in the community. Events Figure 34: Sense of Presence increase contact between individuals and create a lot of the social contact, familiarity, and more for great things to happen in the future. ƒƒ Events can also make communities more engaging and provide a reason for members to frequently return. If you host an event every week you might find members return to the community every week. Events also bring lurkers out of the shadows. ƒƒ Exciting events can convert a member who reads or downloads content but rarely participates into a regular, active, participant. ƒƒ Events can celebrate community identity. Community members feel a sense of pride and an increased sense of community when participating in events, and events themselves can help to sustain broader community possible. Social presence consists of the idea engagement amongst members. Irregular goals. that we know we’re interacting with a real event provide a sense of surprise that can ƒƒ Events also contribute to a shared human being, who is paying attention, and help maintain interest, rekindle and renew sense of history between members. that we’re interacting in as close to real-time interest, and in some cases bring new Members who for example attend as possible. members into the community. “the annual conference” every year, over time develop deeper and more Thus while the most common events/ Regular online events – Regular online events meaningful relationships, in effect, activities will be in the lower left corner of the are a staple of successful communities. They building communities with stronger two axes, the events/activities that have the are accessible to all members, and held at ties. biggest impact are located on the top-right specific times, and increase the sense of of the axes. This is why live discussions are social presence. You can schedule online ƒƒ Finally, events can help recruit far more impactful than those that occur on events on a regular basis, whether it be volunteers to the community. These discussion boards. weekly, biweekly, or monthly. volunteers can be converted into regular helpers and supporters of the Frequent online events should be accessible community. Types of Events to all, and be held at specific times, since these events increase the sense of social You can place events into one of four Shared Experiences and the presence (the feeling that you are interacting categories – regular online events, regular Hierarchy of Social Presence with an ‘intelligent other’). offline events, irregular online events and Some examples of regular online events: One reason why events are so useful is they irregular offline events. participating in a weekly WOL thread or in a provide a shared experience for members. Regular vs irregular events – Regular events, WOL circle where you interact with A shared experience makes the event seem both online and offline, help establish the other members and their agendas and more real. This is related to the idea of social rhythm or cadence of a community, which goal, webinars that include an interactive presence. 54 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT presentation in which a CM, member of the community’s online activities. Offline to your public community calendar in a community or expert on the selected events solidify online relationships. Contacts timeframe that you think appropriate. topic, delivers a presentation and answers that may have formed online are cemented questions online. through in person interaction. Activities and Content for Irregular online events – Communities should Regular offline events –Regular offline events Creating Great Events also host irregular online events, and such can play a major role in the development events should celebrate a community’s of a community by increasing the level Activities surrounding and at the event, all achievement, bring audiences together for a of activity within a community, providing serve to deepen and strengthen relationships specific purpose or promote the community content for the platform, and increasing the between members, as they add another to external audiences. sense of community amongst members. chapter to their ongoing shared histories. In Offline events can also be a great opportunity addition to the core relationship-developing Irregular online events are by definition to promote the community to a broader nature of events, they are also a fantastic events that don’t happen on a set schedule. audience, and to recruit volunteers whom source of content. The benefit of such They should be considered special within the will also support the community’s online entertaining and informative content can community and not as common as regular activities. Such examples include: almost match the benefit of the event itself. events. There should not be more than one irregular event per every two months, as conferences, panel discussions, CM Monthly Often when we think of an event we this ensures they maintain a rare occurrence lunches, and monthly interviews for the concentrate on the actual event. However, it to generate excitement and intrigue within newsletters. is more productive to think of the activities the community. Some examples include: and content associated with any event, in Irregular offline events – Irregular offline member achievements, highlighting new three separate stages: before (pre), during, events are often those that create the members, product launches, guest blogs and after (post) the event. initial burst of social capital to establish and competitions such as the Community momentum. They are often the events Managers Appreciation Day (CMAD) at WBG Before the Event that generate the most anticipation and in 2016. excitement. Such examples include: project The purpose of content before the event is Regular and irregular offline events – Regular clinics, master classes, hard talks, experts on to build anticipation for the event itself. For and irregular offline events may call, and happy hours. smaller, regular, events, this will likely be also be a great means of promoting the As a community manager, you should a single post. For larger events, this might community to a broader audience and complete a matrix of regular and irregular include a series of posts over several months. recruiting volunteers who will also support online and offline events, and transfer these This pre-event content can include: Initial announcements – Initial announcements announce and promote Figure 35: Online/Offline Event Examples the event, with basic details about the event highlighting when registration/sign-ups for REGULAR ONLINE EVENTS REGULAR OFFLINE EVENTS the event will go live. You can then continue Working Out Loud Conferences these announcements with a steady stream Webinars Panel Discussions information leading up to the event. Roundtable Discussions BBLs Event previews – Event previews can outline Blogs CM Monthly Lunches the highlights, ask members what they Ask the Expert/Ask me Anything Monthly Interviews are most looking forward to, and promote unanswered questions about the event. What IRREGULAR ONLINE EVENTS IRREGULAR OFFLINE EVENTS are people wondering will happen at the Member Achievements Project Clinics event? What mystery exists about the event? Highlighting New Members Master Classes You can also interview key individuals. These Product Launches Hard Talks could be in the form of blog posts, or they Competitions Experts on Call could be podcast or video interviews. It does Blogs Happy hours not always have to be written content, and in Ask the Expert fact before the event, when you’re trying to Ask Me Anything create excitement and buzz and encourage more people attend, videos are much more compelling. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 55 TIP Registration – Registration-closing related testimonials from well-known and respected content can include a countdown or members of the community. information on the event. It can involve Photos taken during the event Example Content After (post) the Event information for volunteers at the event. To can also serve as content for ensure alignment in messaging at the event, during the pre-event phase of Figure 37 is an example from the SURR Forum you can create simple messaging and FAQs the next event to show potential 2015. You can see wrap-up in the form of for members of the team that are attending attendees what a great event videos, pictures from the events, a thank you to avoid mixed messages about for example it was and that they should not announcement, and reports. the goals of the event or organization. There miss the next one. can also be a post a day or two before the event with practical information about Figure 37: SURR Forum 2015 getting to the event, emergency contact details and anything else of relevance. After (post) the Event After the event there are several important During the Event pieces of content to create and publish: The community should also publish frequent Final summary/Thank you’s/Top 10 – content during the event. The purpose of Following the event, it is important to write this is two-fold: to encourage members who a summary outlining what happened and didn’t attend the event to attend the event thanking members for attending. This should next time, and to keep them informed so be informative and provide individuals who that they are not uninformed or prohibited could not attend a clear overview of what from participating in the community after the happened. As the community manager, rather than event. write and post the wrap-up yourself, it is It’s also very effective to draft a highlights/ Content during the event can include: better if you can ask someone else from the top 10 learnings post following the event. community who attended the event to write Live blogs, tweets, and interviews – Live Ideally this post should feature event a blog or summary of the event, and continue blogs that cover key aspects of the event, highlights that are voted on by members. the conversation online. as well as interviews with speakers and You can also include things like “person of the attendees broadcast in real time, which event” or “newcomer mentions.” are very popular. Tweets against a #event Suggestions/Feedback – You should also hashtag connect both people at the event publish a post calling for suggestions for the with each other, but also those not attending next event. You could also include a link to but following online. an online survey asking for more detailed Photos – Photos taken by community feedback. This content should reflect critically members and by the community manager upon what could be done better at the next can be published and frequently updated event. during the event. Along with photos, short Testimonials – Testimonials serve two video clips showcasing what’s happening at purposes: to validate the current event, and the event can be taken and published during to be used as pre-event content for the next the event. Create a hashtag to capture all of event to encourage attendance and create the photo and video content from different buzz, especially if you receive some glowing social sharing services. Daily summaries – The community manager Figure 36: Event Stages should post round-ups after each day of the event summarizing the major activities and any surprising news. Events need a clear Before (pre-) the event During the event After (post) the even closure to sustain the sense of community amongst members and cement the event • Initial announcement • Live blogs/interviews • Final summary & ‘thank into the community’s shared history. This • Event previews • Photos & videos you’ closure may require more than one piece of • Registration, Volunteers, • Daily summaries • Highlights / Top 10 ending content on the event. Responsibilities • Suggestions and feedback • Testimonials 56 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT Scheduling Round-table Discussions Here is a planning template on how to schedule a community roundtable discussions. One of the advantages of a monthly Community Roundtable meeting is that more members get an opportunity to directly share and learn from each other.In addition, the notes or minutes can be shared online and timely topical discussions can also be bridged or document online. Guest speakers can be reserved in advance for the next meetings to match requests from community members. Figure 38: Community Roundtable Draft Agenda Community Roundtable Meeting – Draft Agenda – Talking Points – Planning Template Time Topic Speaker Notes Welcome message Explain the ground rules: most responses (recognition) should be limited to 1 minute or less, most participants should get a chance to share or ask questions Introductions Name, share something that you are working on or struggling with (this for follow up later). Someone should list topics for later discussions 2 or 3 progress updates 2 to 3 minutes each, max. Core message, Topical 10-15 minutes with Q&A – this is the discussion, Guided discussion advertised timely topic/issue to be focused on. There might be a guest presenter or someone from the community. Additional issues raised in This is a good time to restate some of introductions the issues and opportunities raised earlier. Try to get everybody involved in the guided discussions Other timely topics/for next Could be issues that were raised but not time fully discussed, or emerging issues coming up soon. Announce upcoming events, dates, deadlines, and when and where the next meeting will be NOTES • Community Roundtables are often scheduled once each month, so please reuse this template. • Ask others to help with these tasks: take notes, greet people, make sure people sign in, get any handouts, take photos, post notes/minutes after the meeting (these tasks can rotate around various Core Team and Core Group members). Someone should take care of logistics: create meeting notice, schedule rooms, send out the agenda, and order refreshments if needed. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 57 58 I COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT WORK BOOK Can be used individually or as a companion to the Community Management Training, Level 1 DEFINING AND PLANNING YOUR COMMUNITY MODULE 1 1. Audience Analysis Together with the competitive analysis, the audience analysis is one of the two pieces of research that are essential to successfully design a community. In particular, the audience analysis will help you understand who your potential members are (demographics), what they do (habits), and what they think (psychographics). In this exercise, please come up with your own questions, tailored to your community, and interview at least 3 potential members. Then share your questions and your interviewees’ responses by replying to this thread. During the interview process, respondents might wander “off topic”. Listen to and respect what they say. You might learn something new and of value; it might challenge your initial assumptions of who should be in this community and what it is for. Also, if certain themes start emerging, you might want to refine your questions as you go forward. To identify and interview potential members of your community, follow this process: ƒƒ 1. Narrow down your target audience using at least two qualifiers (for example, Geophysicists in Latin America) ƒƒ 2. Use SkillFinder to identify 10 potential members of the community you have in mind. ƒƒ 3. Select 3 potential members. ƒƒ 4. Interview them asking at least 3 questions on habits (what they do) and 3 questions on psychographics (what they think) one question on challenges, one on experiences, and one on aspirations. ƒƒ 5. See if there are any common patterns and try to write two paragraphs that represent the habits and psychographics profile of a generic potential member of your community. ƒƒ 6. Record interviews with the potential members, for no longer than 15 minutes each. ƒƒ 7. From these data, several common characteristics should emerge that can help you plan how and when you will engage your members. Sample Questions - Habits What tools and platforms do you use professionally? (This should be a multiple-choice question with the tools members are most familiar with.) What do you read online? (This should be a multiple-choice question with space to add own reading materials.) What do you read offline? (This should be a multiple-choice question with space to add own reading materials.) What sectorial events (conferences, talks, workshops etc.) do you at- tend? What sectorial networks or communities are you members of? What sustains your attention? 60 I WORK BOOK When do you browse the Internet? (This should be a pure multiple-choice question) When do you participate in your domain/community? What specific aspects of the domain do you participate in? How do you participate in your domain? Sample Questions - Psychographics Biggest Problems/Challenges What key issues do you care about? What are you struggling with? What are you worried about? What are you interested in? NOTE: Also make a note of what they mention without being prompted. Experiences (successes, failures) How did you become interested in the domain? What is your average day like? What have been your biggest achievements/failures? Aspirations What are your hopes, fears, and aspirations? What would you love to see within your domain in the future? What barriers do you find in networking with other practitioners in your domain? Would you like to be one of the founding members of the community? BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 61 2. Competitive Analysis Before starting a community you need to know if there is demand. The first thing to look at is what’s already out there in your domain and how the community you have in mind might fit into the wider ecosystem. The competitive analysis helps you avoid re-creating what already exists, and also provides you with valuable insights into how relevant communities, mailing groups, and social gatherings function, which areas of a domain they do and do not cover, and how they engage their members. This analysis also helps you identify the right niche for your community. How to Find Existing Communities Ask your target audience (potential members) what communities and associations they belong to, what meetings and conferences they attend and so on. See the “Habits” section of the “Audience Analysis Template.” Search on OLC Connect for WBG communities. You can also search the intranet directory to find other relevant groups. Use a search engine to search for external communities. Make sure that you search not only for the specific topic but also add key words such as “community”, “network”, “group”, “forum”, and “professionals.” Important Note: If you don’t find a community like the one you have in mind, it might not necessarily mean that you have found a niche to fill. It might also mean that there is no interest in that topic. This is where the Audience Analysis comes in handy. Competitive Analysis Template Question Response What You Need to Know About Existing Communities (online and face-to-face, inside and outside WBG) What are the existing communities within the domain? How active are they? Which are the most successful ones? What makes them successful (unique design, top members, culture/ personality, types of conversations, leader’s involvement, etc.)? What type of communities are they (interest, place, practice, action, circumstance, or a combination)? How old are the existing communities? If online, what platform are they using? What You Need to Answer About Existing Communities What niche should I focus on? 62 I WORK BOOK How would my community fit within the ecosystem? Could it develop as a sub-community of a broader existing one? What’s the added value my community would bring? How could my community leverage the existing ones? How would my community stand out? NOTES: BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 63 DESIGNING YOUR COMMUNITY FOR SUCCESS MODULE 2 1. Community Value A community has to provide value to both members and the sponsoring organization, which is the WBG in our case. You also have to think about value both in the short term and in the long term. Use the following Value Matrix Template to identify the Short Term value and Long Term value that your community provides or will provide to both Members and the Organization. Value Template Short Term Value Long Term Value Members Organization Value Example Short Term Value Long Term Value • Help with challenges • Professional development • Access to expertise • Enhanced reputation • • Members Increased confidence Professional identity • Fun with colleagues • Extended network • Meaningful participation • Increased marketability • Sense of belonging • Rapid problem solving • Strategic capacity building • Time and cost saving • Increased productivity • Improved quality • Knowledge-driven projects Organization • Synergy across units • Latest thinking • Resources for operations • Innovation • Community-supported risk-taking • Retention of talent • New strategies and capabilities 64 I WORK BOOK 2. What’s Your Community’s Pitch to Members? After having completed the competitive and the audience analysis, you should be able to transform the initial idea you (and/or your manager) have of the community you would like to create into a short description that is based on what would make your community unique and what could appeal to its potential members. You should think of this short description as an “elevator pitch”, no longer than a couple of paragraphs, which you would tell a potential member if you met her/him in an elevator. Develop a “WOW – HOW – NOW” approach: • WOW – think of a “WOW” opening that will get their attention. • HOW – explain briefly how your community addresses a need or solves a problem, and give example(s) • NOW – what action you or they can take NOW Community Pitch/Elevator Pitch Template Instructions Your Community Pitch 1. Think of who the community is for and of a “WOW” opening to get their attention E.g. Did you know that…? Do you want more X…?The secret of X is… Avoid (X problem) once and for all! Imagine if you could… Did you realize that…? True or false…? Wouldn’t you agree that... 2. Identify HOW the community helps its members a. State a concrete benefit or value E.g. Solve a problem, make a difference, add value, bring result, change a process, transform something, provide a benefit b. Give an example that illustrates impact or potential impact. Make sure the example is relevant to your pitch target group. E.g. A community member was able to get feedback on a proposal by starting a discussion with and getting response from fellow community members. 3. Call to action: what can they or you do NOW – make it concrete: E.g. They can join the community, or refer a colleague to the community. You can refer them or connect them with someone, offer a resource, share research. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 65 3. Core Group Interview The purpose of this interview/these interviews is to involve the Core Group in the process of designing the community of practice, so that they also feel ownership and are more committed to its success. Once the interview is completed, the community charter can be finalized. This could be a group interview or a series of one-on-one interviews. While more difficult to convene, the group interview is more beneficial as participants are able to collaborate and start feeling a sense of community from the beginning and to build on each other’s ideas. While the community manager can help with setting up the interview and with taking notes, the community leader should lead it because of his/her sectorial knowledge. The questions following are provided to guide you on what should be addressed and are not meant to be exhaustive. Use, replace, delete, and augment, as appropriate for your community. Core Group Interview Template Questions Responses Domain Questions - Goal: To develop a shared understanding of the domain, find its legitimacy in the organization, and engage the passion of members What topics and issues do we really care about? What are the development challenges we want to address? What is out of scope? How is this domain connected to the organization’s strategy? What business needs can the community address? What is in it for us? What are the open questions and the leading edge of our domain? Are we ready to take some leadership in promoting and developing our domain? 66 I WORK BOOK What kind of influence do we want to have? How will we communicate the community’s goals and achievements, and to whom? Community Questions - Goal: To find the community’s specific way to operate, build relationships, and grow How will the community be organized and run? Is membership open, closed, or something in between? What roles are members going to play? How will decisions be made? How often will the community meet? What venues and technology will be used for members to connect on an ongoing basis? What kind of activities will generate energy and develop trust? What kind of behaviors can we expect from each other (respect, responsiveness, “no dumb questions”, tough questions, honest feed- back, “no hurt feelings” etc.)? How can the community balance the needs of various segments of members? BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 67 How will members deal with conflict? How will newcomers be introduced into the community? Practice Questions - Goal: To design the community in a way that it becomes an effective knowledge resource to its members and to other constituencies that may benefit from its expertise. What outcomes do we want to focus on? How will community actions result in outcomes? What small short term victories do we want achieve? What big long term victories do we want to achieve? What knowledge to share, develop, document? What kinds of learning activities to organize? How should we use collective learning, versus expert-apprentice, versus external research/expertise? How should the knowledge repository be organized to reflect the practice of members and be easily accessible? When should processes be standardized and when are differences appropriate? What development projects should the community undertake? What potential work groups could be created? Where are the sources of knowledge and benchmarks outside the community? How should we support members as both experts and learners? What are the benefits for members? 68 I WORK BOOK (RE)LAUNCHING YOUR COMMUNITY MODULE 3 1. From Inputs to Outcomes In order to make sure that a community delivers value, first you have to decide which Outcomes you would like to have as results of your community’s activities. Once you have decided the Outcomes, you also have to think clearly about the Inputs and the Outputs that are necessary to obtain those outcomes. NOTE: Your Outcomes should be aligned with each Short/Long Term Value you decided on (for Members and the Organization) using the Value template Inputs/Outputs/Outcomes Template (Start with Outcomes) Inputs Outputs Outcomes Inputs/Outputs/Outcomes Example Inputs Outputs Outcomes Hours worked Connections created Solutions sets created Blogposts written Unique comments Projects impacted People invited Discussions occurring Practitioner hours saved Conversations initiated Discussion depth Support requests deflected Platform management Files shared New business sourced BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 69 Example Metrics When thinking about inputs and outputs, you should think about how you will measure them, that is, what metrics you will use. Here are some examples, both Quantitative and Qualitative. Quantitative Blogposts written Comments on blogposts People invited People joining Conversations initiated Connections created Page views Time on page Likes Unique comments Discussions Posts Questions Responses to questions Time to respond to questions Solution sets created Course units completed Courses completed Certificates awarded Support requests deflected Practitioners supported Practitioner hours saved New business sourced; Solutions shared with other practitioners New ideas generated New ideas implemented Clients and Partners involved in solutions design Solution designs adopted Discovering mistakes made and avoiding their repetition in the future Quality improved and costs reduced via peer review of each other’s works Increased overall satisfaction; Increased satisfaction with specific Net Promoter Score (NPS) program parameters Number of participants in working groups Number of people speaking up at a meeting Number of documents uploaded Number of documents shared Numbers of unique participants in various areas in the community Tweets and retweets Qualitative • Sustainable Innovation and Improvements in Products/Services via crowdsourcing • Broader framing of development challenges and better translation of solution sets into local contexts • Specific projects impacted in terms of validation and quality assurance • Captured members/practitioners stories that demonstrate the casual links between inputs generating community activities, outputs, and outcomes (supported by quantitative measures in terms of documents and ideas shared on the online platform, and positive feedback received) • Anecdotal success stories 70 I WORK BOOK 2. Convening Venues Each community uses a combination of convening venues to create opportunities for its members to interact in person and online: email, audio and video conferencing, webinars, events; BBLs, and online platforms. Choose a combination of convening venues you plan to use for your community, including how you might combine them so that they reinforce one another, for example, an online Learning Circle after a training event, or follow-up online discussions and after a conference. Convening Venues Template Category Type Details In person Regular meetings Major events Training Other Virtual face to face BBLs Webinars/Training Teleconference Other Platforms Web site Collaboration Social Media Linkedin Twitter Flickr Youtube Facebook Other Online tools Email Jabber Other NOTES: BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 71 Convening Venues Template Category Type Details In person Regular meetings Biweekly meetings in DC with Core Group Major events • Bi-annual managers meeting (rotating locations) • Annual conference in DC • Professional Association Conference (in NY and internationally) Training Ad hoc corporate-provided training opportunities Other Monthly social events Virtual face to face BBLs Monthly BBLs (program agenda to be created) Webinars/Training Bi-monthly CoP-initiated online training events Teleconference Weekly teleconference including country offices Other Platforms Web site WBG corporate web site Collaboration CoP site on Spark Social Media Linkedin Join existing related group(s) on LinkedIn Twitter Use at major events Flickr No Youtube No Facebook No Online tools Email Email groups Jabber No Other Ad hoc polls on the CoP site NOTES: 72 I WORK BOOK 3. Core Group Onboarding Activities The first members to use the main convening venue you selected should be your Core Group members. This is particularly important when the convening venue is an online platform. You should make sure that you train your Core Group members to make sure they know how to use the venue you have selected, particularly the platform. Together with your Core Group members, you should also select a number of initial activities to make the Core Group comfortable with the platform and also to create initial content and engagement within your community. These activities should last until the Core Group is comfortable with the platform (around two weeks). Use the following template to select the activities you are going to use to onboard your Core Group members. Include why you chose them and how they might be combined. Use, replace, delete, and augment, as appropriate for your community. Core Group Onboarding Activities Template Activity Areas Your Activities Kick off meeting Community description Initial topics to tackle (governance, netiquette, etc) Meeting schedule Community Charter Platform Training (how and when) Content planning (identify topics and possible contributors) Initial content creation Online collaboration site - home page design Training offerings BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 73 4. Community Description The community description is the first presentation of your community to a visitor. This is particularly true for closed and private communities where visitors can see only the community description before becoming members. The goal of the community description is to convert visitors into members by attracting your target audience to join. Try to use around 50 words (think of an elevator pitch). Your description should cover three core and possibly two more optional points. Community Description Template Guidelines and Examples Your Community Description 1. Welcome the visitors (OPTIONAL) E.g. “WELCOME!”“Welcome to the ACU – the Africa Credit Union commu- nity of practice.” 2. State who your community is for E.g.“This is the dedicated space for credit union experts and professionals in Africa” 3. Describer your audience’s specific needs and challenges E.g.“Here you can find resources and advice from peers and other experts that will help you save time and be more efficient with limited resources” 4. State the concrete benefit the community offers to prospective members E.g.“As a member of a community of top experts in the field, you will have access to the latest innovations that will help you deliver better products to your clients” 5. Outline the big vision? (OPTIONAL – Only if it fits/makes sense) E.g. “Together we will make finance more accessible and lift thou- sands of people out of poverty,” 74 I WORK BOOK NOTES BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 75 PLANNING FOR YOUR NEXT 3 MONTHS MODULE 4 1. Create your CM Calendar for the First Four Weeks A high-level community calendar helps you plan the major activities for a specific timeframe like a year or to the end of the financial or calendar year. This type of calendar should be produced collaboratively by the Core Group. You should also create a detailed content calendar especially for the first four weeks specifying what activities are going on in the community and what content is to be produced and distributed, for example, a blog post every Thursday afternoon. As your community progresses, you should be able to ascertain what content resonates with your members, in what format, and at what times (morning, evenings, weekends, and so on) In this phase, the first four weeks, the focus should be on growth, moderation, and influence/relationships in particular. However, feel free to expand based on your community’s unique characteristics. Events would also be posted on a traditional but shared online community calendar, where members can advertise other events. Community Manager Content and Activity Calendar Template Content Theme Content Type Author Date Event Notes Community Manager Content and Activity Calendar Example Content Theme Content Type Author/Owner Date Event Notes Industry Trend Blog Xaviar Gomes Friday NA dd/mm/yyyy CM Community round- table AMA Post Lena Prothinko Mon to Thurs E-discussion CM to facilitate dd/mm/yy Thursday Panel discussion Core group member dd/mm/yy to facilitate Industry job postings Wiki document CM Friday NA dd/mm/yyyy Member update Announcement CM Daily 76 I WORK BOOK 2. Welcome Message The welcome message is your first interaction with a new member. The goal of the welcome message is to get a member to take a specific step. Try to use around 50 words (think of an elevator pitch). Your description should cover three, or possibly four points. It’s important that you know who you are talking to so that you can choose the right tone. Welcome Message Template Guidelines and Examples Your Message 1. Address the person personally whether formally or informally E.g. “Dear Director Garcia”, “Dear Mr. Jones”, “Dear Maria”, “Hi Camilla”, “Ivan!”....” 2. Welcome the new member to the community and express your honor/pleasure/excitement E.g. “Welcome to (name of community). I am very pleased that you are joining us.” “Welcome! I’m so excited that you are joining us!” 3. Say something that you know the new member is interested in and relate it to the scope of the community (OPTIONAL – Only: in early stage/if person matters particularly to the community) E.g. “I read your recent blog post on the water sanitation project you are working on in Honduras and found it very stimulating. We have several members who have experience in this field who might help you with some of the challenges you are facing.” 4. Have a clear call to action (CTA) with a link – Ideally have one call to action and not more than two E.g. “We are having an engaging e-discussion on water sanitation that you will find very interesting. Please, share your experience [link]” “Next month/week we will have a conference/webinar on water sanitation that you might want to consider attending. Here’s where you can find information and sign up [link]” “We have a new members’ area; here’s where you can find information on how to participate in the community [link]” 5. Ask the new member to introduce herself/himself to the communi- ty (OPTIONAL – If you have a “new members section” or an “introduce yourself” thread. Do NOT do if you already have two calls of action!) E.g. “Please, introduce yourself to the community so that we can get to know you [link]” 6. Let know that you are reachable E.g. “If you have questions or need assistance you can always reach me at….” BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 77 3. Community Charter After you have analyzed the community landscape for your domain, identified and discussed with your Core Group, your community’s value and your member characteristics, needs, and motives, you’ll be able to draft your community’s charter. Community Charter Template Background and Purpose What is the business context in which the Community of Practice would be operating and why you have chosen to create a CoP? What is the business need that this CoP addresses?  What is out of scope? What is the primary (but not exclusive) scope the CoP will focus on: practitioner support, business support, learning, innovation, or coordination? What are the goals?  What are the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic) objectives for the first FY? What are the benefits for the members and for the organization and its clients? How will the CoP’s objectives be negotiated and agreed upon with members? Membership Is membership open, closed, or something in between? Is it limited to one WBG entity, WBG internal staff only, is it a mix of WBG staff and external audiences (clients, partners, private sector, Government agencies, academia, field experts, etc.), or is it mostly for an external audiences? How will you recruit a core group of members and attract new members? 78 I WORK BOOK Operating Model (Community Organization) How will the CoP be organized and run? Who will take on the key Core Team roles: sponsor, leader(s), com- munity management professional(s), KM adviser? How much time they need to dedicate? How will decisions be made? Any potential work groups/ projects and who will lead them Behaviors What are the desired behaviors for the CoP (trust, respect, collabora- tion, reciprocity, network/idea/resource sharing, goal alignment, listening, open & honest discussions, etc.)? What strategy (tools, facilitation norms, incentives) will you use to generate these behaviors? How will you and the Core Team and Core Group conduct your- selves? Resources Budget, IT and support resources required. Fixed costs and variable costs, including staff and consultant’s time, events, collateral, etc. Key Topics Specify focus areas and whether there is a relevant “body of knowl- edge”. What are the key issues/challenges the CoP will address? What is the minimum common understanding members need to have? Platform and Other Convening Venues Will there be face-to-face interaction? In what form (meeting, BBL, panel discussion, conference, workshop, etc.) and how frequently? What other convening venues will the CoP use (e-mail distribution list, AC/VC, webinars, etc.) Will the CoP have an online collaboration platform? Will this be Spark or C4D, or something else? How will communications with members be managed? BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 79 Measurement and ROI What are the desired outcomes and how will you measure them? What are the inputs and outputs that will lead to the outcomes and how will you track them? What quantitative and qualitative metrics will you need? What CoP health and maturity indicators will you use? NOTES: 80 I WORK BOOK Community CommunityManagement ManagementTraining TrainingLevel Level11 Checklist of Assignments Checklist of Assignments Community Management Training Level 1 The CM Level 1 program consists of four weekly interactive workshops, two optional homework help sessions, practical exercises, and a final Pre-Work community strategy project. To successfully complete the program participants must participate to a majority of the facilitated the sessions (in Pre-Work person/online) and complete the final project. To obtain the Level 1 Community Management Certificate and SkillFinder Badge, participants must Read participate Primer to a pp. majority 7-15 of the Checklist of Assignments facilitated the sessions (in person/online), complete the mandatory exercises and the final project listed below. Read Primer pp. 7-15 Prepare to talk about your community Prepare to talk about your community Pre-Work Introduce yourself online Introduce yourself online Read Primer pp. 7-15 After Module 1 Prepare After Module talk about your community to 1 Read Primer pp. Introduce 16-23online yourself Read Primer pp. 16-23 Conduct an Audience Analysis Conduct an Audience Analysis a community Draft Module After 1 pitch for your members (bring your draft to the next session) Draft a community pitch for your members (bring your draft to the next session) Conduct Read a Competitive Primer Analysis - optional pp. 16-23 Conduct a Competitive Analysis - optional Conduct an Audience Analysis After Module 2 Draft After a community Module 2 pitch for your members (bring your draft to the next session) Read Primerapp. Conduct 23-30 Competitive Analysis - optional Read Primer pp. 23-30 Finalize your Community Value and validate with your Community Leader Finalize your Community Value and validate with your Community Leader Finalize After your Community Module 2 Pitch Finalize your Community Pitch Draft “From Input Read to Outcomes” (bring your draft to the next session) Draft Primer pp. “From Input23-30 to Outcomes” (bring your draft to the next session) Identifying Finalize and interview your Core Group Members - optional your Community Identifying and interview Value and your Core validate with your Group Members Community Leader - optional Finalize your Community Pitch After Module 3 Draft After 3 Input to Outcomes” (bring your draft to the next session) “From Module Read Primer pp. Identifying and30-37 interview your Core Group Members - optional Read Primer pp. 30-37 Finalize your community’s Measurement Framework (“From Input to Outcomes” exercise) Finalize your community’s Measurement Framework (“From Input to Outcomes” exercise) Finalize After 3 of Convening Venues - optional your list Module Finalize your list of Convening Venues - optional Finalize Read your list of Core Primer Group Onboarding Activities - optional Finalize list 30-37 yourpp. of Core Group Onboarding Activities - optional Finalize your community’s Measurement Framework (“From Input to Outcomes” exercise) After Module 4 Finalize After Module 4 list of Convening Venues - optional your Finalize your Finalize Community your Calendar list of Core Group Onboarding Activities - optional Finalize your Community Calendar Finalize and submit all previous mandatory exercises Finalize and submit all previous mandatory exercises Finalize After your Welcome Module 4 Message - optional Finalize your Welcome Message - optional Finalize your Community Calendar Final Assignment Finalize Final and submit all previous mandatory exercises Assignment Complete Finalizeand submit your yourMessage Welcome Community Charter/Strategy - optional Complete and submit your Community Charter/Strategy Provide feedback to your buddy’s Charter/Strategy Provide feedback to your buddy’s Charter/Strategy Final Assignment Complete and submit your Community Charter/Strategy Provide feedback to your buddy’s Charter/Strategy BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 81 82 I RESOURCES Learning, References, and Links Building and managing a community doesn’t about how to encourage knowledge sharing only require strict community skills. Other or how to write a blog post, facilitate a skills are also relevant, especially in the WBG meeting, or develop a value pitch are context. definitely useful for your community work. Take advantage of other learning offerings You can find many of these offerings in the at the WBG such as the Art of Knowledge Staff Learning group in Spark or by searching Exchange workshops or the Communication for keywords in the Open Learning Campus skills workshops, elearning, and webinars. (OLC) directly. Learning new strategies and techniques References The following references list books and sources referred to in this Primer and other related material. McMillan, David W., and David M. Chavis. 1986. “Sense of Community: A Definition and Theory.” Journal of Community Psychology, Volume 14. Millington, Richard. 2012. Buzzing Communities – How to Build Bigger, Better, and More Active Communities. FeverBee. Stepper, John. 2015. Working out Loud. Ikigai Press. Wenger, Etienne, Richard McDermott, and William M. Snyder. 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice, Harvard Business School Press. Wenger, Etienne, Nancy White, and John D. Smith. 2009. Digital Habitats—Stewarding Technology for Communities. CPSquare. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 83 COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE GLOSSARY Community of Practice (CoP): gathering of individuals motivated Community Charter: the output of the design process, a collaborative by the desire to cross organizational boundaries, to relate to one document providing the organizational framework for a CoP. another, and to build a body of actionable knowledge through Elements may include the shared leadership vision for change, coordination and collaboration. More colloquially, a CoP is a group of purpose, objectives, membership criteria, operational concept, people who share a concern or passion for something they do, and schedule of activities, and convening structures. learn how to do it better as they interact regularly. Core Team: core contributors, provide collective and shared Sense of Community: a feeling that members have of belonging, leadership to CoP. Central to planning, design and implementation of a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, member engagement activities. and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their Core Group: potential members who are interested in (and often commitment to be together. passionate about) the community you’d like to build and are Community Manager (CM): the Community Manager runs the committed to its creation and success. The Core Group regularly community, serves as the main point of contact and the scope of contributes content and helps engage the wider membership. his or her work includes: strategy, growth, moderation, content, Community Focus: a community can deliver on many aspects of relationships, events and activities, business integration, and user value. However, especially at the beginning, it’s important to have a experience. specific focus in one of these five areas: practitioner support, business Community Leader: mainly involved on the strategic level of the support, learning, innovation, coordination. community and— because of an acknowledged skill set as a Outcomes: the series of concrete impacts a community creates on technical expert—is key in role modeling the behaviors expected improving projects, operations, development challenges. of community members. He / she provides direction, convenes meetings, participates in or moderates discussions, engages Convening Venue(s): the way your members connect and sponsors, partners, donors. communicate. A convening venue can be in person and/or online, synchronous and/or asynchronous. Community Sponsor: a community’s sponsor is the organizational manager who provides the budget for the community and to whom Community Description: a short text describing what the community the community leader reports. is about and the first thing that visitors will look at to learn more about the community. Community Lifecycle: Like people, communities have a lifecycle: a community is born, it grows, and eventually dies; the community Welcome Message: the email / private message the Community lifecycle has four stages: inception, establishment, maturity and Manager sends to each new member to 1) tell them briefly about the mitosis. community and 2) get the member to take a specific first action in the community. Audience Analysis: a framework that helps you get to know and understand your potential members — especially what motivates Anchor Content: timely, relevant and interesting content the them and what they value. Community Manager uses to populate the community platform before launch. Competitive Analysis: research on what else is out there to help you visualize how your idea of community fits into the domain’s existing Community Calendar: a schedule of community activities. The ecosystem of communities, networks, and other relevant professional calendar helps the community manager to plan activities and it tells gatherings. members what to expect from the community. Shared value: a community has to provide value, and this value is a Member Engagement: usually involves a blend of online and offline combination of business value (what value the community provides member engagement activities that support achievement of CoP to the organization) and member value (what value the community Objectives. provides to its members). Staging Engagement: a process Community Managers should Community Domain: the area and topic(s) your community will be use to spur engagement in the community, especially in the early interested in, your subject matter area or thematic area that the stages when members are still not accustomed to the platform or community will be talking about. It’s the “what” of community and comfortable with sharing and contributing. the “why” it exists. Online Community: NOT a website Community Elevator Pitch: a brief, attention-grabbing speech that outlines what your community is about and serves to recruit new members. 84 I RESOURCES USEFUL LINKS Community Management resources WBG Community Managers: https://worldbankgroup.sharepoint.com/sites/wbsites/wbg-community-managers/Pages/index.aspx Introduction to Communities of Practice: https://olc.worldbank.org/content/introduction-communities-practice Community Management Training Level 1: https://olc.worldbank.org/content/community-management-training-level-1 FeverBee: https://www.feverbee.com/ The Community Roundtable: https://communityroundtable.com/ Platforms Intranet Resource Center: https://irc.worldbank.org/site/home IFC Intranet Resource Center: forthcoming Collaboration for Development: https://collaboration.worldbank.org/welcome Skillfinder: http://intranet.worldbank.org/people/skillfinder Intranet Search: https://isearch2.worldbank.org/ OLC Connect page: https://olc.worldbank.org/wbg-connect Training Art of Knowledge Exchange (self-paced): https://olc.worldbank.org/content/art-knowledge-exchange-self-paced Art of Knowledge Exchange: https://olc.worldbank.org/content/art-knowledge-exchange Get Your Blog Post Read, Shared, and Discussed (self-paced): https://olc.worldbank.org/content/get-your-blog-post-read-shared-discussed Positive Power and Influence: https://olc.worldbank.org/content/positive-power-and-influence%C2%AE-program-face-face-all-staff Event Planning and Design Knowledge Exchange Activities: http://www.knowledgesharingfordev.org/Data/wbi/wbicms/files/drupal-acquia/wbi/document_repository/ knowledge_exchange_activities_handout.pdf Liberating Structures: http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ Teampedia: https://www.teampedia.net/wiki/ Poll Everywhere: https://www.polleverywhere.com/ Kahoot: https://kahoot.com/what-is-kahoot/ Survey tools Google Forms (completely free): https://www.google.com/forms/about/ Typeform: https://www.typeform.com/ SurveyMonkey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/ SurveyGizmo: https://www.surveygizmo.com/ BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 85 Community Building Checklist STEP 3: PREPARE YOUR COMMUNITY ƒƒ Draft, practice, get feedback on, and finalize your Community Pitch [a short attention-grabbing statement STEP 0: CLARIFY YOUR VISION: WHY DO YOU NEED that you will use to recruit members]. A COMMUNITY? ƒƒ Write your Community Description [a description of what your community is about]. ƒƒ Who’s the community for? Who are the prospective members? ƒƒ Set up your platform(s) and test it with your Core Team and Core Group. ƒƒ What are you trying to achieve? How does it align with your business goals? ƒƒ Onboard your Core Team and Core Group. ƒƒ What resources (time, money) and support (manager / ƒƒ Create your 3-month Member Engagement plan with a director approval, authorizing environment) do you have or calendar of community activities. could you obtain? STEP 4: LAUNCH YOUR COMMUNITY STEP 1: PLAN YOUR COMMUNITY ƒƒ Invite prospective members to formally join your ƒƒ Find out who is doing what in your domain. Conduct a community. Invite people in waves. competitive analysis. ƒƒ Welcome members as they join and facilitate connections. ƒƒ Identify your potential members’ needs, desires and ƒƒ Lead your first activity. behaviors. Conduct an audience analysis. ƒƒ Engage your Core Team and Core Group to model the ƒƒ Refine your domain and target audience using the insights behavior(s) you seek to adopt in your community. from the above two steps. ƒƒ Continue executing on your member engagement plan. ƒƒ Figure out who (in your unit or department, external partners, etc.) also believes in the value of the community and will provide support. Establish your Core Team. STEP 5: SUSTAIN YOUR COMMUNITY ƒƒ Recruit a Community Manager. Identify a back-up (from ƒƒ Maintain ongoing conversations with your Core Team and your Core Team). members about community value and goals. ƒƒ Continue planning (3 months) ahead activities that drive engagement and provide value to both members and your STEP 2: DESIGN YOUR COMMUNITY organization. ƒƒ Engage the most active and enthusiastic members (from ƒƒ Revisit and revise your Community Charter periodically. your audience analysis). Recruit a Core Group. ƒƒ Brainstorm (with your Core Team) how to develop ƒƒ Determine the “shared value” of your community – the your community further. [Grow membership? Increase intersection between members’ value and organizational engagement? Disseminate more knowledge? Etc.] Plan (your team / unit / department / sponsor) value. accordingly. ƒƒ Create a measurement system by identifying your key ƒƒ Keep iterating and adapting to the changing environment performance indicators and deciding what to measure and and context by building on the previous four steps. how to track progress. ƒƒ Select your convening venues. ƒƒ Weave it all together (with your Core Team and Core Group) into a Community Charter. Do you want to learn more about building communities at the World Bank Group? ƒƒ Read our Community Building Primer ƒƒ Enroll in the “Introduction to CoPs” or in the “Community Management Level 1” course. ƒƒ Join the WBG Community Managers Community. 86 I RESOURCES Community Focus Examples Practitioner support WBG ex: The Community-Driven Development Global Solutions Group (CDD GSG) is a cross- disciplinary, flexible, and dynamic body of CDD practitioners and other interested staff from different regions and practices within and outside of the Bank. CDD stands out in the category of Practitioner Support for its unique operating model, revolving around a peer-to-peer structure, and reaching 800 members including WBG staff, clients, donors, academic researchers and NGOs. Just in FY17, the community’s just-in-time help desk responded to almost 200 total requests from practitioners. Based on the accumulated knowledge, shared by members, the community also developed a set of real- time practitioner support tools, such as briefing materials, TORs, and more. Business support WBG ex: Urbanscapes is a community of practice and a platform to enable the exchange of knowledge and expertise surrounding the topic of public urban spaces and their importance to the livability and prosperity of cities. Urbanscapes stands out in the category of Business Support for providing support through a core team of experts participating in business development and operational work. Since their inception in 2016, not only were they able to provide peer reviews and technical support, but they were also able to mobilize the group around business development and the piloting of new approaches, such as the Karachi Neighborhood Improvement Project (P161980) which was approved by the Board in June 2017. Learning WBG ex: The HR Analytics CoP brings together all HR staff who work with data and compile staffing analysis to monitor trends, anticipate workforce needs, inform policy development and decision making at the unit, VPU, and WBG organizational level. The HR Analytics CoP stands out in the category of Learning for its focus on building sustainable HR analytics capabilities. The CoP provides a forum for learning, collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing, in support of strengthening HR analytics and building a data driven culture. Members have a sense of belonging to a community and leverage the CoP to share knowledge, ask technical questions, avoid duplication of efforts, identify learning needs, attend learning events as an intact group, develop and disseminate innovative ideas and best practices in the field of HR analytics Innovation WBG ex: Behavior Change, as a focus area within the Bank, has had one of the oldest bottom up communities of practice. The Mind, Behavior, and Development Unit (eMBeD) is now trying to bring a renewed attention on this topic, through the development of innovative projects, in collaboration with practitioners around the world. In their latest work on raising aspirations for families receiving conditional cash transfers in Nicaragua, they were able to show a definite improvement in the overall outcomes of the program thanks to the introduction of sustained social interactions with female role models. Coordination WBG ex: Results Measurement and Evidence Stream (RMES) is a WBG-wide initiative bringing together results measurement and evaluation professionals. RMES stands out in the category of coordination for responding to the need to support and standardize results measurements in the WBG by developing the profession and skills of its members, promoting M&E standards across the institution, and sharing knowledge on innovative M&E techniques with members and clients. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 87 The following community extracts are examples of WBG communities of practice. Jobs Gateway in South Eastern Europe Community of Practice (147 members) URL: https://collaboration.worldbank.org/groups/jobs-challenges-western-balkans Audience Academics, practitioners, experts and policy makers Challenges Learning, Peer support, Coordination Community description As countries in South Eastern Europe (SEE) work to develop indicators and targets for inclusive growth as part of the European Union accession process, commonalities in economic systems, history and culture provide the basis to learn from each other and for the cross fertilization of ideas. Our community serves as a platform to increase the dialogue and coordination across sectors to focus on inclusive job growth in the region and to tackle unemployment. Uniqueness It is the only online community in the region that addresses the unemployment issue through a multi-sector lens. Successful engagements in the past fiscal year and measures of success The skills conference in Vienna, Austria, brought together members of the community to share findings on survey results looking at skills that are in demand from employers and the type of skill sets workers offer in the region. One of the key challenges identified at the conference was the lack of robust data and information available for countries in SEE. This underlying challenge among all SEE countries provided the evidence for the need to set up a labor market observatory in the region to be able to collect and monitor data and information on labor market trends. We measured the success of the conference by the number of presentations by country members and how effectively they communicated their analysis in illustrating the need for better collection and monitoring of data and information. The members successfully 4 communicated their findings and we secured additional funding from donors to initiate the process of setting up a labor market observatory for the region. The gathering of members at the conference was the catalyst to receiving continued support on activities to tackle the unemployment challenge in the region and further project objectives. How community has made a difference to members. What members are saying? The community has provided: ƒƒ Invaluable insights into the issues neighboring countries are facing, and how they are confronting them. ƒƒ An opportunity to meet and discuss with regional counterparts challenges that we all face. ƒƒ Learning about new and creative ways to solve problems. ƒƒ Ability to ask questions and get advice from global experts. ƒƒ Requests for more knowledge exchange events. 88 I RESOURCES KnowledgeMatters! Community of Practice (521 members) URL: https://spark.worldbank.org/groups/knowledge_matters Audience WBG colleagues interested in knowledge management (KM) and learning Challenges Learning, Peer Support, Coordination, Innovation, Business Support Community description The KnowledgeMatters! Community has three key objectives: • Collecting and leveraging institutional knowledge & experience around Knowledge Management and Learning, • Connecting professionals and providing an enabling environment for collaboration. • Competencies application and professional development. Uniqueness Although Knowledge Management is of strategic importance and critical to the WBG’s role as a Solutions Bank, the KnowledgeMatters! community is the only entity where Knowledge Management & Learning professionals, as well as operational staff, come together and discuss how the WBG can efficiently and effectively bring top technical knowledge, expertise and value to their clients from across the WBG. Successful engagements in the past fiscal year and measures of success Although relatively new, the community has a very active Spark group, high attendance at several events, and steep growth in membership. One important focus is addressing key knowledge and learning issues faced by members across the WBG. For example, improvements to the GP Portals, which many members were dealing with separately, were addressed collectively after a community meeting to aggregate the recommendations. Success (at this time) is measured by attendance, activity online and feedback from members. The CN has more quantitative metrics linked to operational staff. How community has made a difference to members. What members are saying We have become the group that connects KM and Learning staff across the WBG in the absence of a formal structure. Members are very satisfied that the community provides them with this opportunity and are voting with their feet as they attend our events in high numbers. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 89 Social Inclusion GSG Community of Practice (330 members) URL: https://spark.worldbank.org/groups/social-inclusion Audience Social development specialists, TTLs in various sectors Challenges Learning, Peer Support, Coordination, Business Support Community description The Social Inclusion Global Support Group (GSG) community of practice connects TTLs, consultants, and various teams working in all regions and across many sectors on issues related to social inclusion. Coordination, and connecting practitioners to each other, as well as highlighting lessons learned, are important parts of the work of the GSG. Uniqueness What is social inclusion can be broadly understood. Our community therefore brings together specialists working on such seemingly diverging issues as gender in transport and education of indigenous peoples. However, there is a common thread—paying attention to the needs of those typically overlooked and excluded from development. Successful engagements in the past fiscal year and measures of success ƒƒ Learning opportunities: webinar series on social inclusion and podcasts (growing number of participants, follow up queries), learning workshops (participation from across GPs, event evaluations, informal feedback] and GSG meetings. ƒƒ Online engagement on SPARK—members posting blog posts, comments, and sharing information about events and updates. (SPARK membership, number of posts and views). How community has made a difference to members. What members are saying We are working closely with the regions. Members appreciate the opportunity to learn from one another. We recently held a workshop where colleagues working on IP issues in LAC and other regions were able to learn from the Roma program in ECA. 90 I RESOURCES SecureNutrition Community of Practice (6,200 members) URL: http://www.securenutritionplatform.org/Pages/Home.aspx Audience -Internal: Health, Social Protection, Poverty, Agriculture, WASH, ECD -External: Implementing NGOs, major international organizations Challenges - Learning (resource library and events) - Peer support (TTL’s and program stakeholders) -Business Support (focus on WBG programming) Community description SecureNutrition works to bridge the operational knowledge gaps between nutrition and its underlying drivers, across a wide range of sectors and GPs. We offer: a curated resource library; original learning events, blogs and newsletters; forum space on LinkedIn, social media and email dissemination; and, networking to related partners and initiatives. The 6200 members make up the mailing list. In addition, the community encompasses a 550-member LinkedIn group. Uniqueness We connect GPs and external stakeholders around the multi-sector nutrition agenda, which is included in SDG2, World Health Assembly Targets, the SUN Movement, The Lancet, and elsewhere. While the GSGs aim to create this type of community, we already have 4 years of experience connecting sectors in the Bank, promoting exchange with other organizations, and developing a range of communication and community channels. In addition, we recently re-designed our knowledge management and community engagement strategy to focus better on TTLs. Successful engagements in the past fiscal year and measures of success ƒƒ Global Forum on Nutrition-Sensitive Social Protection Programs: A discussion-oriented forum in Moscow conducted in 6 languages highlighting innovative projects happening inside and outside the World Bank. Success measured by # orgs represented, # WB staff present, # tweets, # learned something new, # likely to speak with colleagues afterwards, # likely to use ideas in next project or program. ƒƒ Social Protection and Nutrition: Pathways, Systems, and Country Experience: A learning event featuring Save the Children and WBG moderators from SP and Health. Success measured by # attendees, # orgs represented, # GPs represented, scale of usefulness for current work. How community has made a difference to members. What members are saying Condensing key information and moving implementation agendas forward are what makes a difference. SecureNutrition does this by providing bite-size synthesis of key reports, and creating original programming to fill evidence gaps. BUILDING COMMUNITY—A PRIMER I 91