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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jono Bacon
Read between
January 22, 2023 - November 24, 2024
This combination of connectivity and technology is going to be the catalyst for our next generation of innovators to rise, bolstered by a global community that understands them and supports their growth, experimentation, and success. To harness this potential we need to understand communities: how they work and how to produce thriving environments that are productive and inclusive.
effectively, deliver the right tools to help them succeed, better support them, channel their feedback to improve your product, and thus reduce the risk of frustration and people leaving.
communities have a greater degree of permanence between participants and activities they engage in.
Communities have proven to be a fantastic vessel for building a closer relationship between businesses and customers. A community provides a shared environment where members can build relationships with the company, consume and contribute additional value, and see this value being consumed by other members.
Communities can provide a powerful vehicle for building buzz and awareness about your product, service, and brand.
The time between product discovery and clear experienced value has to be short, and the experience has to be simple and pragmatic.
The more complex your product gets, the more complex it is to ensure your customers and users are able to understand it and get a good solid chunk of value out of it. Delivering this education and support can be expensive and time consuming, with most companies producing a library of documentation and videos and providing a support email address. This immediately becomes a cost center, and companies tend to reluctantly invest in it, despite the importance in security for customers. Communities can be a godsend here. Enthusiastic users of your product or service will often produce guides,
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Many of my clients hire a significant number of people from their communities. This doesn’t just make recruitment easier, but the employees also come prebaked with relevant experience and context. For many of these members, their dream job is working for the company. It is a win-win situation.
Communities also provide a wealth of user experience and insight. As your community grows and as you build retention in members, they will develop a fantastic corpus of experience and expertise that you should tap into.
build your community and let your members naturally bring people to your business. As an example, I have sometimes set up a community concierge, where established community members can reach out to members of the company to introduce prospective customers.
There simply is no guarantee you will succeed. “If you build it, they will come,” they say. Well, they are wrong. It should be, “If you build it, take a strategic approach, train and integrate your team tightly, carefully review results, modify your approach, and operate on a clear cadence, they will probably come.” Ugh, what a mouthful, but this is how we will approach this work. This
“Which technology platforms do I need to set up my community?” While this is an important consideration, it is not the first, or even fifth thing we should discuss.
ecosystem in which people produce meaningful work, are able to thrive, are motivated to keep growing, and can help sustain the future success of the community.
Communities require discipline and focus. I can tell you right now that a key problem spot, which you are likely to struggle with as you start building your community, is focus. You will work through the method I present in this book, build a comprehensive strategy, and then start rolling it out.
Building a culture requires discipline and focus. It requires you and your team to show up every day to build engagement, relationships, and value.
Building growth and participation generally takes around a year, possibly longer. Sure, there have been cases where it happens more quickly, but it depends a lot on how you approach the work, how disciplined you and your team are, and the type of community you are building.
The community mission is how the crowd can play a role in making your vision real.
Communities play a valuable role not just in delivering value for your organization but in providing a way for a broader set of people to do meaningful work. Meaning keeps people active and engaged. It generates satisfaction, a sense of belonging, and self-respect.
A great leader is clear in the scope of their leadership and intentions, open and transparent in their actions, but can be private and nuanced when required.
A great leader can help your community members to make decisions, resolve conflict, and always provide a calm, steady hand.
critical part of the community “product” is a healthy, inclusive, engaging culture: you need to market and maintain that culture to keep it thriving. This culture has to be a malleable entity that everyone can positively influence. I
It is simple, really: invest yourself in other people’s success, be interested in their story, and treat them like equals. From there a healthy culture can form.
most members would be happy to produce content, material, or technology that adds value to the broader community (e.g., help for other users), but they are unlikely to produce material that is only going to benefit you and your business (e.g., providing support as part of your paid support service). This is a consistent
Your Community Value Statement is the acorn from which everything else grows. Everything you do needs to have a dotted line to the value you want to produce.
Where possible, overcommunicate features, products, policy changes, and more with the community (in an interactive way).
They may share the same vision, but not the same approach. Communities are a melting pot of priorities.
Their commitment and organizational experience will vary. Some community members can spend every waking moment participating in a community and some will show up for an hour here and there.
The quieter ones are often your secret weapons. While there will be an abundance of vivacious personalities in your community, some members will be quieter and more reserved.
The key here is to engage them one-on-one. The quieter ones are often uncomfortable speaking up, so connect to them privately, get their feedback, support their success, and develop their confidence. 10.
Don’t see criticism as attacks; see it as shining a light on problems that may need resolving. Constructive criticism shows members care and is a sign of the success of your community.
For every persona you need to flip your brain into private browsing mode, put yourself in their shoes, and think about what steps need to happen to go from zero to delivering something of value for both the individual and the community.
Provide them with guidance on what they can specifically help with. Which questions need answering? Which events need organizing? Which features need building? How can they advocate for your community?
As a general rule, for every one hundred community members, seventy will be Casual, thirty will be Regulars, and one will be Core.
Ask them for guidance. Ask them to help with specific projects. Run your strategic plans past them. Ask them to help mentor other members, and more. This all continues to seal that critical sense of belonging which will continue to build long-term participation and retention.
The major goal with Core contributors is to make them feel part of the leadership of the community. When we trust people, we lean on them more and trust their judgement more.
