The Virtual Gardener
The place where I explore online community cultivation, propagation and harvesting techniques.
I've been working as head of consultancy at Sift for the last four years. The business supports all organisations looking to respond to a Web 2.0 world and truly engage with their audience - and has been doing so for the past 10 years.
This blog originally started out as a comment on a conference I attended about online communities. I'm now using it as a thought-bin for related stuff. Any gaps in posting doesn't mean I've stopped thinking ...
Community manager: Strategies for herding cats
Kellie Parker, community manager of PC World and Mac World, started her session with Howard Rheingold’s definition of virtual communities made in 1994 in his book The Virtual Community. This was part of that definition: “when people carry on public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships” - although I prefer the one in the next post.
Bit spooky when Kellie referred to this quote as part of a bygone age - Howard was my mentor, introducing me to his network, which includes Amy Jo Kim and Nancy White, to work on the online community project when I was in Germany. Of all the luminaries he’s the most luminescent.
From the challenges Kellie described not a lot has changed over the past 15 years.
One key tip she made, which is so easily missed, is that all co-workers (ideally from each department) should be part of the community. Sadly, journalists especially, don’t want to ‘get it’.
