There are many reasons for an organization to develop and manage online communities: marketing, customer support, cost savings, product development, and others. There is another important reason as well:

Online communities are green.

Maybe I'm missing something, but in all of the corporate "green" strategies that are emerging, in all of the discussions about carbon emissions and footprints and offsets, where is the discussion about online communities being green? This came up briefly in the last Online Community Summit (tip of the hat to Deborah Grove), and it strikes me as a huge (and currently missed) opportunity for those promoting online communities.

Any car trip averted due to an online community is "green". Any plane trip averted is "greener" (and anyone who has played with a carbon footprint calculator knows, air travel is the 800 pound gorilla of carbon emissions). Any organization that can remain mostly virtual is "greenest".

I believe that online community professionals should hook onto the "green" juggernaut, especially in three ways:

• Anyone involved with corporate green strategy should include an online community strategy;
• Anyone developing online community metrics should include carbon savings as an indicator;
• Anyone marketing online communities should speak to their "green" qualities.

We've always tried to cast our arguments for online communities in black and white. It's time to use a bit more green.

To Wiki or Not To Wiki? Community leads across the web love wiki technology, attracted by its flexibility and low cost, but concerned about control issues and barriers to participation. When do wikis make most sense?

I recently led a session on wiki implementation at the Online Community Unconference. The collective wisdom of the group informed the following list of factors for when wikis work best:

1) Wikis work well for groups that already know each other. In fact, in the Blogs, Wikis and Workspaces study posted earlier this year, 87% of organizations reported using wikis for internal purposes, with only 27% using them externally.

2) Wikis work well for "co-assembly" in addition to "co-editing". Projects requiring different individuals to contribute different pieces of a whole lend themselves well to wikis. Aggressive "co-editing" of content is harder to effect using wikis.

3) Wikis work well when a clear nucleus is provided. Users are more likely to "edit" than "create", so providing an instructive starting framework offering examples (and even stubs, encouraging people to edit from there) is helpful.

4) Wikis work well with a clear final product in mind. If you are building a user manual, a notes archive, or a conference web site, having a well-defined final product is very helpful.

5) Wikis work well in documenting consensus rather than opinions. If you seek an archive of opinions tied to authorship, a message board is more effective.

6) Wikis work well with short deadlines. Wikis are easy to set up and build upon.

It is noteworthy that the best known wiki in the world, Wikipedia, breaks many of these rules (it is public, includes strangers, frequent co-editing). It is a fantastic example of the power of wikis -- but is clearly an outlier with respect to how most wikis are used.

There is a terrific primer on wikis on the Common Craft site for those wanting to learn more or to educate colleagues. Other session notes from the Unconference can be found on the -- you guessed it -- conference wiki.

Josh Kopelman, in his blog Redeye VC has a nice post about the challenge of subscriber services online (including online community sites), pointing out that elasiticity of demand isn't linear:

"The truth is, scaling from $5 to $50 million is not the toughest part of a new venture - it's getting your users to pay you anything at all. The biggest gap in any venture is that between a service that is free and one that costs a penny."

This "first penny problem" continues to be the most vexing dilemma faced by internet entrepreneurs.

The University of Michigan has launched what they describe as "the nation's first graduate degree specialization in social computing". The Social Computing Specialization of the School of Information prepares students to serve as online community strategists, social network analysts, and other positions relating to online community. Congratulations to Paul Resnick and colleagues at the University for the design and launch of a terrific program.

How do you make a web site more interactive? While this might strike the seasoned online community professional as prosaic, it is nonetheless a question we hear continually in our consulting services at Forum One. Many groups approach us generally happy with the "publication" capabilities of their web sites, but seeking more user engagement, feedback, contributions, and other forms of interactivity. They also fear the cost, management and legal implications of missteps. Here is our summarized advice:

Step One: Ask a Different Question

"Interactivity" isn't a goal, it is a tactic. As such, the question shouldn't be "how do I add interactivity to my site", it should be "what is my organization's mission, and how can interactivity assist?" If you can state your organization objectives (many organizations can't...), I can tell you appropriate interactive tactics.

Step Two: Survey the Options

In the distant past (say, three years ago), "interactivity" generally meant message boards, chat, or listserves. With the explosion of new participatory technologies (now conveniently bundled under "web 2.0"), there are myriad options. It is important to cast a wide net for appropriate tactics. My firm maintains a list of about 75 interactive technologies (workspaces, wikis, blogs, q&a boards, polls, jobs boards, etc.). The array of interactive technologies that make sense for any given firm varies widely.

Step Three: Prioritize based on Mission, Effectiveness, and Cost

Interactive options can be scored against their contribution to organization mission, against effectiveness (by 2007, most of the guesswork about effectiveness is gone), and by cost. The last item, cost, is particularly important since some interactive applications carry significant ongoing management requirements. Many don't, however. Two of my favorites are surveys, which are both popular and cheap to conduct; and (asynchronous) interactive interviews, in which questions are gathered by e-mail.

The good news is that many organizations are moving online from simple web publication to more effective web interaction. Following these three steps can facilitate the journey.

Forum One has a terrific lineup of online community-related events on deck for 2007. Updated information will be available on this blog and also on the Forum One site, but here is a synopsis, with most events built upon those we've done for years -- and a few new additions:

• We'll hold our sixth annual Online Community Summit in Sonoma, California October 4-5. This invitation-based event brings together an outstanding group of online community executives, with past participants representing industry (Amazon, AOL, Apple, Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo, others); leading online community groups (Salon.com, MEETUP, Motley Fool); non-commercial organizations (World Bank, PBS, American Academy of Pediatrics); media (BBC, Univision); philanthropy (Gates Foundation, Packard Foundation, Skoll Foundation, Omidyar Network) and many others. Last year's was terrific — we expect this year’s lineup of presenters and attendees to be even better.


• In early June we'll hold our second annual Online Community Camp in San Francisco, a gathering of online community practitioners -- managers, developers, business people, tools providers, funders -- to discuss experience and strategies in the development and growth of online communities. The Camp is an "un-conference" is inspired by the emerging "open space" conference format. (For an excellent description, see this News.com article on the initial MashUp Camp.) This is a highly participatory event that is equal parts work and fun.


• This year we're adding a new event, the Online Community Business Forum. Held May 3-4 in Sonoma, California, the Business Forum is inspired by the Summit (invitation-based, senior-level), but entirely devoted to online community business models and tactics: subscriptions, advertising, marketing issues, support communities, defining ROI, and other important topics. For more information contact Bill Johnston.


• Bill Johnston of Forum One will continue to host the popular Online Community Roundtable Series, a free, quarterly, invitation-based gathering in the San Francisco Bay Area for online community professionals. For more information contact Bill Johnston.


• As in previous years, we'll conduct an Online Community Research Series involving surveys, interviews, and conference calls addressing the most common and daunting challenges facing online community professionals. We'll provide updates about the series, including opportunities for participation, in this blog.


• We'll again run the Washington, DC Web Executive Series for web professionals principally (but not exclusively) in public policy organizations interested in web management issues, including some online community topics. We have four seminars already scheduled, all at the National Press Club: Usability (February 22); Blogs (April 24); Technology Investment Planning (June 21); and Web Business Strategy (September 26). Additional details are provided on the Forum One site.

We look forward to seeing all of you at many of these events through the year!

The Community 2.0 Conference, scheduled for March 12-14 in Las Vegas, is bringing together organizations interested in better understanding and utilizing online communities.

Bill Johnston of Forum One will be presenting on "Communities -- How to Measure Success".

Readers of the Online Community Report qualify for an event discount by clicking here (or after 2/2 here).

In June we completed a survey on Blogs, Wikis and Workspaces. We are now making the results public (they were previously just shared with participants).

The survey answers reflect both the real-world experiences and collective wisdom of online community practitioners using these platforms. The results also provide the careful advice of users for those thinking about launching communities on any of these platforms.

The Community Next Conference, scheduled for February 10th at Stanford University, is bringing together online community entrepreneurs, managers and funders for a day of discussions.

Jimmy Wales, Foundation of Wikipedia, has taken another bold step in his "free is best" approach to online community business models. His commercial service Wikia has announced it will now provide free software (Wikimedia and other) and free hosting ("open serving") to web site operators, with 100% of any ad revenue generated by the site going to the site owner. In return Wikia seeks only a link back to its service. Wikia also announced a new round of investment by Amazon (terms not disclosed). The previous round of investment in March 2006, involving Bessemer Venture Partners, Omidyar Network, and angels, totalled $4 million.

A new article in the Harvard Business Review discusses a controlled experiment recently conducted at eBay Germany. 140,000 active customers were selected, with about half being invited to participate in eBay message boards. About 15,000 of the invitees became active participants or lurkers.

Those that participated in community became much more active participants in eBay, representing about 55% more activity and several million dollars of new profit. This well-designed experiment directly supports the value proposition of consumer communities.

In April we conducted a survey on online community performance metrics. We are now making the results public (they previously were shared just with participants).

The survey provides an excellent compilation of community metrics options; features and perks that can be offered to best users; management tactics; and general advice from experienced community managers.

The full 23 page report can be downloaded here.

Readers of the Online Community Report have organized a series of Meetups around the country to discuss online community issues. Over 700 people have registered. To find a group near you, or to launch a series of meetings, see the Meetup site.

Rawn Shah of IBM contacted us about a new course he is teaching on "Managing Online Communities" for the University of Arizona. Information about the course, including the course syllabus, is offered on Rawn's web site.