Goodbye '09

I'm hoping to squeeze my last blog of '09 in, just in time... a quick summary of what's been a great year for me on the professional front.

We kicked off the Australian Community Managers' Facebook Group which has grown to 80 members and represents a diverse mix of talented individuals from companies, orgs and agencies alike. Two roundtables were hosted, the first in Feb 09 by the wonderful Venessa Paech at the Lonely Planet offices in Melbourne. The second was hosted by myself at the FD offices in June 09. If all goes to plan expect the 3rd in Canberra in Feb/Mar 2010 once we can work out how one can actually communicate via the web with public servants. (And this is pre clean feed!)

The current community I 'manage' grew from around 140,000 (*scratches head*) to 175,000 which was reflected in participation and new member engagement. As I blogged about, community growth is a challenge and whilst senior managment might chase metrics - at the coalface there's always more a community manager could do to manage rapid growth which should be viewed as a potential threat to the ecosystem, and planned for accordingly. It's a wonderful community and I feel very proud to be part of it.

In August we hosted the first FD Moderators Meet and flew in 25 of our volunteer Mods. The event was a real success. It was great to put faces to names, chat about the community IRL and give our Mods a sense of the larger framework that a 'small' biz unit like EB works in at a media org like FD.

I really enjoyed participating in the largely UK-based [e-mint] newsgroup founded by Rebecca Newton. I was fortunate to chat to her recently about her predictions for the growth of Behavioral Management Software as discussed in a great post by Holly Seddon about 2010 community management predictions.

I participated quite a bit in the LinkedIn Online Community Manager discussions, and also Connie Bensen & Jermiah Owyang's Community Manager/Evangelist facebook group and can strongly recommend them as a starting point for any community managers out there.

Rich Millington's blog Feverbee, as always deserves a round of applause, so thanks again for churning out such brilliant posts throughout 2009. If you only read one blog about community building/management, this should be it. (/end gush)

Other community management highlights of note for '09 - I attended an Advanced Online Communities workshop with community guru Nancy White, whilst she was visiting Australia. I certainly could have spent more than a few hours picking her brain! Thanks to Matt Moore at Innotecture for making that happen.

On a personal front I'm pregnant with my second child and will be taking some time "off" from April 2009. Needless to say I have a few things planned for 2010 (other than producing said offspring), so stay tuned!

Have a great New Year's Eve. See you in 2010.

Online community moderators: managing volunteers

As a Community Manager I am often asked ‘why do people volunteer to moderate?’

I imagine if you are volunteer for a charity you are less likely to be asked as it’s assumed to be purely altruistic despite myriad motivations one might have.

This post aims to look at the reasons people volunteer to moderate, with the hope it will improve your skills as a Community Manager in managing and nurturing these vital positions. Managing volunteers comes with an additional set of challenges due to the lack of renumeration.

According to Peter Kollock (The Economies of Online Cooperation) there are three major reasons why members contribute to communities. (He also cites further reasons which have merit.) Hat tip to Ayett Noff’s blog (an old post but very relevant).

Three major reasons member contribute to communities

1. Anticipated Reciprocity – A user is motivated to contribute to the community in the expectation that he will receive useful help and information in return. Indeed we have seen such active users receiving more help than lurkers.
2. Increased recognition – individuals want recognition for their contributions. the desire for prestige is one of the key motivations for individuals’ contributions in an online community. Contributions will likely increase if they are visible to the whole community and are credited to the contributor. … the powerful effects of seemingly trivial markers of recognition (e.g. stars, ranking) are overwhelming.
3. Sense of efficacy – Individuals may contribute because the act results in a sense that they have had some effect on the community.

I’ve applied these reasons when exploring the motivations of Volunteer Moderators. (I should note all motivations have their merit!)

Why people volunteer to moderate online communities

1. Requited reciprocity
This is the above model come full circle. Members have received said good will, and are motivated to return it.

The majority of volunteers I’ve worked with over the years cite their primary motivation as ‘wanting to give back to the community’, relating interactions and personal experiences that have helped them.

In my experience this plays a part for most volunteers, but those who are motivated purely by this notion are in the minority.

These volunteers tend to be the easiest to manage as their desires are fulfilled by the community. They are not particularly interested in being rewarded (financially or other), nor are seeking recognition (this is not to suggest they shouldn’t be given any!). You can’t convert vols to fall into this category – it occurs naturally – but it is nice to single these mods out an acknowledge their contribution to the community. I suggest privately. These Mods often slip through the cracks as they stay out of limelight and do their thing - so be sure to keep in touch with them. They can offer valuable suggestions and are usually a pulse of the 'goodness' within the community.

2. Increased Recognition/Social capital
Increased recognition – widely referred to as ‘social capital’ – status. I see this playing a much larger role as a motivator. Over time regular contributors to online communities rise through the ranks, and recognition forms an important part of their online persona. This can be attested to by the importance given to post count or join date. Some members get to a 'used-by' state or saturation point, where the community has fulfilled their needs. They are looking for something more, rather than exiting the community, and this may motivate them to seek promotion to moderator.

In one community I worked with I noticed that all the members with the highest post counts (most active by one metric) were either volunteer Moderators or well-known ‘stirrers’. Not necessarily trouble makers but popular and well-known for being outspoken. (So perhaps not Moderator material).

These volunteers respond well to both rewards and recognition. Visible status such as a Moderator tag/avatar/icon will be valued, along with public or peer recognition. They are more likely to want to be involved in community decisions and may in fact feel left out if they’re not. They’re likely to be more vocal opponents about community issues – and this can be harnessed as they can provide great feedback (encourage them to offer practical solutions to any complaints they have). If you do implement a rewards program you may care to read Rich Millington’s post 'Never reward your volunteers'.

3. Sense of efficacy
I see this behaviour apparent in moderators with a penchant for helping enforce rules, answer technical questions, reply to administration questions. In my experience they are often Mums who had a professional career (pre-children) and are aware they have skills to offer the community.

These volunteers are easy to manage but they’re most likely to respond to financial rewards. They tend to play more of a staff type role and often fulfill task-orientated duties that could well fall into staff member’s responsibilities. These volunteers respond well to recognition but it should be on a peer-to-peer level – avoid delivering it a way that may be condescending (head patting). Acknowledge their very practical contribution to the community. Ask if any processes can be improved or streamlined (eg. Are they answering queries that could be added to a FAQ, could we put up a sticky post explaining x, does a rule need changing?)

Do you manage moderators? What do you think? I’d love your feedback and am always willing to answer any questions you may have.

Huge warm thanks to the wonderful Moderators I work with, and the valuable contribution each & every one of them bring to the community.

Disclaimer: I’ve never studied psychology so these are just my personal observations from working with volunteers in both an online and offline capacity.

Volunteer Online Community Moderators: The Pros & Cons

If community growth is one of your objectives, have you thought about the staffing structure you'll need to support this growth? Two recent posts of mine focused on scaling: Help my community's too big, and how to manage a community around the clock. This post focuses on the staffing structure.

It's no secret businesses want their online communities to attract more members, often without addressing the issue of resources until it's too late. It's very difficult to retroactively change the dynamics of your community. So if you find yourself in this position you may want to consider your options.

Some businesses have top heavy models and employ large teams of moderators or community managers (eg. Sony Playstation Europe who have 14 multi-lingual mods working in tshifts of two), whilst some like the community I work with have a bottom-heavy structure where the 30/33 forum staff are volunteers.

The success of our community is by and large attributable to our large team of volunteer Moderators, many of whom have been around since the dawn of the community some 9 years ago. (They can certainly regale a tale or two from bygone eras!)

In my experience, in terms of community staffing there doesn't appear to be a best practice. Correct me if I'm wrong!

So I have written this blog to address what I see as the Pros & Cons of having a team of volunteers. Hat tips to Patrick O'Keefe (@ifroggy) and Ben (@BenJoM) for their input listed below.

Disclaimer: a lot of these have been derived from colleagues and are not necessarily reflective of my wonderful Mod team (*hello*).

PROS OF VOLUNTEER MODERATORS

- Free (although I suggest a rewards program)
- Status/respect in community
- Passionate
"Love of site, they have contributed within the guidelines, good feel for the community, not driven
by money. I don't think that paying people leads to better people. In some ways..." @ifroggy
- Advocates - Better advocates for the community as they are members foremost
- Stability - low turnover (in my experience) means they're great for knowledge continuity. There are so
many nuances of communities and experience that is almost impossible to document in a formal staff
handover process
- Credibility - vibe that forums are run by the members
- Less red tape? No performance management documentation, less HR red tape etc.(Perhaps more, depending on your co.)
- Remote workforce (lower overheads, can work in time zones that suit your needs).

CONS OF VOLUNTEER MODERATORS

- Priorities - "Professional" relationship can be harder to maintain when volunteers are not employees,ergo more time consuming to maintain a personal/professional relationship. Life (fairly) will come first.
- Rostering - can be difficult if you require someone on 24/7. (Paid software such as SmartShift can help, as used by Habbo)
"Can only place limited time requirements on them, have to be extremely flexible, re: vacations, life
takes priority" @ifroggy
- Dismissal - hard to fire a volunteer (thankfully I haven't had to!)
- Expectations - Will have varied opinions about what they expect in return for their labour.
- Communication - Hard to communicate directives if you can't gather them online at once, disseminating 2nd hand info can lead to misunderstandings
- Objectivity - May be harder to be objective when they are ensconced in community
- Shared vision - May not be interested in or agree with fundamental business objectives / too protective of community?
- Remote workforce - minimal/0 face to face interaction
- Unpredictable - and can be difficult to control (@BenJoM)

(If you source your staff from the community it will bridge some of these points. Sourcing volunteers from your community is another post for another day!)

Can you identify any pros and cons of working with a volunteer team?

Australian Community Managers' Roundtable

[I was going to apologise as it's been a while since last post, but I've come to the conclusion that as a working mum one should focus on the things we can and do achieve rather than lament those we can't always find the time for... ]

I'm proud to announce that Fairfax Digital is hosting the next Community Managers' Roundtable.

You can read the wrap up of the first event here, which was hosted in Melbourne by Lonely Planet and run by Venessa Paech. Incidentally you can read a brilliant interview with Venessa here which was recently conducted by Community Strategist Angela Connor for her soon to be released book, 18 Rules for Community Engagement.

Australian Community Managers' Roundtable
Friday 12 June 2009
10am-4pm
Fairfax Digital
Lvl 2, 1 Darling Island Rd
Pyrmont, Sydney
Contact: Alison Michalk

Footnote: this event is specifically tailored for the *discrete* discussion of community management, not social marketing/networking etc as there are plenty of broader events that address these issues. In the interest of a 'roundtable' numbers will need to be kept to a minimum.

Help - the community's too big!

Is 'your' community getting too large? There is a lot of focus on community growth but retaining and managing members is equally as important.

Growth brings challenges - could you lose the intimacy that your members came for?

A little while back (ok months back - you'll have to excuse me) Rich@FeverBee had a great post about keeping your community intimate and sub-dividing when the community reaches a tipping poing.

(This figure is often considered 150 based on Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point theory.)

I wanted to expand on Rich's concept because I think he makes a great point.

Firstly if you are working on a start-up or relatively new community - don't try to skip ahead and create tonnes of forums or areas for members to engage. It's a common mistake companies make when hoping to attract a large and diverse audience.

Successful communities almost always launch with a minimal feature set and relatively few gathering places (Community Building on the Web, Amy Jo Kim).

So what about large communities?

Most companies strive for growth and it may take a clever business case to get them to value membership retention.

In seeking growth - is it possible your community could get too large? Would your members seek a niche experience elsewhere?

To adhere to the Tipping Point concept what can you do to break your community down?

We have a two-tiered approach. The first is the forums, we have over 180 and open them according to need. They are ordered in a 'stage of life' manner (pregnancy/parentinfg site) so a member can effectively move through each one suiting their stage (and again with baby #2 and so on). Hopefully they'll make some great friends along the way!

Our second approach is Buddy Groups (they are a continuous thread).

We have hundred of Buddy Groups (BGs) - they are fantastic for member engagment (and loyalty) - and I believe these provide the intimate relationships people seek in a community.

Our BGs can be broken down into basic categories:

- Geographic (tens of these live in each State forum)
- Lifestyle (a group of members who have become friends get their own BG started)
- Specialised Pregnancy (gestational diabetes, high-risk neonatal results, home-birthers)
- Commonality (eg. wives whose husbands who have fly in/fly out mine jobs, brides-to-be)

Could you break your community into smaller groups based on these categories?

Do you have any tips or suggestions on how to keep your community intimate?