Mark's CV and Clients

I agree with Clay on this one.

Michael Nielsen » Shirky’s Law and why (most) social software fails

Shirky’s Law states that the social software most likely to succeed has “a brutally simple mental model … that’s shared by all users”.

If you use social software like Flickr or Digg, you know what this means. You can give friends a simple and compelling explanation of these sites in seconds: “it’s a website that lets you upload photos so your friends can also see them”; “it’s a community website that lets you suggest interesting sites; the users vote on submissions to determine what’s most interesting”. Of course, for each Flickr or Digg there are hundreds of failed social sites. The great majority either fail to obey Shirky’s Law, or else are knockoffs that do little not already done by an existing site

Village Hope

Micro lending is one powerful tool in the fight against poverty.  You may have heard of microloan banks in India...but there is a group doing great work in Uganda.  VillageHopeCore  is doing some fine work, and I was happy to be able to lend a hand with their web site.

First Shoots of Spring

Your seeds have been planed, and now you see the very first small plants begin to surface. At this point, these plants which will become hearty and strong over time are very delicate. They require tender care and handling right now.

As your first member/moderators come online, it is crucial that they sense your presence and dedication to the community. The best way to do that is to make SURE that there is a reply to all posts in the beginning. During this first 60 - 90 days, you want to lavish them with attention...because you will be beginning to set a precedent for how they will act as the community grows.

One of the things that gets discussed early on is the subject of community standards, and I have discovered some pretty amazing things about good communities. If you give them a chance at ownership, and support their decisions, you won't have to worry much about the discussions getting out of control.

I manage one community that is fast approaching 200,000 messages, and our code of conduct is two simple things:

Post Professionally : Speak as you would at work

Mutual Respect: Disagree with the message if you like, but leave the messanger out of the discussion.

Other than that, this community is fully self policing. Because they value their community, they are the first ones to write a new member and explain why a post was not appropriate, or how they might have worded it for better results. They are also the first ones to greet and welcome new members to the community.

There have been a couple of times that I've had to intervene, but they have been few, and usually are more about keeping the moderators out of a touchy situation than anything else. I wish that I could say this was all planned from the beginning, but it was simply a byproduct of slow gowth, listening, and watching the members.

Tending the Garden

OK, let's have a quick review of where we are so far. If everything has gone smoothly (and there is no reason why it shouldn't) we should have achieved the following:

• Chosen appropriate platform software and hosting solution.
  
• Identified and invited spark plugs and cheerleaders, and invited them to join the community as premiere members. We hope that we've gotten between 10 and 25 regular contributors at this point.
  
• We've showered these premier users with attention, and have begun to develop an online code of conduct that will trickle down as the community develops. Also, we have identified several potential helpers and moderators.
  

What Now?

Planting the seed

OK, the ground has been prepared and we are ready to plant the seeds. There is an interesting dilemna in the early stages of a community. It's hard to get anyone to come and participate when there is no real content (read value), and you can't really get value until you have people participating...so what do you do?

You can of course make some educated guesses about what the members might find valuable, and make some of that content available...but this is a short term, and questionable strategy. More beneficial is the have a look at your user letters and comments, and search for a couple of different "types" of people.

Cheerleaders: These folks are usually well established in their communities, and are the ones that everyone goes to when they want to hear the latest 'gossip' or news. They are social butterflies, and thrive in their role.

Spark Plugs: Sometimes they are the same as cheerleaders, but often they are very different. Their work is usually more behind the scenes, and they tend to have more follow through than the cheerleaders. They take an idea from the cheerleader, and spend time investigating and developing it.

Once identified, you should consider making these folks a very special group in the community. There are many terms for this, but most software will allow you to have different levels of membership...whether you call them pioneers, or moderators, or anything else...it is important for them to know that they are a select group.

The best approach I've found is to simply ask them if they will help you. Most people will respond in a positive manner to a direct request for help...and those who are too busy, or disinclined will sort themselves out at this stage. Invite them to be Charter Members, and consider having a special T-Shirt, or Cap that you can send them if they agree.

Hopefully, you will have ended up with a group of between 10 and 25 people. These will be crucial folks to the overall health of the community...treat them well.

Preparing the Soil

Let's talk a little bit about what it is not. There is no magic trick, no voodoo, nor shortcut for building an electronic community. It requires the same type of effort as building any community...a sports team, church, or political group. It takes care and feeding much like a garden. You plant seeds, and at first it looks as though nothing is happening. In a while, the very first shoots begin to come up. If you've prepared the ground right, planted good seeds, and cared for the garden, then you'll have a harvest that goes beyond what you might have imagined.

Preparing the soil: In some ways, this is the easiest part of the task, but it does take planning. In this early phase of things, we need to figure out what we want to grow, and prepare the soil accordingly.

My experience has been that few people are looking for an alternative to Yahoo, they already have a favorite news portal. What this community will want to do, if we do our jobs right, is to talk, learn and share about your specific area of interest.

Let's Talk About Trust

After 20+ years in the online world, it sticks as being the single most important commodity that a community has to trade.

There are of course many different levels of trust, and we'll not discuss the cash register implications here, but rather how trust relates to an entire transaction, and focus on how it comes into play on the web.

To save time, I'll make a couple of assumptions which may or may not be 100% certain, but certain enough to hang a conversation on. Few if any customers do not understand that you are in business to make a profit. Any who don't understand this, are probably not your ideal customer.

That said, I think that the concept of true value is one that we should use as an operating principle. Here in the U.S., it's hard to visit a public bathroom without some advertising message, and most of them appeal to the lowest common denominator.

What is Online Community?

Community What Is It?

Well, this is a pretty good place to start. For the sake of conversation, let's turn to Webster's and see what they have to say:

Main Entry: comOmuOniOty
Pronunciation: k&-'my°-n&-tE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -ties
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English comunete, from Middle French comunet/, from Latin communitat-, communitas, from communis
Date: 14th century

a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society

1 : a unified body of individuals: as a : STATE, COMMONWEALTH b : the people with common interests living in a particular area; broadly : the area itself c : an interacting population of various kinds of individuals (as species) in a common location d : a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society e : a group linked by a common policy f : a body of persons or nations having a common history or common social, economic, and political interests g : a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society

2 : society at large

3 a : joint ownership or participation b : common character : LIKENESS c : social activity : FELLOWSHIP d : a social state or condition

Now that's a mouthful, but I think that there is value in almost every single definition that they offer. For our purposes, let's focus in on one particular point.

g : a body of persons of common and especially professional interests scattered through a larger society

Willie Nelson and Farm Aid

The logistics behind the first Farm Aid show in champagne Illinois were massively complex. We successfully used an online service called The Source to help with the following:

By 1984, we were blazing along at 2400 baud, and the cost of online time had plummeted to about $25.00 per hour.

• Coordinate with over 90 performers, their agents, lawyers, and tour managers. Of these 90, there were over 70 who were already on tour. This meant that their schedules had to be timed down to the hour. It also meant that we had to:
  
  
  
  • Park over 300 tour buses
    
  • Provide over 700 hotel rooms
    
  • Review and sign performance contracts.
    
  
  
• Feed the press with updates on performers, philosophy, and concert events.
  

It's possible that we could have done it without the online component, but I'd rather not even think about that. We used this same system to produce versions II and III of the show.

Neil Young

In the heyday of large music concerts, a little known fact was that all show production expenses, and payments were made in cash. This posed obvious bookkeeping problems which were made more odious when the tour went to Europe and the fact of currency regulations kicked in.

In these days, we communicated at a blazing 300 baud, and the cost of daytime connectivity was almost $300.00 per hour. Despite it all, this systems saved thousands of dollars.

Neil was planning a European tour, and wanted an easy way to control the inefficiencies of a large scale cash business. To be more precise, his accountants insisted on a solution.

We opened an account with Dialcom, and distributed workslates to the pertinent members of the tour. These workslates had a built in modem, and a 16 line display with a chicklet keyboard, but they did the job.

A key ingredient to success was the pedal steel guitar player who was responsible for nightly merchandise settlements. He was a country boy in every sense of the word, and training was not going well.

One day I discovered that the Dialcom system had a gateway to the future trading system, and when Ben discovered that he could check hog futures online, training was over!

The success of this system carried over to another effort. In 1984, Neil joined Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp to produce the first Farm Aid show