Within the realms of ICT, the range of opportunities and therefore businesses present a huge number of revenue opportunities. Within an ever-changing industry, keeping up with the current trends and technologies demands expertise and efficient business processes to achieve profitable success. Revisiting business strategies has never been more important in a time when the economic pressures that influence our activities determine what choices we make. From global vendors to small software developers, we as business owners have so much choice that it can be overwhelming. However strange it may feel, sharing our ideas and experiences with our peers and industry influencers enables us to recognise when to change tack and ensure our businesses are relevant and remarkable within our markets. Whether it's in a virtual or physical capacity, your business can establish new outcomes simply by sharing your IP with those who can help you be successful in a more holistic approach. These Communities allow us to expand our potential and understand what 'shortcuts' are available to help us to be inspired for new and exciting opportunities. Communities can be extremely successful for those who can achieve success through the myriad of different ideas and at the same time potentially conflicting aspirations can hamper the long-term success we need for our networks to remain relevant and useful. So what's next for our Communities? How will they adapt to keep businesses interested and what can you do to ensure the networks you sit within continue to have a positive impact on you and your organisation? Susanne will take you through your options that you can implement to help with your long-term success.

1. The Community is Dead
Long live Mega-Collaboration
Susanne Dansey
#EMEA10 @purplecowideas

2. What will be covered
1. Why do communities exist?
2. What can we learn from them to help our
organisations?
3. How do we capitalise on the growing
trend for communities?

3. WHY DO COMMUNITIES EXIST?
Part 1

4. What is Community?
[Kuh-myoo-ni-tee]
“communitatem”

5. Community and then some,
online since 1985
“The success of a virtual gathering place
can depend as much upon the
energy, creativity and
approach of its host or hosts as
it does upon the proposed subject matter
or theme.”

8. 33%
8%
7%8%
6%3%
2%
2%
2%
2%
28%
US
India
Japan
Germany
UK
Brazil
Canada
Indonesia
Australia
Spain
Other

9. WHAT CAN WE LEARN?
Part 2

10. 50% of companies with online
communities will fail to manage them
well.
More than 60% of Fortune 1000
companies will have some form of
online community that can be used for
CRM purposes by 2010.

11. Our new economy
• Radical changes to market boundaries
• Access to new products and services for
major sections of society as new consumers
• Significant changes in the interactions and
operating processes of enterprises
• Redefinition of the relationships between
customers and suppliers

16. $Donated
Donations
Barack Obama 2008 Campaign
$6.5m
$0
0 6.3m

17. “to move quickly in
country destroyed
and unknown… was
able to use OSM
maps on my GPS…
3 rescued…
5000… treated”
Columbian Mission in Haiti
Courtesy of openstreetmaps.org
Haiti
2010

18. Get things done: find a purpose
“Social intercourse is to cultural evolution
what sexual intercourse is to human
evolution.”

23. “Rushing into social-computing
initiatives without clearly defined
benefits for both the company and
customer will be the biggest cause of
failure.”
• Acquire skills to build relationships online
• Cede some control to encourage participation
• Understand and reward different kinds of
participation
• Define the initiative and its purpose

24. Participation Inequality
Almost
all Action
Little Contribution
Never Contribute
90-9-1

25. Participation Inequality
Almost
all Action
Little Contribution
Never Contribute
90-9-1

26. 500 million active users
18,949,651 monthly active users
400,000 have made at least one
donation
35,000 causes have received at least
one donation
$4.5m
$2.1m

27. Inequality on the Web
“I’d like to add my name to the list of people who
are very disappointed that this book does not
have a Kindle edition. No, I haven’t
read the book, but I want to - on my
Kindle! If all these one star reviews
lead to fewer sales, I think that
would be a great result and an
excellent lesson for the author/publisher.” Ben

28. How to overcome participation
inequality…
• Make it easier to contribute
• Make participation a side effect
• Edit, don’t create
• Reward (but don’t over reward) participants
• Promote quality contributors
• Open forum vs. Closed forum
… You can’t

29. Paris
2005
"Using our cars is
quicker and at least
twice as cheap. And
on the bus we didn't
have the right to eat
or even to speak."
Martine Bourguignon

30. HOW DO WE CAPITALISE?
Part 3

31. “INTERPRETATION”

32. Technical Discomfort?
• Use proven technologies
• Be disciplined and creative
• Avoid developing any technology in-house
• Evaluate evolving competition
• Design a modular technology architecture
• Develop information architectures at the
outset

33. Peace Rally, Gainsville, Florida

34. Community Best Practice?
• Apply ground rules to install self-
moderation
• Solicit feedback to make users feel
appreciated
• Enable company advocates to gain
powerful allies
• Assign an advocate to liaise with the
community and represent it to the company