Demonstrating value with Communities Of Practice

Demonstrating Value
With Communities Of
Practice

December 2012

Steve Dale: steve.dale@collabor8now.com
Twitter: @stephendale, @collabor8now

Monday, 3 December 2012

What I will cover
1. What’s the point of online
communities?
2. Creating value for community
members.
3. How do you measure value?


1. What’s The Point Of
Online Communities?


Local government in England and wales
employs a workforce of 2 million people
across 411 local authorities. Each
authority is working to deliver the same
700 services to their residents.

Communities of Practice (CoP)
platform launched 2006. 120,000
Registered Users and 2000+ CoPs by
2011.

It as not quite 700 different processes for delivering the same 700 services, but there were lots of opportunities for sharing good practice and squeezing out greater efficiencies through
collaboration and knowledge sharing across the local government sector.

Industrial age practices are no longer
relevant to the 21st Century Knowledge
Economy

Labour is replaceable, talent is not. (H Jarche)

Routine tasks are increasingly being outsourced. Simple repetitive tasks are done my machines and robots, freeing humans to create value, improve processes and innovate.
Labour is replaceable. Talent is not (ref Harold Jarche).

What
did this
achieve?

A silo’d environment encourages silo’d thinking. Humans are by nature social animals, and hence why such as environment as pictured here encouraged the “water cooler” conversations to ﬂourish. For some
works it was the only communal space available.

More than a third of
enterprise employees
are working outside
the firewall and need
tools that keep them
connected with their
peers and business
applications.
Source: Forrester

In these austere times, more organisations are looking at how they can reduce costs and improve efficiencies. The cost of office space and office services is coming under increasing scrutiny. The upside of this
is that more agile working processes are being introduced, including more working from home, and office desk sharing. However, organisations need to ensure that remote working doesn’t mean isolation, an
that home workers must have the right tools to ensure they are connected with their team members, their peers, their managers and the data/information that need to do their jobs.

In search of relevance

Knowledge workers spend up
to 30% of their time each day
looking for data. Source: Butler Group

50% of employee searches for
specific data fail to find the
data. Source: IDC

Static intranets and e-mail are not effective
for helping employees find the information
they are looking for.

We are increasingly information rich and time poor. Finding the right information at the right time has been is a panacea that is not being met by most Intranets, which lag far behind the capabilities of
commercial/web search engines. Intranets need to be re-architected to become more than just content management systems. They need to incorporate linked-date capabilities (semantic search),
personalisation and more social tools.

“Social” Is The New Economy
You will need to know We share what
this sometime needwill know to know
You will so I to
You will need We share whatwe know
this sometime so I will
send it to youthis sometime so I will
now We share know
we what
send it to you now we know
send it to you now

I know I can
ﬁnd what I need
when I need it.

Email Social Media
Social Media is changing behaviours. People who are familiar with sharing content on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter are far more at ease with sharing information with work colleagues.
Enterprise social media systems are gradually removing some of the dependencies on email, though email remains an effective 1:1, secure and regulated communications medium and is
unlikely to disappear in the medium or long term.

2. Creating value for
community members.


Collaborative Working – some distinctions
Purpose Members Adhesive Duration

Formal work To deliver a Employees who Job requirements Until
group product or reports to the and org structure organisational
service group’s manager restructuring

Project team To accomplish a Employees Project Until project
task assigned by senior milestones and completion
management goals

Social To collect and Friends and Mutual needs and As long as people
networks pass on acquaintances interests have a reason to
information connect

Community of To develop Members who Passion, As long as
Practice members’ select commitment there is
capabilities; to themselves and interest in
build and identification maintaining
exchange with the the group
knowledge group’s
expertise
KIN, Warwick Business School
The major part of this presentation is focused on Communities of Practice (CoPs) – but what are the distinguishing characteristics of a CoP? Arguably the most important characteristic is
that members are self-selected, i.e. they are there because they perceive there is some value in being a member of the CoP. They are there because they WANT to be there.

Knowledge from a
trusted source is
richer than what
we can discover
for ourselves

Photo: Flickr.com by Jackie Welberg!

@stephendale
One
of
the
principle
advantages
of
CoPs
is
that
the
membership
is
built
on
TRUST.
There
is
no
anonymity
-‐
you
are
who
you
say
are.
AuthenAcity
of
the

members
is
one
of
the
foundaAons
for
creaAng
a
trusted
environment,
and
a
key
diﬀerenAator
between
CoPs
and
Social
Networks.

But who do you trust?

@stephendale
You
are
far
more
likely
to
trust
members
of
your
CoP,
than
a
more
open
social
network.

Levels of Community Value
It’s really hard to
start here!

Trust, Loyalty, Advocacy

Sharing, Broad Participation
Co-creation

Purpose, Rules, Protocol Engagement

Establishing trust, loyalty and advocacy (the willingness to promote and evangelise what you are doing) is a goal to aspire to, and not something that comes without a lot of hard work, from the members and
facilitators of the CoP. It is the hallmark of a successful and dynamic CoP, built on sound foundations. Just like a pyramid, you build from the bottom up.

Community Facilitation Is Important Essential
tools/apps & upgrades
feature selection
how to use them & improvements

Platform Management social network analysis
connecting people Google analytics
moderation
Community Metrics health checks
rule enforcement
polls
blog posts
surveys
forum seeding Community Management management reports
comments
rewards & incentives alignment with
Business Planning business priorities
back-channel engagement
purpose, goals
new member welcome
& induction identifying good/best practice
campaigns
Outreach networking
newsletters
Professional Development
e-bulletins attending events

participate in SIGs
Content Management

updating links & managing tags, categories, themes
navigation
taxonomy management
updating FAQs
deleting & archiving

Slide re-worked from an original by Dion Hinchliffe

Some
of
the
key
ac-vi-es
of
the
Facilitator:
Suppor/ng
sociability,
rela/onship
and
trust
building

Seed
and
feed
discussion
topics
Maintain
and
sustain
the
communi/es
health
Direct
knowledge
nuggets
for
capture
and
reuse
Help
to
connect
community
members
Provide
basic
help
as
needed
with
the
tools

Repor/ng
CoP
ac/vity
–
metrics,
evalua/ons

Ensure
the
community
space
is
kept
"/dy"
and
navigable

Monitoring
success
criteria
and
impact

Community Facilitation Time
Moderation
16%
Content
27%

6 .3 e ek
on
p er w ge Growth
hours avera
17%

Relationships
10%

Strategy
10%
Events & Activities Technology
11% 6%
Business Integration
3%

Source: http://mik0ton.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/one-of-the-keys-to-a-successful-online-community/

One of the most frequently asked questions from anyone new to CoPs is “how much time does it take to facilitate/moderate/manage”. This analysis, provided by Michael Norton (LGA) is based on over 7
years experience of managing/facilitating CoPs for the local government sector. Note the different activities that are involved.

Facilitation
Lean

Text

Source:http://mik0ton.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/i-dont-have-time-to-faciltiate-the-community/

This slide also courtesy of Michael Norton at the LGA. Perhaps in contradiction to the previous slide, but identiﬁes that absolute minimum time requirement for community facilitation/management. This also
assumes that the CoP is fully established (operational) and not still in it’s early development and engagements stages,

3.How do you measure
Value?


Is this valuable?

Nutmeg. Weight for weight more valuable than gold in 17th century Europe. A spice held to have powerful medicinal properties. It rocketed in price when physicians
in Elizabethan London claimed that their nutmeg pomanders were the only certain cure for the plague.

Measuring ‘Value’.
Total registrations

40000 Number of contributing CoP Members
35000
6000 Percentage of CoP members who are contributors
30000

25000 5000 17.00%

20000 4000 16.00%

15000
3000 15.00%
10000
2000 14.00%
5000

0 1000 13.00%
07

08
07

08

09
7

8

9
7

8

9
07

08
7

8

9
0
-0

-0

-0
l-0

l-0

l-0
-0

-0

-0
12.00%
v-

v-
n-

n-

n-
p-

p-
ar

ar

ar
ay

ay

ay
Ju

Ju

Ju
No

No
Ja

Ja

Ja
Se

Se
M

M

M
M

M

M
Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr- May- Jun- Jul-08 Aug- Sep- Oct- Nov- Dec- Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr- May- Jun-
11.00%
08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 09 09 09 09 09 09
Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr- May- Jun- Jul- Aug- S Oct- Nov- D Jan- Feb- Mar- Apr- May- Jun-

User Surveys 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 08 ep- 08 08 ec- 09 09 09 09 09 09
08 08

…but a chicken
doesn’t get fatter
the more you
weigh it!

Aggregating quantitative metrics does not provide evidence of either success or failure of a CoP. For example, we need to understand:

1. The original purpose and intended outcomes of the community.
Some will be light on discussion and strong on shared document building and vice versa. Others will be ‘one-shot’ supporting a single challenge.

2. The rhythm or cycle of the community.
Not all communities will be a hive of activity, some will support its participants at a low level of interaction over a long period, others for short bursts around face-to-face-meetings or events.

3. The quality of the interactions and/or the viewings it attracts.
An online community may be composed of lengthy, high quality, position statements or case-studies with relatively little discussion. Others, equally valid, may be filled with chit-chat and
gossip, sharing experience in a way that provides moral support for isolated individuals.

Two key lessons:
• Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful.
• Use metrics and indicators to understand your community better.
So any measure of success is likely to be a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.

Managers need to avoid interfering with the way that the CoPs are being run, particularly in the sense of setting targets and timescales. The more informed managers are aware that traditional command and control processes do not work for CoPs,
and that instilling corporate processes on largely free-wheeling communities is likely to stifle and inhibit innovation and learning.

However, there is a cost in keeping this technology and support infrastructure going, and it is reasonable to expect questions from senior managers on what the benefits are and what the ROI is. It remains something of a conundrum on how best to
respond to these questions in a way that will give senior managers the confidence to maintain investment.

Social Network Analysis provides
insight and prompts questions

“I frequently or very
frequently receive
information from this
person that helps me
do my job.”

•Knowledge flows along existing pathways in organizations.
•To understand the knowledge flow, find out what the patterns are.
•Create interventions to create, reinforce, or change the patterns to improve the knowledge flow.
•Identify critical resources - e.g. Paul in this diagram. What would happen to the network if Paul decided to leave?

The ROI Conundrum
Cost of one face to face conference:

• 100 people attending an event in London

• Cost of rooms + lunch = £5000
For those
• Average cost of travel = £30 per person
that measure
One face-to-face conference would cost £8000
value in £.s.d.
Cost of an on-line community conference is virtually £0

If you can keep the ‘I’ small no-one will ask about the
R!
So, if one wants to think of ‘value’ solely in terms of hard cash savings – then online conferences can save money. But it is wrong to confuse ‘costs’ with ‘value’. The real value comes from the learning and
sharing opportunities provided by the on-line conference. There are also far more effective networking opportunities provided in a virtual (on-line) environment, where posted comments (in forums, blogs
etc.) can reach a far wider audience.

The real value is in understanding
your community

Inactive
Contibutors

Power
Observers contibutors

Organisations will pay increasing
attention to the people who make
collaboration possible and profitable.

Understanding how your community works is the ﬁrst step in developing your intervention strategies. Your contributors will always outnumber your observers (some call them ‘lurkers’).make sure you look
after and give recognition to your contributors. They are the life-blood of the community. Ensure you are monitoring statistics for inactive users (the ones who have registered but have not engaged). Can
they be encouraged to become active members? Should their accounts be removed if they are only adding to the clutter?

Anecdotes should be encouraged…and
published!
“If you ﬁnd yourself drifting “The concept of online
apart from your peers and you conferences is a winner, instead
have to rely on regional meetings of spending hours on a train to
that take place several months sit through various Powerpoint
apart, then the online community presentations, you access the
can bring and keep you together conference when it’s convenient
– its also great way of staying in to you.“
touch with industry changes.” User, Hart District Council
User, West Lothian Council

“Many of the online groups that we set up on
the site either reﬂected new projects or
were new groups working on a new
priority that wasn’t covered under the
business unit or structure. So for our
change groups for example, it was a place
for those new projects and communities to
have a home.”

Innovation Unit, Kent County Council.

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/
Stories and anecdotes should be published, promoted and rewarded. Narrate your works and achievements. This will demonstrate value to other members and your managers.

Key Points
• Social is the new economy - we need to be
connected and engaged to keep our knowledge
relevant.
• CoPs are places for both professional and
personal development.
• Effective community facilitation will
enhance the value of the community to its
members.
• Not everything that can be measured counts, and
not everything that counts can be measured.
Focus on understanding your community.


A ﬁnal thought...
“Go to the People. Live with them Learn from
them. Love them.
Start with what they know. Build with what they
have.
But with the best leaders, when the work is done
the task is accomplished.The people will say.....
‘We have done this ourselves’”
Lao Tsu, Chinese Philosopher (Contemporary of Confucius). Taken
from Tao Te Ching c 500BC


Email: steve.dale@collabor8now.com
Twitter: @stephendale, @collabor8now
Proﬁle: http://about.me/stephendale

Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported
License.


Demonstrating value with Communities Of Practice

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