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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 10/31/2006 11:00 PM |
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This is aimed at all 837 members,
Where are you?
Why is there so little activity here?
What do you each need to see the really get engaged? If you know what it is, then add it / ask for it / do it.
Lets really get going. |
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iphazard
Posts:87
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| 11/01/2006 10:48 AM |
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Thank you 1ofus. You have beat me to the punch here. We are currently planning a strategy to re-engage the exisiting membership base. We plan to send out a survey asking largely the same questions that you have posed.
Isaac Hazard
Community Manager |
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ChrisMazzola
Posts:11
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| 11/01/2006 11:06 AM |
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| What if there was a place, at some place at a chapter's editting screen, where the last contributor would leave some hints, questions, or suggestions for the next writers to answer? Like, I go there, and give a testimony about an experience I had, and leave the next member a hint of what I wanted to see answered or exemplified, but couldnt do it myself? |
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iphazard
Posts:87
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| 11/02/2006 9:27 AM |
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I like this idea. I have been working to organize the content in a way that stimulates more participation and this will definitely help.
I will begin to add to each chapter an "Open questions and directions for dicussion" section.
I think it will be most effective to put this section ABOVE the full text of the chapter and below the chapter summaries (which I am in the process of writing - see chapters 1-4 for examples).
Isaac Hazard
Community Manager |
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barry
Posts:72
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| 11/05/2006 6:17 AM |
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Team
thanks for these suggestions - we are going to continue to implement your suggestions and more to engage all of the 'we' audience in this book writing effort.
Barry |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/09/2006 11:03 PM |
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Isaac,
I'm not sure how feasible it is, but I really think it would be usefull to be able to see what changes have been made recently to the wiki. Currently, there is a list of the latest revisions, but when I go in to the page, I don't get any indication of what has changed.
I think some visual indications would help others to see the movement going on and thus motivate the users to get their two cents in.
One of the things that I've noticed in many of the recent posts is that the users are quite shy. Many post in the forums the initial taste of the idea, and seem to be waiting for approval before writing more. This may be due to an unclear communication as to what is relevant and what isn't (Personally I think it's all relevant).
One possible way to get over this hurdle is to start a forum specifically for "free form" ideas. If you've ever played around with mind maps, you'll know the value of just spitting out ideas and having them documented. Perhaps by creating an "inspiration" forum, we can trigger those who have writers block.
I think, it is also important that you begin enlisting as much help as possible. Try to identify people who are consistently active, and enlist their help to "facilitate" the discussions. Some people simply need to see that there are people listening for them to take the plunge and really dive in to the content.
I for one, will do my best to help out as much as possible in this respect. |
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iphazard
Posts:87
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| 11/10/2006 11:54 AM |
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Joe,
Thank you so much for your offer of help. You are already contributing significantly to the commnunity. I hope you continue to move these discussions along.
Barring any last minute set backs, we are planning to move the project into a full public launch on 11/16. In preparation for this, we are implementing a revised wiki platform which includes significantly better version comparison, integration with our discussion forums, and a list of recent wiki contributions (last 3 days I believe) as well as some other nice gizmos.
I can create an "Open Ideas" discussion forum easily. But that really is the purpose of the "miscellany" and "suggested chapters" articles in the wiki. I'd rather drive people to the wiki than the forums at this point. What do you think? |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/10/2006 12:35 PM |
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Isaac and Joe,
I also think tht clear feedback on the changes in actual text, especially being able to see own contribution are essential. Does not matter if people are shy or not, just that it is an essential element for active participation. Otherwise, it is lik dropping a coin in a well - who knows if what you wish for will happen!
I would not worry too much about the structure for now. getting the cntent and involvement of almost 1,000 people (988 at the last count and raising) should be a priority.
Best
Lilly |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/10/2006 1:00 PM |
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Ok, can't wait to see the new goodies you guys are planning.
I understand the desire to get the user's into the wiki. It is after all the wiki that will form the book. So, working with that idea, I think it would make sense to do active mining of the forums and try to get the ideas out of the forums and into the wiki. We could simply copy paste forum posts, give the author his credit and post back in the forum that the text has been integrated into the chapter.
As long as we are transparent with the movement, I don't think their will be any back-lash, or do you guys think that it should be more subtle (as in suggestions to take action, and not actually taking the action)? |
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yaronb
Posts:1
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| 11/16/2006 10:24 AM |
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Hello everyone:
Apologies ahead of time for this long post.
I think it is really interesting that the first thing I did after registering was to go to the 'discuss the book' area and find a thread about how to get the buzz going in the community. As someone who worked for 2 years with companies to leverage community primarily for research but also for marketing, and PR/Comm efforts, I think this experience is common and definitely is at the heart of some of the challenges in using this channel for business efforts.
From what I can tell many of the changes already being planned will help a great deal in building the buzz. It is also a very natural and healthy dynamic for a community to have many more 'readers' than people participating in the conversation or in the creation of media. You will find that this is the case in most communities online.
Some other thoughts that I had immediately upon doing this: The concept of a 'book' offers its own challenges in some serious ways. On the one hand the idea of a book is very 'structured' in the sense that there are chapters, main themes, paragraphs, and an assumed linear progression. I don’t think structure is necessarily bad for a community. Wikipedia is obviously pretty structured and that gives people a clear sense of the context in which their contributions are made. On the other end of the spectrum there are communities that are only very loosely structured, with only general topic headings. But if you look at a lot of message boards a bulk of the conversation typically tends to fall into the ‘General Discussion’ or ‘Other Talk’ areas. Whether this is because the creators of the community failed to structure this well or whether it speaks to another dynamic is open for debate. But the key point there is that everything from the most trivial to the most serious discussions can occur within these areas precisely because of the lack of structure. And a lot of value can come from that. The challenge of a book structure is that it sits somewhere in the middle between these two approaches. On the one hand it tells contributors that they should be contributing within a context and with a structure in mind, on the other hand the structure is open enough so that it is hard for them to think about things in manageably small chunks (like dictionary entries, for example). Also, I think that it can be intimidating to think that you are contributing to a book so it makes the barrier for participation that much greater.
I definitely agree with someone else’s suggestion here that you need a core of ‘evangelists’ here to keep the fire going. These people would need to be passionate about the idea and committed to it, but also in my opinion should be offered some kind of extra ‘value’. Maybe they get access to some Wharton resources for a bit and bring them back to the rest of the community, with questions, ideas, articles, etc… Not sure exactly what that would be but you get the idea. The beauty of wikipedia was that people probably started off as ‘users’ (I’m just guessing here) and once they saw how cool it was and understood the value then they got comfortable with the idea of contributing. What is the similar ‘path’ to contribution and creation here? How can that be made clearer? How can the value be easily demonstrated and experienced before people are expected to write a post or even a part of the book?
Lastly, I think reaching out to the current community experts and getting them engaged is critical. If they are invested in this project it will help get it a lot of traction and it will help build the community.
I hope this post isn’t too heavy on the questions and too light on the suggestions, but these were my thoughts as I started to look through this. Will definitely check in again.
Yaron
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/16/2006 10:53 AM |
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As one long-post writer to another Yaron, I think you bring up some great points.
In reading a lot of the comments of the community members, I get the impression that the whole "book" idea is very intimidating (just an impression). Especially a book that will be published.
In addition, I think that many of us have forgotten how we go about writing papers, articles or stories. I know for one, that I rarely write flat out the final text. I usually build it up with a series of post-it's with key ideas and snippets of texts. I think that we need something analogous to this in the community. People should be afraid to just slap down a quick unstructured thought. Because it's that spurt of creativity that may switch the light on in another member.
I'm staring a new topic regarding the roles of different members with the community in order to explore the ways in which we can each participate in the this project. I would really appreciate that you take a look and offer your thoughts.
cheers,
joe |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/20/2006 5:25 PM |
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Dear all,
While this is one of the most viewed threads it has yet to generate the actual contributions. So, some REAL CHANGES are required.
My suggestion i to start at the begining - with the actual Invitation. I have therefore reworded the existing Introduction into an Invitation and hope it - or something like it - may find its way onto the website.
Thank you all for looking here - and PLEASE do let us know [b] [/b]what would make you want to contribute here?[b] [/b] |
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barry
Posts:72
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| 11/20/2006 10:47 PM |
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thanks for your help doing this. where did you place your new invitation?
Barry |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/20/2006 11:50 PM |
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Barry,
I have not yet as I believe the changes need to be OK with all 4 signatories - you are the only one to have seen it so far. Please share it with your co-signatories.
Lilly |
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barry
Posts:72
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| 11/21/2006 3:05 PM |
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lily
i will get back to you shortly.
barry |
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jm04469
Posts:18
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| 11/24/2006 9:21 AM |
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| Let's figure out how to leverage existing evangelists better known as bloggers. Should this book have its own technorati tag? What would happen if the publisher actually put up a banner on their own web site for starters? What if we could get Amazon to sponsor it? |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/24/2006 7:36 PM |
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| The idea of having entries on publishers and Amazon website is great. I think Amazon could put the planned book on with date for publication and include website address for anyone interested in contributing. |
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joe_flum
Posts:151
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| 11/25/2006 1:29 PM |
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| Actually with Amazon's Plog (I think that's what they're calling it), they provide a blogging outlet for any of its members to post content. We can use these free outlets to create additional traffic into the site (and hopefully increase contributors). We can create a page in Wikipedia, as well as integrate tecnorati tags into the site as well. If we provide banners to the members, we could create a way for bloggers to support the project and draw attention to the site. |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/28/2006 11:38 PM |
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Just come across Creating Infectious Action programme ran earlier in the year at Stanford d.school
Will pass on wisdom that may apply here and take action! |
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1ofus
Posts:103
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| 11/29/2006 9:30 PM |
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Some time ago I rewrote the Introduction and called it Invitation. I sent it to Barry and suggested that it be seen first by the co-signatories before posting it wider. As it is now over a week old, I believe they have seen it by now. Based on the principle that "if I do not hear then it is OK", I am posting my proposal below.
Best
Lilly
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An Invitation
Dear Community:
Welcome to We Are Smarter Than Me, a website where your voice really counts. We want to hear from you how businesses operate as they learn to leverage the power of "community".
The central premise of We Are Smarter Than Me is that large groups of people ("We") can, and should, take responsibility for traditional business functions that are currently performed by companies, industries and experts ("Me").
What do we mean? Let's look at some recent examples:
• Procter & Gamble is recruiting 600,000 housewives to help market its products through word of mouth. In return for much greater reach and impact, the company is giving up control of the marketing message, relying on its community of customers/marketers to craft their own message in the most appropriate fashion.
• Microlending websites provide the ability for individuals to lend to small businesses directly. The underwriting decisions (assessing the risk of each loan) are made by individuals, and the price of loan is established through lender bidding.
• Patients faced with rare diseases are increasingly turning to internet discussion groups to learn more about risks and treatment options, and as a result are participating with doctors more actively (in some cases much more actively) in decisions regarding their care.
A few books have recently been written on this topic, but they were each written by only one person. This is where We Are Smarter Than Me book will be different!
We are INVITING YOU to contribute to this "network book" using today's technologies. So far thousands of authors have signed up on this site, let us hear your voice!
We're seeking from our authors real examples of companies who are trying — successfully, or unsuccessfully — to harness the power of "community." And we're looking to develop and share insights about why these approaches work or don't work; and what companies have to do to make them work better.
In order that the resulting book gets the widest audience possible, we are asking you START WITH ANSWERING:
"What is ONE THING that would make me buy and recommend We Are Smarter Than Me book?"
We, the instigators, look forward to your participation and to the insights you can contribute to the project.
Sincerely,
Barry Libert, Thomas Malone, Timothy Moore and Jon Spector
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