Come see me next Thursday, March 4, 2010 at 1:30 in Santa CLara!

Please vote for my panel and let me know if you have any additional thoughts, feedback, or suggestions in the comments there or on this blog post. I’ve already been following up with folks already who have commented on the panel page itself.

The Community is Dead, Long Live the Community.

My previous post describes more about this panel.

While I work for a search engine, in my years at Ask.com I’ve also worked closely with the MindSpark group – looking at how you cultivate community for places like Zwinky. We’ve interviewed groups of friends, talked to people for one on one interviews and done quantitative fieldwork to understand the nature of social networks and how people view their interactions in these spaces. I’ve also spent a lot of time in various online communities and watched them grow in importance in my life, linking me to many people who are my dear and close friends.

However, the downside to this is that some of these communities I’ve joined and nurtured have fallen by the wayside for various reasons. So when the time came to develop a panel proposal for SXSW 2010, this was topic that sprang to mind.  Below is the excerpt from what I’ve submitted to the panel picker for consideration.

Title of panel or presentation
The Community is Dead Long Live the Community

50 word description of this panel / presentation
Online communities typically thrive or decay, but sometimes the entire platform for social interaction is shut down abruptly. Look at Pownce, Dodgeball, or Yahoo!360. How do you keep the community alive when this happens? Should you do so? How do you manage this change? Case studies from the crypt.

10 questions that will be answered in this panel / presentation

1. What types of communities have shut down?
2. Why do communities shut down?
3. What are the types of shutdown?
4. What do you owe the user? Legally? Ethically?
5. What do you do with the content the user generated?
6. What are some ways to migrate user content to other sites?
7. How do you communicate the impending transition with the user?
8. Is it something to even care about?
9. Case studies where the transition has been poorly handled/well handled
10. Creating a community that is self-perpetuating

Panelists

I’ve got a short list of people I’m working to be a part of this panel — some folks I’d like to appear are proposing their own panels, but I’ve approached folks who run ARGs (limited communities – destined to expire), sites who have shut down, while getting help sourcing a lawyer to speak on IP issues, among others. Would love to hear from you too – if you think there’s someone really great out there that should be a part of this discussion. My true aim here is to serve as the moderator and ask interesting questions about how we form, maintain, transition and evolve communities.

Extra Special Thanks

I’m also eternally grateful to the following folks for their input on this panel as the idea evolved: Ernie Hsiung, Dr. Keely Kolmes, Jason Schultz, Kevin Smokler, Natalie Villalobos, and Ariel Waldman. I would know none of you if it weren’t for the Internet and the community around it.

Waiting to Vote?

Voting won’t be live for a few more weeks, will post a reminder then.

The panel I’m on, Developing Super Senses:  Tools to Know Your Users, will be on Monday, March 16th, at 5pm in Hilton Room C. It’s been delightful to work with Julie Melton, Mark Trammell, Nate Bolt & Andy Budd.  It’s been boiled down to a structured conversation so that those who attend can listen to us argue, debate and discuss the merits of different types of user testing. We’ll also talk about how you use those results and get people excited about it. Andy rightfully pointed out that too many times you attend a panel and the groups says “We had this awesome conversation over breakfast” and proceeds to bore you by agreeing on everything. We’ve decided to let it all hang out for you and play civilly but to let our disagreements manifest themselves in passionate discussion.

There’s so much great stuff to see and participate in — and I’ll be in Austin for all of the festival – interactive, music and film. If you’re attending check out the schedule I’m putting together over at Sched.org. They’ve also created a sweet widget to allow you to listen to the music I’m interested in seeing.

Check it out and let me if you’ll be there too.

This all began when the Donald Hale, Director of Alumni Relations & Development, called to talk to me about working in technology. See, when you have a small school in Florida, it’s inevitable that you’re going to end up producing MBA students to feed into the local economy, which in Florida is predominantly focused on tourism, real estate and finance.  One of the first questions Donald asked me was one the students keep asking him: Should I be on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook when I’m looking for a job?

My emphatic reply was “Absolutely. In fact, if you’re not findable online, in this world, who wants to hire you?” Which is true. In the webby world, not having an online presence can be a real detriment to your career. If you don’t use the tools you’re marketing, developing, or analyzing, or those that complement or complete yours, why are you in this industry? One of the reasons that I moved to San Francisco 13 years ago was to be around people creating a future world view and the tools with which to live that life. Being passionate about the industry in which you work makes you not only a better employee, but also makes you a happier person.

This visit, and planning remarks to share with students and faculty, comes in a week in which a much-beloved, but little used web & mobile service called Dodgeball announced its shutdown. (Well, to be clear, its corporate overlords did.) This topic has been well covered by those closer to the product. However, that clear feeling of caring about a product and mourning its loss shows that a group of folks created a product borne of being engaged in what people want. One of the things I want to share with the Rollins folks is the idea that knowing what’s happening in an industry involves more than just reading the latest WSJ or Fortune magazine, but living and breathing alongside what’s transpiring. It just so happens that the products being created in the realm of technology are things that touch our daily lives.  

I look forward to sharing some of the online tools that I use on a regular basis with these students and how it can enhance their online presence, while being cognizant of the fact that many do want to go into more traditional fields, which may frown upon excessive displays of personal information.  However, given that more and more people do just this, it may be that our social mores must adjust. Something to discuss in a few weeks!

CC Chapman, Kevin Smokler, David Dylan Thomas and I talked about how to keep the inspiration going after the always fabulous week. We got some guests to join and were able to extend the conversation beyond the panel presentation.

Check it out.

And yes, I know, I talk too fast.

Throughout that cycle, research plays a role. Insights can provide a creative spark to the ideation process, or explain unmet consumer needs at the beginning of the product cycle. During the development process, researchers can help figure out what ways a program or product might be evaluated. After launch, research helps to measure initial and long term success.

At Ask.com we do a fair amount of qualitative research, mixed in with click stream and quantitative data, used in each of these ways. Recently, in preparation for Online Market World, I recorded a podcast discussing some of these items. You can check out some more specifics as to particular research programs and their application.

Online Market World Podcast

I’ll be speaking at Online Market World October 3rd on the topic of Social Media Metrics with the esteemed Jim Sterne, Todd Parsons from BuzzLogic and Esther Lim from Crimson Consulting. Each of the panelists brings a different perspective, mine being that of a marketing organization evaluating the effectiveness of various programs.

Recently, I went to Zaaz and had the opportunity to just talk shop for the whole day. A good exchange of ideas served as inspiration to want to try new things and use new methods.

Other trips coming up include time to be spent in Los Angeles and Austin.

See you soon!