November 6, 2015 at 13:43In his prime
Successful people and successful online communities have a lot in common. We discuss the characteristics of productive communities.
“- How old am I? Asked Carlson. “I am a man in his prime, I can’t tell you anything more.”
- And at what age is the prime of life?
- In any! - answered Carlson with a satisfied smile. - In any case, anyway, when it comes to me. I am a handsome, smart and moderately well-fed man in the prime of life! ”
When you see a person who is fine with his head, he is physically healthy, knows what he wants to achieve, does his favorite job, and he also makes money - you say that he is a successful person.
And what is a successful online community organization? The success of the community lies in the fact that everyone benefits more than he brings, and the whole organization benefits from the energy of people. We call these communities productive. So, productive communities also know what they want, they are also in order with the head, they are physically healthy, doing the right thing, and can measure their success.
Here's what the characteristics of a successful community look like:
Let's reveal these characteristics in more detail.
Vision, task, concept, strategy, roadmap, project plan - call it what you prefer. The main thing is that the business value of the community is formulated for the organization and its employees, and this is already half the success. But there are a couple of nuances:
In general, the higher the position of a leader supporting your community, the better. But here it is important not to fall into antiprimer.
Let's say your boss wrote to the whole company and encouraged everyone to actively participate in the life of the company. You go into your corporate social network and you see a virgin clean and empty boss profile there. And you understand that your corporate social network is for suckers. Successful people do not go there.
In fact, to show personal participation in the community is not difficult. If you are a leader:
On average, it will take no more than 20-30 minutes per week. You spend more time on the way to the office every day.
The community needs to be managed. Any blogger, the owner of a thematic group on Facebook, or an internal communicator in a large company knows this. Therefore, the community manager is at the head of the community. This is a very interesting position, because on the one hand, the community manager has access to leadership in order to understand where to direct the community. On the other hand, he feels at his fingertips people, the corporate culture of the organization, as well as the subcultures of various departments.
In large companies, at least one person must manage the community on an ongoing basis. Moreover, he cannot cope alone, and he is surrounded by a group of opinion leaders who help him at their local levels - their departments, branches, groups. For more information on what a community manager should be able to readhere .
I will not name names and appearances))). I heard a story when a client of a certain Manufacturer of the Social Communications Platform speaks at the conference and says: “We are great, we have the involvement of people in the corporate social network - 30%. Cheers cheers!". After it comes a report from a client of another Social Communications Platform Manufacturer, who says: “And we have a percentage of involvement of 95%. So what?". But the fact is that the first put the spherical horse in a vacuum and is trying to get involved due to the Z generation, and the second just put the business process there.
The Americans even came up with such a term about corporate social networks - event driven network. It's like with Windows - it starts doing something useful when you poke it. Take a corporate event, drop it into the community, discuss it there and collect the result. Only after a long time, people get used to the network so much that they begin to work there without external reminders.
Measuring success is necessary not only so that you can request further investment in the project from the manager. It is also necessary in order to separate “grains from the chaff” during the project, useful discussions from useless ones, working groups from flooding.
If you remember, the task of the community is formulated for the entire organization and each employee. Measuring community success for an employee is easy. If he benefits, he returns again. We need to estimate the number of visits, the share of active participants and content creators.
It is more difficult to define success criteria for an organization. With the right approach, they should have been laid at the very beginning of the implementation, in determining the goals of the community. Often these criteria fit into four groups of indicators: teamwork, level of involvement (and a performance indicator dependent on it), innovation and knowledge accumulation, as well as integration of customers, partners and suppliers in the community. Part of the information can be obtained by measuring the speed of introducing new products or solutions, measuring productivity, the number of errors, the speed of adaptation of new employees. You can use a simpler, but less reliable tool - a survey of employees, which can be done before creating a community and after people in the community work.
***
And further. When creating a community, check the criteria from left to right. If you have not secured the support of a leader, it is hardly worth thinking about measuring the success of the network. Therefore, try to work in the online community, but first of all, think about the correct formulation of the problem for your productive community.
Vladimir Ivanitsa Facebook | LinkedIn
“- How old am I? Asked Carlson. “I am a man in his prime, I can’t tell you anything more.”
- And at what age is the prime of life?
- In any! - answered Carlson with a satisfied smile. - In any case, anyway, when it comes to me. I am a handsome, smart and moderately well-fed man in the prime of life! ”
When you see a person who is fine with his head, he is physically healthy, knows what he wants to achieve, does his favorite job, and he also makes money - you say that he is a successful person.
And what is a successful online community organization? The success of the community lies in the fact that everyone benefits more than he brings, and the whole organization benefits from the energy of people. We call these communities productive. So, productive communities also know what they want, they are also in order with the head, they are physically healthy, doing the right thing, and can measure their success.
Here's what the characteristics of a successful community look like:
Let's reveal these characteristics in more detail.
Clear vision
Vision, task, concept, strategy, roadmap, project plan - call it what you prefer. The main thing is that the business value of the community is formulated for the organization and its employees, and this is already half the success. But there are a couple of nuances:
- Communication in the community is becoming more open than it was before, and this is associated with a change in corporate culture. Therefore, the purpose of the community may include cultural change in the organization.
- The wider and more heterogeneous the outline of your community, the better. For example, an industrial organization may include in the community community workers who do not have a PC for duty, a bank - employees of the front office, a distribution network - each seller, a distributor - partners, a manufacturer of consumer goods - customers. But before going beyond your own team, build a truly productive community within.
- Not every task is more convenient and more correct to solve in the community. Here’s a good illustration from Anthony Bradley and Mark MacDonald’s book “Social Organization” about when community use is more appropriate:
Management involvement.
In general, the higher the position of a leader supporting your community, the better. But here it is important not to fall into antiprimer.
Let's say your boss wrote to the whole company and encouraged everyone to actively participate in the life of the company. You go into your corporate social network and you see a virgin clean and empty boss profile there. And you understand that your corporate social network is for suckers. Successful people do not go there.
In fact, to show personal participation in the community is not difficult. If you are a leader:
- Once a day, check "Like" on the 2-3 messages you like;
- Once a week, publish a blog link to an article or book that interests you (you read, right?);
- Once a month, praise one of your team;
- Once a quarter, arrange a chat session to answer questions from the team.
On average, it will take no more than 20-30 minutes per week. You spend more time on the way to the office every day.
Community management
The community needs to be managed. Any blogger, the owner of a thematic group on Facebook, or an internal communicator in a large company knows this. Therefore, the community manager is at the head of the community. This is a very interesting position, because on the one hand, the community manager has access to leadership in order to understand where to direct the community. On the other hand, he feels at his fingertips people, the corporate culture of the organization, as well as the subcultures of various departments.
In large companies, at least one person must manage the community on an ongoing basis. Moreover, he cannot cope alone, and he is surrounded by a group of opinion leaders who help him at their local levels - their departments, branches, groups. For more information on what a community manager should be able to readhere .
Integration
I will not name names and appearances))). I heard a story when a client of a certain Manufacturer of the Social Communications Platform speaks at the conference and says: “We are great, we have the involvement of people in the corporate social network - 30%. Cheers cheers!". After it comes a report from a client of another Social Communications Platform Manufacturer, who says: “And we have a percentage of involvement of 95%. So what?". But the fact is that the first put the spherical horse in a vacuum and is trying to get involved due to the Z generation, and the second just put the business process there.
The Americans even came up with such a term about corporate social networks - event driven network. It's like with Windows - it starts doing something useful when you poke it. Take a corporate event, drop it into the community, discuss it there and collect the result. Only after a long time, people get used to the network so much that they begin to work there without external reminders.
Measure of success
Measuring success is necessary not only so that you can request further investment in the project from the manager. It is also necessary in order to separate “grains from the chaff” during the project, useful discussions from useless ones, working groups from flooding.
If you remember, the task of the community is formulated for the entire organization and each employee. Measuring community success for an employee is easy. If he benefits, he returns again. We need to estimate the number of visits, the share of active participants and content creators.
It is more difficult to define success criteria for an organization. With the right approach, they should have been laid at the very beginning of the implementation, in determining the goals of the community. Often these criteria fit into four groups of indicators: teamwork, level of involvement (and a performance indicator dependent on it), innovation and knowledge accumulation, as well as integration of customers, partners and suppliers in the community. Part of the information can be obtained by measuring the speed of introducing new products or solutions, measuring productivity, the number of errors, the speed of adaptation of new employees. You can use a simpler, but less reliable tool - a survey of employees, which can be done before creating a community and after people in the community work.
***
And further. When creating a community, check the criteria from left to right. If you have not secured the support of a leader, it is hardly worth thinking about measuring the success of the network. Therefore, try to work in the online community, but first of all, think about the correct formulation of the problem for your productive community.
Vladimir Ivanitsa Facebook | LinkedIn