Starting+a+Blog+Based+Community

=Preparation and notes from a presentation at Blogher 2006=

Lauren Gelman mylastname at stanford dot edu Nancy White www.fullcirc.com/weblog/onfacblog.htm Susannah Gardner www.buzzmarketingwithblogs.com and www.hopstudios.com Melanie Morgan www.newmediacollective.org
 * Panel:**

What is the purpose of your community? (general online community [|checklist])

Who might/will be part of the community?

What form might your blog community take? (See the series that starts [|here].)
 * One blog centric
 * One topic between many independent blogs
 * Blogs within one platform

How much do you want/can your community be planned and how much will emerge?

What are the technical issues of your potential members?

What software might you use?


 * Great Ideas We Learned From Each Other**
 * offer oppportunities for multiple voices/modalities
 * communitie smorphe
 * purpose for individual as well as community
 * what is commitment of community originator and how is it expresed
 * memes as a call to action
 * norms and standards evolve over time
 * continuous listening, what do people want
 * think about multiple media
 * physical connections - squeegie idea
 * Enage all sense
 * Identify both benefits to individual and community
 * Identify or create heartbeat moments in time for focus, scheduled things
 * map out your activities with a drawing and notice the nexus. Don't get paralyzed with too many
 * focus on how little you need rather than how much you need
 * competitive analysis - what is already out there and not replicate
 * product recommendation - people aggregator tool
 * different ways to keep people motivated, writer and community member perspectives
 * how to recruit community members
 * most active commentors to be part
 * recruiit offline via biz cards, community centers, nudges, ask people
 * setting expectations low (reasonable)
 * Create community by making it fun, email groups, offline meetups
 * sending rewards for going through process, teach someone to be involved when they are afraid of the word blog, different terms
 * ie newsletter, website,
 * decentralizing control, giving others control, teaching them to teach others and sit on your hands
 * questions about choosing platforms, migrating, making best initial choices,
 * integrating tools, 3rd party, keeping track of info that shows up in multiple places
 * Multiuser situation, how do you give them a good interface, keep track, display appropriately
 * Some tools: bloxum, drupal, plone, moodle, groupblogs on typepad or blogger, basecamp, writepad, expressionengine

Resources on Blog Based Communities
Article: http://tinyurl.com/oqj7b Podcast of article http://tinyurl.com/sydg3 Blog community tags: http://del.icio.us/tag/blog_communities