Designing for online communities:thinking about social and technical design

Nancy White/Full Circle AssociatesMatt Moore/Innotecture

Human spectrogram

Tech + Social:Tech + Social:Technology has

fundamentally changed how we can be together

http://technologyforcommunities.com/

what is online community anyway?

• Our baseline definition(s)

Learning Communities

Knowledge Networks

Communities of Practice

Online Communities

Knowledge Networks

Labels!!!

Communities of Practice

• A group of people...• Who share challenges, passions or interest• Interact regularly• Who learn with and from each other• Improve their ability to do what they care

about ---- Etienne Wenger

individual group community network

Many: Networks

We: Communities

Me: the IndividualPersonal identity,

interest & trajectory

Bounded membership;

group identity, shared interest

Boundaryless; fuzzy,

intersecting interests

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/436670816/

Many: Networks

We: Communities

Me: the IndividualIndividual

learning, personal learning

environments …

Classes, informal learning cohorts,

conferences, clubs…

Facebook, Twitter,

YouTube, Wikipedia, etc…

Many: Networks

We: Communities

Me: the IndividualPersonal identity,

interest & trajectory

Bounded membership;

group identity, shared interest

Boundaryless; fuzzy,

intersecting interests

social design purpose, people and processes

technical design tools and infrastructure

social design: purpose

• gain > pain• who’s purpose?• orientations

purpose exercise

• What is the purpose of your community/group?

• Community Checklist

our purpose strengths

• (we’ll fill this in as the pairs report out…)

our purpose challenges

• (we’ll fill this in as the pairs report out…)

revise?

• After hearing other people’s ideas, do you want to alter yours at all?

• Share any changes at your table - briefly

social design: people

attitude

learning style

motivation

Experience - technology

learning

network maps

• sticky notes• big paper• pens• see Eva Schiffer’s NetMap process

http://netmap.wordpress.com

social design: process

online facilitationcommunity management

rolesnorms, rules, agreements

role modelingBut we'll come back to this...

technical design tools and infrastructure

technical stewardship

access

tool selectionImplementation/configurationpractices

addressing inherentcommunity tensions Tools

Groupasynchronous

IndividualInteracting

Publishing

synchronousGroup

asynchronous

discussion boards

teleconference

chat

instant messaging

member directory

wikiblog

telephony/VoIP

individualprofile page

e-mail

e-mail lists

scratch pad

RSS

“new” indicators

subscription

podcast

contentrepository

presenceindicator

buddy list

security

Q&A systems

RSS aggregator

newsletter

calendar

videoconference

application sharing

whiteboard

site index

participation statistics

search

subgroups

personalization

communitypublic page

versioncontrol

documentmanagement

UseNet

contentrating

scheduling

polling

commenting

networking tools

tagging

bookmarking

sharedfiltering

geomapping

www.TechnologyForCommunities.com

Etienne WengerNancy WhiteJohn Smith

which tools?

• minimum, elegant configuration• where you do/don’t have choice• straddling tools – the reality today

process design

driven by purposeshaped by technologyeffected by people

scaffolds/pathstechnical experimentationfacilitation

roles exercise

• Design a job description for a community leader/facilitator/manager (decide) for either an internal or external community

• For each line of the description, begin to think about a story or scenario that embodies that job requirement.

sharing it out

• Have a dramatic title for each story• Make it real• Listen for key ideas as others tell their

story

15% solution

Noticing and using the influence, discretion and power individuals have right now.

– Keith McCandless

don’t worry – there will be bumps in the road…TALK about them

and…

• Other issues: monitoring and evaluation, more on technology…

• Where to learn more? With whom?• Where to practice?

Resources

Online Community Checklisthttp://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/Online+Community+Planning+Checklisthttp://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/OZ+Online+Community+Workshops

Nancy’s Bloghttp://www.fullcirc.com

Matt’s Bloghttp://innotecture.wordpress.com/

Nancy’s Wikihttp://onlinefacilitation.wikispaces.com/

Nancyw at fullcirc dot comMatt’s at innotecture at gmail dot com

… meetings

… relationships

… community cultivation

… access to expertise

… projects

… context

… individual participation

… content publishing

… open-ended conversation

Community activities

oriented to …

Base material from: Digital Habitats: Stewarding technology for

communities© 2009 Wenger, White, and Smith

activities oriented to …

… meetings

… context… community cultivation

… access to expertise

… projects

… open-ended conversation

… content publishing

… individual participation

… relationships

© 2007 Wenger, White, and Smith

Purpose:

Community activities

oriented to …

… meetings

… context… community cultivation

… access to expertise

… projects… open-ended conversation

… content publishing

… individual participation

… relationships

© 2007 Wenger, White, and Smith

No image skills

Existing relationships

Basis for evaluation - motivated

Diverse skills/motivation

New to web meetings

… meetings

… access to expertise

… context… community cultivation

… projects… open-ended conversation

… content publishing

… individual participation

… relationships

© 2006 Wenger, White, and Smith

Community activities

oriented to …

course

… meetings

… access to expertise

… context… community cultivation

… projects… open-ended conversation

… content publishing

… individual participation

… relationships

© 2006 Wenger, White, and Smith

Community activities

oriented to …

support community

Togetherness Separateness

Interacting Publishing

Individual Group

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsevilla/189528500/in/set-1368427/

Emerging ro

les

and

practic

es…