In The Great Good Place 1 Ray Oldenburg looks at several types of real life places (such as cafe’s, coffeehouses, the local pub) and distills what makes them great and why we need them. The notion of a third place, between work and home life, fills a social void. It is an easy read and community managers will recognize a lot of similarities, indeed many have done so already.2
Here’s a quick take on the 8 characteristics and how one could use them to make an online community better:
In order to understand the value and power of networks, such as a community, a number of individuals have come up with equations and analysis. It’s worth a bit of time to understand what they are talking about and how it may be useful to a CM.
Metcalf’s Law: Holds that the number of connections in a group grows very quickly as the number of members in the group increases. A group of two can have one connection, 3 members has 3, but 4 members has 6, 5 has 10, and so on.
Marcial Losada has looked at how people communicate, finding those groups that flourish have 3 positive statements to every negative statement. How does your group measure up? Here are some details to check out:
Positive statements are those where “speaking showed support, encouragement or appreciation”.1
Negative statements where when “the person speaking showed disapproval,… sarcasm, or cynicism”.1
A normally performing group will have a 2.5 ratio, but you need more than that to flourish. There needs to be a lot more positives to overcome the negatives. But there’s more-
With 10% of adults and 30% of those under 30 using social networks to discuss politics in the last US presidential election (1), it shouldn’t be any wonder that these topics may appear in an online community this year. Should a Community Manager worried? Outright disagreements may be somewhat mitigated by people tending to choose like minded groups to associate with. (2) Further, some groups have a higher tolerance for tough minded discussions. (3)
However, where groups have an otherwise heterogeneous membership, or are focused on social support and are not given to conflict,some political discourse may be off putting to members. (3) More energetic arguments and attacks will end up being controlled by the “belligerent” while the “polite and respectful become discouraged from participation”.(3) No matter the community, the CM should have techniques to help address the situation as needed.
Personal messages, offers to table the discussion until later, appeals to the facts, and banning are some of the ways to help address the issue, but there are a few more to consider-
In a 2011 study* it was found few patients end up participating in organized support groups. ~10% go to face-to-face groups and 4% go online.
However, more than 50% of patients do contact a peer they know. They have a slightly positive attitude toward being in a support group, with the advantage being “sharing experiences” and “finding recognition.”
How might one increase participation, in particular with online support? The study discusses some possibilities.
