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Community Wisdom
On this page we offer a few pearls of wisdom on building online communities
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Alternative Currencies
The complex trade-offs and
lifestyle/work/societal choices that are increasingly available to and/or confronting many workers
in the developed world are begging questions about alternative forms of compensation. Beyond the
obvious “currencies” of health benefits, pensions, flextime and vacation time, highly progressive
companies are already experimenting with non-cash incentives that feed different, and often deeper,
core needs. Communities are also creating “hyper-local” currencies that not only serve as a store
and exchange of value, but as a source of personal engagement and community-building value. From
answer contributors competing irrationally for “Yahoo! Answers” ratings “points” worth nothing
outside of bragging rights, to Ithaca, New York creating an “Hours” currency equivalent to the value
of their own time, the Future of Work–and the Future of Wealth–will see an explosion of compensatory
alternatives. -- FoW blog --
The Future of Work ThinkSite Blog |
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Participation Across Organizations.
Google takes you
to somebody's
website. Google Maps perches you on the roof of their building. Group Commons takes
you inside and through shared structures facilitates interaction with those inside. |
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Volunteerism is a concept from the Old World.
Outmoded
are the practices of promising great glory to individuals who agree to work in our organizations,
then burning them out , throwing them away, and recruiting new, uh, victims. The Internet affords
the ability to track what each person contributes and to reward them in goods and services of their
choice in exchange. What's required now for the New World is to build organizations that honor
mutual exchange of value utilizing alternate forms of currency. Group Commons is pledged to support
alternate and complementary currencies.
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Dedicated Greeter
Just like any successful gathering of people has a person who greets one at the door; an
online community requires someone to play that role. Technology is a hurdle and
there has to be a human being involved to smooth over the rough edges of any technology.
Its absolutely essential that you have someone who performs that role in your online
organization.
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Core Group
Every organization develops a core group of people who are the most active. These are
the people who your organization really serves. Never forget that. These core people
ultimately will have the control of what can and cannot be done by members who are not in
the core group. There have been numerous examples of organizations that did not protect
their core values from the "newbies" and ended up in situations where the organization as
a whole failed because of lack of ability to police the "fringe" factors.
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Organizations Excel at What They Measure
Jack Welsh, former CEO of GE, once said that a company excels at the things
they measure. The fastest way to make sure that something gets done well
is to make sure that you measure them and distribute the results. Its two
pieces, a) measure b) distribute. The same exact thing applies to your organization. Some
organizations do this through distributing "Currency
Tokens" for participation, others call these stock certificates. The
effect is the same. Participants who excel are reflected in the measurement process. The
reputation of these participants needs to be highlighted and recognized.
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People who talk and people who do
In every organization there are people who do things and there are people who talk about
doing things. A mechanism to assign tasks to people and hold them accountable is
critical. More critical though is the recognition when a person isn't performing. The key
move is to be able to switch tasks from a person who is underperforming or not performing
to a person who has a reputation for performing. Often these tasks are critical for the
survival of your organization.
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