The Role of the Facilitator/ e‐Moderator in Building &  Sustaining Communities of Practice

Stephen DaleStephen Dale

Collabor8now LtdCollabor8now Ltdwww.collabor8now.comwww.collabor8now.com

XIII Seminari CompartimL’e-moderador i altres nous agents de coneixement a les organitzacions

Barcelona, 21 setembre 2011

Why the bunny?

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

What does a healthy  Community look like?

Conditions for a healthy CoPclear purpose – what will it be used to do?a safe and trusted environmentcommitted core group of active participants motivated participants understanding the needs of participantsa clear action plan with activities to meet needsblending face‐to‐face and online activities

Nurturing and sustaining the CoP

requires efforteffort and energyenergy

from a skilled FacilitatorFacilitator/e‐

Moderator

How Healthy Is Your CoP?

The community will have a rhythm  of activity

Act

ivity

http://steve-dale.net

Understanding the rhythm helps you keep with the beat!Understanding the rhythm helps you keep with the beat!

Community Metrics

http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Monitoring the health of an online CoP using Google Analytics

Keeping Your CoP Healthy

CoP Health CheckSymptom Actions

No participation or activity.No new documents or links posted No new discussion threads, announcements or news

•Post new content, requesting feedback and comments to elicit new conversation. •Remind people to set alerts for the site.•Talk to members to find out what people are working on and ask people what they would like to see on it.

Activity only by a few people •Call or email members who haven’t participated for a while; find out why they haven’t been participating. Use those conversations to elicit new content and encourage contribution.•Be sure that the people who are not contributing understand how to use the tools. Never assume that tools are “intuitive” to everyone, or that everyone understands how to use them.

People use email instead of posting questions and discussions on the CoP

•The email habit is a hard one to break. If the goal of the community is to capture all the relevant discussions for future use, then the community facilitator needs to take a strong stand with members. •One way to do this is to make a public statement that no questions sent by individual email will be answered, but that questions posted to the community will always be answered in set time.•Another approach is to respond to all email questions by asking the requestor to post the question in the forum.

Sudden drop in discussions where there was previous activity.

•Review the postings for potential “flaming”. Edit the discussion threads to remove inappropriate comments (and state that you have done so). Speak with the people who have posted and clarify the norms for participation of the community.

Another community is focused on the same topic.

•If the members of the other community are current or previous members of your community, talk to them about why the community isn’t meeting their needs. If they do want to take a specific focus, then be sure that you have set up cross-linkages to the other community sites, and are referring people back and forth as needed.•If the new community consists of people who are not participating in the current community, ask some of the same questions. See if there is sufficient overlap that the new community might be better managed as a Sub - CoP of the current site or a merger between the communities

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/

The Online Facilitator/e‐Moderator

polls

surveys

health checks

management reports

Community MetricsCommunity MetricsCommunity Metrics

social network analysis

Google analytics

Community ManagementCommunity ManagementCommunity Management

moderation

rewards & incentives

rule enforcement

connecting people

back-channel engagement

forum seeding

comments

blog posts

new member welcome & induction

newsletters

e-bulletins

OutreachOutreachOutreachcampaigns

Professional DevelopmentProfessional DevelopmentProfessional Developmentnetworking

identifying good/best practice

attending events

participate in SIGsContent ManagementContent ManagementContent Management

updating FAQs

managing tags, categories, themes

taxonomy management

deleting & archiving

updating links & navigation

Business PlanningBusiness PlanningBusiness Planning alignment with business priorities

purpose, goals

Platform ManagementPlatform ManagementPlatform Management

upgrades & improvementsfeature selectiontools/apps &

how to use them

Slide re-worked from an original by Dion Hinchliffe

What happens if you remove the e‐Moderator?

http://tomhumbarger.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/the-importance-of-active-community-management-proved-with-real-data/

Intervention Strategies

Welcome them, give them pointers on getting started, suggest topics

where they might participate, and tell

them about any interesting

upcoming events.

Provide some reward to those who

make the effort

From stranger to passer by

Make personalised invitation

From lurkerto participant

From participant to regular

From passer by to lurker

Engaging and Retaining membersMake potential

members aware of your community

Building content that will attract members

Encourage members to bring in

interesting participants

Send an email to new members within

24 hours of their membership

Highlight community

content

Create "small steps" for

encouraging participation,

posting regular questions or

forum answers

ALWAYS greet newcomers, and encourage other

community members to

welcome them.

Write a regular newsletter

highlighting your site and community

People return to places where they

find a group of people to talk to. If you do not have

such a place, you will not be able to retain members.

Facilitate members to find people to

talk, through personal profiles,

highlighting member interests,

discussions, and so on.

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk

Engagement  Strategies: Hot seats• Can be used to attract new 

members to the community.

• Enables participants to ask the  person in  the hot seat (usually  an expert in their field)  

questions, to which they can  respond over a set period of  time.

• Normally run using the forum,  but they can also be run as a 

phone conference, webinar

or  interview

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/

Engagement Strategies:  Newsletters

Social Network Analysis tools provide  insight and prompt questions

““I frequently or very frequently receive I frequently or very frequently receive information from this person that I need to information from this person that I need to do my jobdo my job.”

Hotsea

tsNe

wslett

er

Use a variety ofBlo

gs

Polls

partic pationi

Hot

Topics

Face-t

o-

Face

http://www.communties.idea.gov.uk

Where does the Facilitator/ e‐Moderator go for help?

Summary

• Monitor the health of your CoP

(e.g. CoP

Health  Checklist)

• Understand what interventions are required for  different symptoms

• The facilitator/e‐Moderator can be the key to a 

successful and healthy CoP

• …but it’s hard work and requires lots of  energyenergy……

When setting up and managing a CoP, remember that…

batteries are not included!

Questions?

http://twitter.com/stephendale

Personal Blog: http://steve-dale.net

Corporate blog/website: http://www.collabor8now.com

Email: steve.dale@collabor8now.com