The document discusses challenges with community engagement and provides suggestions to address them. It notes issues with getting community members involved and confused use of technology like blogs and wikis. It recommends facilitating engagement by understanding community members' needs and perspectives, providing value and support, championing the community, and experimenting with social models and enabling technology.

1. Introduction: who is this guy? 2000…..………2002…………..2004……………..2006……..…..2007…… I am a professional network and community advisor and multi-domain ‘facilitator’. In other words, I help groups of people do the things that they want and/or need to do.

4. Situation: People “… getting the members of the communities to engage in a more proactive way… getting other people to bite and get involved… how can we get them (lurkers) to come out of the shadows? … don't know whether to assume that (a) 57 members never visit the CoP after registering or (b) 57 members have lost the will to live or (c) 57 members want absolutely nothing from the CoP…” (Let’s call this engagement, and your expectations)

5. Situation: Technology “… general confusion as to when to use a blog, when to use a forum entry and when to use a wiki…” “… for facilitators… we all know what a wiki is, and a forum, but have we made a decision about how they will be used within our CoPs? Do we even need to make such decisions?...” (Let’s call this use)

6. Situation: Technology “… can the technology be a barrier to a community of practice's success? … can this scare people off who might have a real contribution to make? As someone who is very keen on social media and web technology, I'm all for advancements in the functionality of the CoPs, but is that necessarily the best thing for everyone?...” (Let’s call this barriers)

7. Situation: Social model “… we are actually trying to sell two quite challenging concepts to local gov in one go: firstly, the community of practice method, sharing information and opening up; and secondly we are asking people to do this using the web!...” (Let’s call this CoPs and working on the web)

9. People: love or hate computers? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjac3Ns5Ig Issues: Privacy Reputation Ownership Control Response Time Don’t know what they need Don’t care how It’s done No one ever gives Them a straight answer (apart from I.T.)

10. People: love or hate networks? Issues: Who are they? Why have they Asked to be my Friend? Is it worthwhile? Want to find: Who knows what They need to know Things that have Been done before

11. People: give them what they need We want them to engage They want it to be worthwhile They need: Stuff to make their work better : people : knowledge : ideas : support We need to give them: Easiness Guidance Support Belief Evidence of success Easily findable Picture: Dvir, A, KnowledgeBoard

12. People: aha “… I dont think there is much future in my doing this, as if I talked or discussed half of what is going on here on a blog then I am sure I would upset someone !!...”

13. People: woohoo “… This initiative is easily, for me, the stand-out project that [xxx] has undertaken in recent years, and I am proud to be a member of an organisation that is pushing forward into social software at this stage (2nd-generation adoption)…”

14. People: Just like you “… I have to say that I really don't get Second Life. When you hear some people going on abut it, you'd think it was the most amazing thing ever, but at the moment it really is a geek only zone, IMO…” (Ook in Second Life …) Well… Idea CoPs Blogs Wikis Facebook Myspace Barbie world SecondLife Twitter Apple Macs Unix Engineering Music Politics Tamagotchi CD players … Thank you Ton: http://www.interdependent.biz/main/archief/002105.html

15. Technology Huh?... Tags? Notes? Groups? Sets? Blogs? Rotate? Comments? “ I didn’t realise That when you Click ‘add your Comment’ that it would go on the site”

16. Technology Huh?... Forums? Events? Members? Documents? Wiki? Blogs? Is it like a Mailing list? What happens When I post Something Somewhere? Who sees it? Who owns it? This is a beautiful platform, so let’s pick it apart

17. Technology Aha. People! People who can help me… In my area… Does being part of the people finder have to be part of being a CoP? Can I build a group that isn’t a CoP?

18. Technology Is this a good form Of updating? What is the message? Should I have to go to the site to make a comment? Is it well titled? Is it the way I digest Information? Do I want some form of editor?

20. CILIP communities: 1 Department of Knowledge and Information Community leader Member Community Community hub CILIP membership Knowledge flows from Peer to peer Facilitator Expert

21. CILIP communities: 2 Community leader Member CoP Community hub CILIP membership Knowledge flows from Peer to peer Expert Blog Mentors and Mentees using profiles Members with blogs RSS

22. Social model:Facilitation Public facilitation: External blogs Responses Championing Advocating Marketing Attracting Internal facilitation: Editing Responding Finding people Finding knowledge Supporting Balancing Nurturing

23. Social model: things you can do Know your people: Open questions etc. Who to push How to press their buttons When to press their buttons Call them directly Find champions Give them a reason to engage Offer them hope Find good stories for them They don’t know what it can do; you have to show them. And get them to know eachother Work with your model: It is not static. Think up new ways of using it (not new tech) Q & A Guests Themes Newsletters Workshops Timing: when to hit them Draw member feeds in Draw thematic feeds in Market your work all the time Online communities develop with physical meetings…

24. Social model: things you can do

25. Social model: back to technology

26. Technology is an enabler only WEB: http://www.edmitchell.co.uk EMAIL: [email_address]