Look to OpenSource Communities

buraddo — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:38:27 +0000

You may have realised from some comments, but my job has transitioned from ITIL to Open Source software services in the last couple of years.

If you want to see success and failure in building social networks, then look no further than Free and Open Source Software (FLOSS) industry. They sit somewhere in between structure "Change Acceptance Process" organizational change and the chaotic world of consumer social networks (eg. a bit of creative use of the word "social", but I think we can substitute "community" in this discussion).

You still have a very small percentage of people humping the largest load of the goal of the community, but if successful, you get a diverse range of people playing contributing roles as code contributors, evangelists, testers, documenter, support providers etc.. etc.. A active community is quite a dynamic place. The tools support this evolution in the software development process are poor, and better ones come out regularly.

Having been involved in building a couple of these I can tell you it is hard work. As with all successful "things" a quality product is the core. Whether this be content or code, you cannot succeed without a good quality product. Then focusing on doing things that help adoption (guerilla marketing, ease of deployment focus etc..) is critical, in parallel ensuring adopters are well supported. Then as adoption increases, contributors increase in a every increasing wave. There is alot more to it, but enough for this rant.

I would just say that Skep, success of communities can be measured in numerous ways, and it is not necessarily the number of contributors at the highest level. Social networks are multi-level, multi-faceted things. The guy who chairs the football club meetings and arranges all the events, needs the people who just show up and pay the fee to have a good time.

Brad Vaughan
http://blogs.sun.com/buraddo

The IT Skeptic - Comments for "There is more to social collaboration than providing the tools"

Look to OpenSource Communities