Vidize Blog

In my experience, most companies come out as very poor shepherds when it comes to communities.

Case in point: I was reviewing Adobe’s live docs for Flash Media Server 2. There wasn’t a SINGLE comment on any of the docs I viewed. I’m not talking about a discussion, I’m talking about someone saying something.

Guy Kawasaki, an evangelist turned VC, lists 8 simple bullet-points for community building:

1. Create something worth building a community around
2. Identify and recruit your thunderlizards — immediately!
3. Assign one person the task of building a community.
4. Give people something concrete to chew on.
5. Create an open system.
6. Welcome criticism.
7. Foster discourse.
8. Publicize the existence of the community.

Being the marketing guy that I am, I immediately want to start from the back - there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right? It does make sense to start at 1. Building a community around something great will help you beat the one-percent rule of contribution.

A company that’s doing great in the community business (though it isn’t exactly a smooth ride) is Blizzard. Their community system has come a long way since the Diablo 2 days. Back then, if you wanted a community, you were better off at some of the Diablo fan sites. With World of Warcraft, however, it’s a lesson learned. There are professional community managers, webmasters, etc. and their forums are much, much livelier. (Rumor: Blizz will be unveiling Diablo 3 soon. Could even show up on Playstation 3!)

Tags: API, building, community, contribution, guy kawasaki, publicity

API, building, community, contribution, guy kawasaki, publicity