Social communities as checklist items

In a post about "the habits of highly effective Web2.0 sites" Dion Hinchliffe writes about the essentials of leveraging Web2.0. One of those essentials is:

Don’t create social communities just to have them. They aren’t a checklist item.  But do empower inspired users to create them.

And that really rings home for me.

I often get asked the question: "Which platform should we use?"

Or someone says: "We want a community in our organisation. Tell us how to start one."

(And usually those questions come just before saying "And our deadline is next week ... " )

However, if they asked me: "how do we empower inspired people to create communities of practice?" or, if they said: "Hey Bev, how do we trigger inventive people to start creating with these new technologies?"  then I would know we were really onto something.

In the meantime I am beginning to realise that there is a space for bridges between those highly effective Web2.0 users and those people who have realised that social communities are more than a checklist item. And, as usual, I find myself thinking of how to architect those bridges.

Oh, what's that I hear someone say? Do I find myself navigating between two languages again?

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Comments

[davidwilcox]

That rather chimes in with Networking is a process ... take your time that I came across on a business blog here http://digbig.com/4nnhw

[Beverly Trayner]

Thanks David. The link by the way takes me to Boris in You Tube. I had a good laugh!

[Nancy White]

You need to meet Dave Cormier...

http://davecormier.com/edblog/?p=87

[Beverly Trayner]

Thanks! Going off to check him out.