Bill Johnston: Online Community Strategy

Bill Simpson

Originally uploaded by redplasticmonkey

If the Simpson’s movie site had only gone 1 step further a built a fully functional virtual Springfield…

What are you using for professional networking, LinkedIn, Facebook, or both (or something else)?

I’d love to hear your stories via email or comments.

I ran across this yesterday on an old hard drive and thought I would post.

community2_0.pdf

Daniel Siriste, the manager of AREA, and I gave this presentation to our global marketing team in March 2005 as food for thought in their community-building plans.

I’ve removed any proprietary information (of course).

Slightly off topic… I’d love to hear his opinion on current events

Here is a week’s worth of blogging, condensed to one day

OCU2007

There is literally TONS of great content about the OCU floating around this week:

Online Community Unconference Wiki (session notes / handouts)
Online Community Unconference Photos - flickr
OCU 2007 Show - BlogTV
Still debating the future of communities after all these years - Carol McManus
Some notes from OCU 2007 - Joi Podgorny
Online Community Unconference 2007 - The Social Wave Blog
Thank you Forum One for organizing the Community Unconference… - Community Group Therapy
Capture from the Community UnConference - Jeremiah Owyang
OCU2007 Notes - Josh Ledgard
Online Community Planning: Getting the Party Started - Common Craft
Online Community Unconference: Unconfrences for Communities Q & A - Kaliya Hamlin

Online Community Roundtable
We had a small but knowledgeable group at the OC Roundtable in SF this week. Instead of the usual presentation format, we spent the first 10 minutes brainstorming topics and then spent 90 minutes discussing. It was a really great and informative session. I think we will use this format more, moving forward. Also, I am probably going to start connecting the Roundtable with Susan Tenby’s Meetup… stay tuned.

Online Civility
I was interviewed by Information Week  about  online civility, and the proposed blogger’s code of conduct becuase of this post on the OC Report:
http://www.onlinecommunityreport.com/archives/194-Bloggers-Code-of-Conduct.html

Marketing & Online Communities
I am working on a research project that explores attitudes, best practices and  techniques. The survey will be going out next week.
We are also starting to talk about our Marketing & Online Communities conference to be held in NYC on 11/8. As usual, this event will be small (90 people) and invite only. Should be fun, intensely focused, and informative.

Marc Andeessen is blogging, and it is awseome
http://blog.pmarca.com/

My interview with Guy Kawasaki was just posted on the OC Report.

Guy Kawasaki on Life, the Truemorverse, and Everything

Guys discussed Truemors (of course), the changes for startups launching new sites, and his current priorities.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Leverage is hosting the next Online Community Roundtable tomorrow at their offices in SF.

I’m expecting 15 people. Should be a nice change from last week’s Unconference, in that I will actually have time to talk to people.

Looking forward to it!

If you would like to stop by, email me or call my cell: 415.299.9638

Where to meet the next Steve Jobs

http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/08/magazines/business2/unconferences.biz2/

Mostly got the details correct (speed geeking was only 1 session, after lunch).

As organizer, it would have been nice to have been interviewed for this, but I’m glad Kaliya got exposure.

The Online Community Unconference was based on the principals of Open Space Technology, which essentially puts the days agenda and content in the hands of the attendees.

One of the most amazing things about the Unconference was seeing the blank session grid being created the night before, and them filling up with interesting content in less than 45 minutes Wednesday morning.

Kaliya starting on the session grid.

Blank session grid and demo signup sheet

Grid being filled up with sessions.

Final session grid.

Here is a link to a larger (and more legible) version of the grid.

I had to do shopping today for the Unconference, and I got some strange looks at Staples, so I thought I would share my list

Shopping List:

(2) Rolls of paper.. 36″ (three feet ones are better) but often the stationary store only sells 24″ and that is ok.  In the rare case you find 48″ or 4′ that is fantastic.

(8-10) Rolls Masking tape to both get the chart onto the wall and the sessions onto the board.

(500 sheet Ream) 8×11 White Paper

(4 Boxes) Water soluble pens for flip charts these can be the smelly marker brand or sharpie or crayola.

(2 boxes)  dry erase markers

(6) Post-it Flip charts. I am a fan of the stick on kind so that people can put them together on a wall and get a bigger surface area.

pens

pads of paper

post-its

table number holders

Lanyards for staff

I’m not sure why folks in the store thought my cart looked so odd?