Ecosystem Powerpoint Slides

I was part of the “Building a Business Case for Social Marketing” webinar yesterday hosted by Aaron Strout of Powered. During the presentation, I promised to post my slide illustating the concept of a community ecosystem.

The ppt deck has two versions of this diagram, one on a black background with a build, and one with just a white background.

I hope you find the diagram useful in your presentations.

Community Ecosystem Slides

A preview of the ecosystem diagram

Online Community Unconference East – 2009

Our first event of 2009, the Online Community Unconference East is going to be held on February 11 in New York City. We expect 150 online community and social media professionals to attend, and we expect there to be between 30-40 collaborative sessions.

Current attendees include: Google, Edelman, Ebay, Consumer Reports, Deutsche Telekom, iVillage, and others.

To register at the early bird rate of $145 ($195 after 1/19) please go here:
http://ocue2009.eventbrite.com

Last year’s Unconference East was fantastic, and we expect this years to be even better. We had an amazing group in 2008, including:
AOL, MTV, Consumers Union (consumer reports), Cyworld, Business Week, Socialtext, IBM, Mzinga, Spinvox, Twing.com, Salon.com, Harvard Business, MediaBistro, KickApps, HP, TV Guide and Zagat.com.

We also had an amazing list of sessions, including:
- What is necessary to start a successful social network?
- Social Movements/Communities with a Cause:
- Enterprise And Large Organizations Meets Community
- User Managed Communities: where users make the rules
- Community Building: Resources and Considerations
- Virtual Goods 101
- Social Media Optimization
- Customer/Consumer Communities for Co-Innovation
- Twitter Strategies for the Enterprise
- Culture vs. Community: Intention-based content
- Community Analytics: measuring success & failure
- Social Networks: Likes/dislikes and what you want to know
- Virtual Goods and Virtual World Interactions
- Building Enterprise IT: Colloboration & interface to internal systems (using wikis)
- Open ID & other user-centric identity technologies (Higgins, Infocards, SAML)

You can see pictures from the 2008 Unconference here:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=ocue2008&w=all&s=int

OCU East 2008 Wiki
The wiki is available if you would like to read the session notes:
http://www.socialtext.net/ocue08/

Register
Again, to register at the early bird rate of $145 ($195 after 1/19) please go here:
http://ocue2009.eventbrite.com

If you currently drive the community or social media strategy for your organization, and you are in (or will be in) the NYC area on 2/11, I would encourage you to come check it out!

We also have several sponsor opportunities open for this Unconference. If you are looking for a cost-effective way to reach NYC community and social media professionals, please contact me about our sponsorship options.

Online Communities: Thriving in the Downturn

Cross-posted from the Online Community Report.

We initiated the The Online Communities: Surviving & Thriving in the Downturn Economy survey in late November and early December of 2008, as part of our ongoing research series with the Online Community Research Network. The intention of the study was to get a broad look at how online community programs are fairing within organizations in light of the recent economic changes.

We received approximately 90 responses. Participants represent a healthy swath of the types of organizations participating in online community activities, including: software, hardware, entertainment, media, independent consultants and a handful of non-profits.

We saw plenty to be concerned about. Several respondents were facing layoffs, or were having there community projects suspended. Budgets are hiring were frozen for some. But, we also saw a lot of data to be optimistic about including the fact that the majority of respondents reported continued support of their community activities, and in some cases, increased support.

Highlights from the report include:

Overall Affect of the Economy on Online Communities
We asked: “Please rate how the economy has affected your overall online community strategy and operations to date, with 1 = Unaffected and 5 = Most Negatively Affected”

The average rating that respondents gave in response to the overall affect that the economy has on their online community to date was 2.43.

Most of the respondents 81% (66) indicated that their online community strategy and operations to date was either unaffected or somewhat affected, whereas only 19% (15) respondents rated their online community had been more negatively affected, to date.

The most affected areas to date were:

• Respondents rated Contractor Staffing (average rating of 2.7),
• Platform Budget (average rating of 2.4) and
• Full Time Staffing (average rating of 2.3).

Changes in Staffing
We asked “Do you plan on making any immediate (next 30 days) changes to your online community staffing, for example changes in head count, consolidated positions, layoffs?”

Most of the respondents 71% (60) said that they would NOT be making any immediate changes to their online community staffing, the remaining 29% (25) said they would make specific changes. BUT… The most common change in community staffing that the 25 participants said they were going to enforce during the next 30 days was increasing their number of Full Time Employees. This included new staff, as well as converting contractors to full time.

Obviously, there was bad news here as well. Several folks mentioned decreasing FTE’s and contractors, and 3 respondents said there community project had been, or was being shut down all together.

Community Value
We asked: Have your internal stakeholders (execs, management) attitudes toward the value of the online community changed because of current economic pressure?

Slightly more than half of the respondents (55%) said that their company internal stakeholder’s attitudes have changed towards the value of the online community because of the current economic pressure. For those whose stakeholder’s attitudes that had changed, over half of the respondents (55%) indicated that their internal stakeholder’s considered their online community more valuable because of the current economic pressures.

About a quarter (26%) respondents whose stakeholder’s attitudes that had changed indicated that their internal stakeholder’s considered their online community LESS VALUABLE because of the current economic downturn. The reasons given for this were because more focus was being placed on other advertising or on core products, less funding was available or in some cases the community had been relinquished altogether.

Slightly less than a quarter (19%) respondents said that their internal stakeholders are closely monitoring the Return On Investment (ROI) of their online community to consider its value.

Of the folks who commented on increased support:

Communities now getting more executive support and more commitment for 2009.

More important now than ever. We are a membership organization, and we see this is an important way to deliver value for membership, particularly in a time when our customers are unable to travel.

There is a more intense focus on community and social media as a more cost-effective way to promote and sell products.

Increased urgency or emphasis on using new technology and the world of online communities to cut operating costs and expand business opportunities.

The final report will be published to our Online Community Research Network members and research participants later this week.

The full report (~45 pages) expands on the content above, as well covering specific budget items that will likely be affected in 2009, tactics that community executives are employing in the downturn, and peer advice on thriving in the downturn, and will include all collected data, charts from the date, and all write in responses.

The full report will also be available for purchase.

Online Community Roundtable: Jan 8 in SF

The next Online Community Roundtable will be held Thursday, January 8 at SolutionSet in San Francisco.

The Roundtable is intended for seasoned community managers and strategists. We have room for 20 folks, and seats are going fast. The event is free.

To RSVP for the Roundtable, please go here:
http://moourl.com/sf_ocr_jan09
About the Roundtables…
The Roundtables have been a regular, but intentionally “under the radar” gathering I’ve organized since July of 2005. The purpose of the Roundtable is to provide an open and safe environment for community practitioners to share experiences and best practices. It’s also an excellent excuse meet other interesting folks practicing in the online community and social media space.

Ground Rules:
* No sponsorships. Host organization provides space, food and beverages
* No pitches. Presentations should be about sharing experiences, having a discussion about a problem or issue you are facing, or reviewing a project or site you are working on.
* The guest list is up to Bill
* Bill sets final agenda based on topic appropriateness and time available
* “Soft” NDA: Blogging / Tweeting etc sessions is ok, unless presenter asks you not to.

Format for the 1/8 meeting:
5:00 – 6:00 Networking hour.
Drinks and food will be available.

6:00 – 7:30 Presentations.
After the networking hour, we’ll share thoughts on community. We request that you bring a 1-2 slide deck to talk to. Topics can range from:

* A report back from a conference
* A new community that you have recently launched
* A feature that you are developing, or are interested in discussing
* Challenges that you are facing in developing, growing or managing your community
* Or any other topic that you feel would be appropriate and enlightening to this audience.

Please email me if you have any questions: bjohnston@forumone.com