Several weeks ago, I started an overview of maturity as it relates to online communities. I’ll apologize in advance for the delay in bringing this one to you – winter flu season can really bring a person down and quash the desire to sit down and put pen to paper. Back now and feeling a bit better, thank you for asking…
In that blog, I introduced The Community Roundtable Community Maturity Model and the eight competencies that comprise it. Within each competency, there are 4 progressive stages with over-arching transitory stage transitions (Start, Build, & Grow). For strategy, the four stages are; Familiarize & Listen, Participate, Build, & Integrate.
I will be transparent and state now that I may or may not be discussing where individual CA Communities could/should be placed on the chart. Given the breadth and depth of the CA portfolio and how many communities we have, that would be a larger task than could be accomplished in a blog series. I will try to shed some light on where we are within a range across the communities as a whole.
I’ll also put out there that the model is not necessarily a grading tool – and that it would probably be very rare to have a community that was strong in all areas and not in need of work in at least a few spots. The way we view the model and the assessments we do internally for our communities, is that it’s a tool with which to start a conversation.
Now – to the subject matter at hand. The basics of an online community strategy should address the five “W’s” - “who, what, where, when and why” - to define your focus and efforts in building engagement. While not a comprehensive list of questions, some quick ones that come to mind are:
- Who is your audience? It could be as simple as customers. Or prospects. Or it could be more granular than that – developers within the customer base that focus on a specific technology or language. Who are your stakeholders? Who are your sponsors internally and externally who will act as champions?
- What are you trying to do? What is your business case? What are the goals that you are trying to address that should be addressing a particular business objective while delivering value to your member base. What will be the investment required to move forward with your efforts – in terms of people, process, & technology? (They all require budget…)
- Where are you trying to do this? On your own site or an external social platform? Or both?
- When do you expect to launch your community and the various tactical initiatives that will drive content and engagement in the beginning?
- Why? Why are you choosing a community as the solution to your objectives and challenges? Why does real time and asynchronous engagement create a path toward success for you? Can you articulate the purpose and business value from the member’s perspective? Do you know the KPIs you will measure to indicate early victories and later success milestones.
Gary_Cherlet (an experienced community leader/builder - frequent content contributor - member of the IDMS User Association/IUA board) brought up some good points on the initial post. Strategy is not a one-and-done activity. It’s an iterative process as a strategy can always be improved & adapted – especially in the ever changing environment of a technology based industry. It is something that needs to be examined, then reexamined and revisited often to make sure it is still on track and that there is proper alignment between the business and the membership.
Gary also brought up a great point in that the competency is not at a single point within the stages in a competency. With a community that is as broad and complex as the one we are a part of here, it may be a range across different stages. In our evaluations for the CA Communities, we range across stages 1-3 – much like a bell curve. While there are some more progressive communities and some who are just working into initial stages of strategic iteration, most fall in between the extremes and would be within the Participate stage – with what I would definitely call an upward trend that coincides with the rise of social engagement in all manners and aspects of business.
Many of the aspects of a community strategy, and subsequent efforts in improvement, may not always visible to the membership, but know that they are there and constantly being reviewed and worked on. The way I have likened it in the past, is that when you see a cruise ship from the outside you see the people on the deck and perhaps a lot of activity, but you may not see into the helm and the engine rooms. We do seek input on a regular basis – for the community and for many other aspects of how CA Technologies engages with the community and customer base. We will continue to do so to make sure we are delivering the best possible experience for you.
I may jump around a bit in the order to keep it interesting. I think an interesting one to discuss next might be culture.