Common Craft Blog

It's that time o'year. We're heading east to take in some national parks and all around fun places to be like Glacier, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. I should have some pics to share upon the return...

CNET.com: Microsoft's In-House Sociologist

You might not be aware, but Microsoft uses online communities in a big way. They use UseNet news groups (a form of community) to help support their users and have for many years. This article helps in understanding how they use them, why, what they hope to accomplish.

Basically the newsgroups offers Microsoft users a place to post messages about a problem they are having. Other members of that newsgroup can reply and help them. The Usenet system has been around since the early days of the Internet and pre-dates web pages.

Because these are so popular, Microsft has a Sociologist who is doing research on how these systems work and how they can be improved.

So why exactly does Microsoft need a resident sociologist?
Microsoft has a big investment in online communities, and has not had until recently many tools to enhance that investment. What Microsoft wants around communities is what every enterprise does, which is a peer-support, knowledge-management application. And that means that if you go into Usenet, you'll find 3,000 Microsoft public newsgroups, with 1.5 million people posting 10 million messages. And that's 2002--and it's going to more than double this year, because it more than doubled in '01. We don't see traffic flagging at all.

Here's what I gathered from the article...

There is simply too much going on for people to easily find the answers they need in a consistent manner. So, this sociologist is looking at the habits of folks that post in the newsgroups. From recording these habits, they are trying to stratify the different kinds of posters- the spammers, the answer people, the regulars, the folks who ask questions, etc.

In doing so, they hope to build a system that allows a user to find what they need by pointing them to people, groups and threads that, based on their history, have a good chance of providing the needed info.

Here's an example: Let's say you have a newsgroup with 22,000 messages posted there per month. You have a problem! What should you read? We have some suggestions. In an existing browser, you can see the messages sorted by date, sorted by size or sorted alphabetically, and this is not very useful. What we want to say is, "There are different vectors through this content space, different ways of slicing into the data, the conversation, that are more likely to bring valuable information."

Interesting stuff. It is also interesting to me that Usenet is still plugging along. I think that we're finding that one of the very basic reasons the Internet was created (to allow peers to support one-another) will be it's most enduring value.

With all the companies looking to save money using the Internet, they may only need to look for ways to allow their customers to support one-another via online communities and the like. I've seen it work over and over.

Also, checkout NetScan, which is a newsgroup analysis tool.

Via: Online Facilitation

A reader recently contacted me and said he was thinking about starting a professionally-related website (possibly a weblog) that would be a source of discussion and information for folks in his particular niche. He also mentioned that he'd like to eventually build an online community around his site.

I replied with some thoughts about how I thought he should go about getting started. I think there are a lot of folks out there considering making moves in this direction and I thought I'd post the points I gave this person here in case anyone else is interested...

This is my advice based on what you wrote...

• Know your niche- figure out what the folks in your niche are most concerned about and try to provide something they need.
• Get your voice out there- doing all the great things you mention may require some up-front "community building". I'd start a weblog that focuses on the issues in your niche. Tell your friends and colleagues once you get going. If there are any related online communities, post links to your blog in the discussion forums when you've written something interesting. If there are related weblogs- post comments on them that link to your site. Your goal is to get people to your blog so they can get to know you, your goals and way of thinking. These are the building blocks of your future community.
• Organize your weblog posts into categories related to the niche you've defined. Be true to the niche.
• You talk about filters and pushing the content out. RSS is great for this. Almost any blog platform has an RSS feed pre-installed. Make sure your readers know how to use it. Here's my shot at an explanation. Also, you can start a great blog in like 10 mins using a brand new product from the folks that created MovableType- called TypePad.
• Offer weekly email updates to the readers of your blog. These don't have to be fancy- just a weekly email that is written in your voice- be personal- have fun- keep people engaged. Do these emails responsibly of course- make unsubing easy, etc.
• Once you have some dedicated readers, you have an "audience". Then you can look at ways to offer this audience resources over and above your blog- remembering the needs you perceive in the niche. Maybe you add discussion forums, maybe you invite people to help you co-author the weblog. Ask them what they think would be valuable and give it to them.
• Start small- my personal opinion is that baby-steps are key. Get started quietly while you get the system down and feel comfortable posting to the blog. Don't be over-anxious to promote the site in the beginning- it may turn people away too soon. Develop some content first so folks can get a comprehensive feel for what you're trying to accomplish.

Of course, I have to say that all this depends on your ultimate goals. The points above relate to building a community of peers around your web site. This will take time and may make you little or no money- especially in the short term. However, I believe that if you can build a community around yourself and/or your company, the possibilities are limitless.

I've been looking at some online community platforms and ran across a Poerty Live, which is part of the Learning Times Network.

On the Poerty Live home page, there is a cool little window that has what looks like a bunch of refrigerator magnets and anyone who visits can arrange the magnets into poetry by dragging them into place. Just thought it was a fun little application for a poerty site...

In this entry Joi Ito describes how just hired two people from "IRC" a chat resources. Because they participated over time, he got to know them, became trustful of them and eventually hired them.

I recently hired two people who were IRC regulars. I felt very comfortable after "getting to know them" over the last few months on IRC. Of course face to face meetings and interviews were essential, but the time spent with them on IRC really added to my ability to judge their character.

His post is also about how social software can help people get jobs by allowing a larger and more specific group of people get to know them, regardless of geography.

What I would like to assert is that social software can help people with their self-esteem and can also help you find others who can find your assets and interests more valuable and place people in jobs where one can have "character".

This is something I have been trying to take advantage of for a while now. I originally planned to quit my job before Christmas of 2002. In preparation, I asked myself: "How can I get build a network while I'm still employed? How can I start to build a community around what I know and what I want to share? How can show people out there that I have something to offer before I ever quit my job?"

A weblog was the answer. So, in January of 2003, I started "Communication Culture" on LeeLeFever.com. Using this weblog, I could talk about all the stuff I was interested in, what I thought, what was happening in my life. All the while, I just had to be sure that it was perfectly "legal" according to my employer at the time. There was nothing they could do to prevent me from using the site.

Of course, my goal was to get noticed by people who are interested in online communication, because I thought they might be my first clients after I quit my job. May 16th was my last day and soon after I started CommonCraft.com to provide a very focused and professional weblog.

As it turns out, my very first client came to me because of this post on LeeLeFever.com.

So, I think the plan worked and I hope it continues to work...

Silicon Valley - Dan Gillmor's eJournal - RSS Hitting Critical Mass

If you are completely new to RSS, which most people are, it is gaining a lot of steam lately because it offers a way to use the Internet without a browser and without email.

I've posted a couple of things that attempted to explain RSS in simple terms and why it's getting popular- if you're interested.

Dan Gillmor does a good job (as usual) in this article about RSS hitting critical mass. Here are some quotes I liked...

Chris Pirillo:

"RSS is evolving as a replacement for e-mail publishing and marketing," he says. "RSS suddenly makes the Internet work the way it should. Instead of you searching for everything, the Internet comes to you on your terms."

David Sifry, who runs Technorati provides some far-out possibilities.

"How about getting an alert whenever your backyard motion sensor goes off?" he wonders. "That's easy. But what about combining that with the feeds from the other cameras in your neighborhood, taken at the same time? How about taking the aggregate information from traffic cameras, published to the Web, to be able to more effectively calculate and predict traffic flow during rush hour? How about entirely new industrial applications made possible because the sensors are all describing information in the same format?"

Like I've written before, when I first heard about RSS it seemed like such a fringe technology that may only have a small geek following. Now though, I'm anxious to see where it heads- I really think it could be a very useful tool for managing information, once it's more standardized and stable. Here are Dan's final words...

This is exciting stuff. And the news is just starting to be written.

Via: PaidContent.org