Steve Dale: steve.dale@collabor8now.comTwitter: @stephendale, @collabor8now

Demonstrating Value With Communities Of

Practice

December 2012

Monday, 3 December 2012

What I will cover

1. What’s the point of online communities?2. Creating value for community members.3. How do you measure value?

Monday, 3 December 2012

1. What’s The Point Of Online Communities?

Monday, 3 December 2012

Local government in England and wales employs a workforce of 2 million people

across 411 local authorities. Each authority is working to deliver the same

700 services to their residents.

Communities of Practice (CoP) platform launched 2006. 120,000

Registered Users and 2000+ CoPs by 2011.

Monday, 3 December 2012It as not quite 700 different processes for delivering the same 700 services, but there were lots of opportunities for sharing good practice and squeezing out greater efficiencies through collaboration and knowledge sharing across the local government sector.

Industrial age practices are no longer relevant to the 21st Century Knowledge

Economy

Labour is replaceable, talent is not. (H Jarche)

Monday, 3 December 2012Routine tasks are increasingly being outsourced. Simple repetitive tasks are done my machines and robots, freeing humans to create value, improve processes and innovate. Labour is replaceable. Talent is not (ref Harold Jarche).

What did this achieve?

Monday, 3 December 2012A silo’d environment encourages silo’d thinking. Humans are by nature social animals, and hence why such as environment as pictured here encouraged the “water cooler” conversations to flourish. For some works it was the only communal space available.

More than a third of enterprise employees are working outside the firewall and need tools that keep them connected with their peers and business applications.Source: Forrester

Monday, 3 December 2012In these austere times, more organisations are looking at how they can reduce costs and improve efficiencies. The cost of office space and office services is coming under increasing scrutiny. The upside of this is that more agile working processes are being introduced, including more working from home, and office desk sharing. However, organisations need to ensure that remote working doesn’t mean isolation, an that home workers must have the right tools to ensure they are connected with their team members, their peers, their managers and the data/information that need to do their jobs.

Static intranets and e-mail are not effective for helping employees find the information

they are looking for.

Knowledge workers spend up to 30% of their time each day looking for data. Source: Butler Group

50% of employee searches for specific data fail to find the data. Source: IDC

In search of relevance

Monday, 3 December 2012We are increasingly information rich and time poor. Finding the right information at the right time has been is a panacea that is not being met by most Intranets, which lag far behind the capabilities of commercial/web search engines. Intranets need to be re-architected to become more than just content management systems. They need to incorporate linked-date capabilities (semantic search), personalisation and more social tools.

I know I can find what I need when I need it.

We share what we knowWe share what

we knowWe share what we know

Social Media

You will need to know this sometime so I will

send it to you now

You will need to know this sometime so I will

send it to you now

You will need to know this sometime so I will

send it to you now

Email

“Social” Is The New Economy

Monday, 3 December 2012Social Media is changing behaviours. People who are familiar with sharing content on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter are far more at ease with sharing information with work colleagues. Enterprise social media systems are gradually removing some of the dependencies on email, though email remains an effective 1:1, secure and regulated communications medium and is unlikely to disappear in the medium or long term.

2. Creating value for community members.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Collaborative Working – some distinctionsPurpose Members Adhesive Duration

Formal work group

To deliver a product or service

Employees who reports to the group’s manager

Job requirements and org structure

Until organisational restructuring

Project team To accomplish a task

Employees assigned by senior management

Project milestones and goals

Until project completion

Social networks

To collect and pass on information

Friends and acquaintances

Mutual needs and interests

As long as people have a reason to connect

Community of Practice

To develop members’ capabilities; to build and exchange knowledge

Members who select themselves

Passion, commitment and identification with the group’s expertise

As long as there is interest in maintaining the group

KIN, Warwick Business SchoolMonday, 3 December 2012The major part of this presentation is focused on Communities of Practice (CoPs) – but what are the distinguishing characteristics of a CoP? Arguably the most important characteristic is that members are self-selected, i.e. they are there because they perceive there is some value in being a member of the CoP. They are there because they WANT to be there.

@stephendale

Knowledge from a trusted source is richer than what we can discover for ourselves

Photo: Flickr.com by Jackie Welberg!

Monday, 3 December 2012

One  of  the  principle  advantages  of  CoPs  is  that  the  membership  is  built  on  TRUST.  There  is  no  anonymity  -­‐  you  are  who  you  say  are.  AuthenAcity  of  the  members  is  one  of  the  foundaAons  for  creaAng  a  trusted  environment,  and  a  key  differenAator  between  CoPs  and  Social  Networks.

@stephendale

But who do you trust?

Monday, 3 December 2012

You  are  far  more  likely  to  trust  members  of  your  CoP,  than  a  more  open  social  network.

Levels of Community Value

Purpose, Rules, Protocol

Sharing, Co-creation

Trust, Loyalty, Advocacy

Broad Participation

Engagement

It’s really hard to start here!

Monday, 3 December 2012Establishing trust, loyalty and advocacy (the willingness to promote and evangelise what you are doing) is a goal to aspire to, and not something that comes without a lot of hard work, from the members and facilitators of the CoP. It is the hallmark of a successful and dynamic CoP, built on sound foundations. Just like a pyramid, you build from the bottom up.

polls

surveys

health checks

management reports

Community Metrics

social network analysis

Google analytics

Community Management

moderation

rewards & incentives

rule enforcement

connecting people

back-channel engagement

forum seeding

comments

blog posts

new member welcome & induction

newsletters

e-bulletins

Outreachcampaigns

Professional Development

networking

identifying good/best practice

attending events

participate in SIGsContent Management

updating FAQs

managing tags, categories, themes

taxonomy management

deleting & archiving

updating links & navigation

Business Planning alignment with business priorities

purpose, goals

Platform Management

upgrades & improvementsfeature selectiontools/apps &

how to use them

Slide re-worked from an original by Dion Hinchliffe

Community Facilitation Is Important Essential

Monday, 3 December 2012Some  of  the  key  ac-vi-es  of  the  Facilitator:Suppor/ng  sociability,  rela/onship  and  trust  building  Seed  and  feed  discussion  topicsMaintain  and  sustain  the  communi/es  healthDirect  knowledge  nuggets  for  capture  and  reuseHelp  to  connect  community  membersProvide  basic  help  as  needed  with  the  tools  Repor/ng  CoP  ac/vity  –  metrics,  evalua/ons  Ensure  the  community  space  is  kept  "/dy"  and  navigable  Monitoring  success  criteria  and  impact

Community Facilitation Time

Content27%

Relationships10%

Events & Activities11%

Business Integration3%

Technology6%

Strategy10%

Growth17%

Moderation16%

6.3hours p

er week on

average

Source: http://mik0ton.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/one-of-the-keys-to-a-successful-online-community/

Monday, 3 December 2012One of the most frequently asked questions from anyone new to CoPs is “how much time does it take to facilitate/moderate/manage”. This analysis, provided by Michael Norton (LGA) is based on over 7 years experience of managing/facilitating CoPs for the local government sector. Note the different activities that are involved.

Source:http://mik0ton.wordpress.com/2012/08/22/i-dont-have-time-to-faciltiate-the-community/

Text

Lean

Fa

cilit

ation

Monday, 3 December 2012This slide also courtesy of Michael Norton at the LGA. Perhaps in contradiction to the previous slide, but identifies that absolute minimum time requirement for community facilitation/management. This also assumes that the CoP is fully established (operational) and not still in it’s early development and engagements stages,

3.How do you measure Value?

Monday, 3 December 2012

Is this valuable?

Monday, 3 December 2012Nutmeg. Weight for weight more valuable than gold in 17th century Europe. A spice held to have powerful medicinal properties. It rocketed in price when physicians in Elizabethan London claimed that their nutmeg pomanders were the only certain cure for the plague.

Measuring ‘Value’.

…but a chicken doesn’t get fatter the more you weigh it!

User Surveys

Total registrations

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

Jan-07

Mar-07

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Sep-07

Nov-07

Jan-08

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May-08

Jul-08

Sep-08

Nov-08

Jan-09

Mar-09

May-09Jul-09

Number of contributing CoP Members

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

Jan-08

Feb-08

Mar-08

Apr-08

May-08

Jun-08

Jul-08 Aug-08

Sep-08

Oct-08

Nov-08

Dec-08

Jan-09

Feb-09

Mar-09

Apr-09

May-09

Jun-09

Percentage of CoP members who are contributors

11.00%

12.00%

13.00%

14.00%

15.00%

16.00%

17.00%

Jan-08

Feb-08

Mar-08

Apr-08

May-08

Jun-08

Jul-08

Aug-08

Sep-08

Oct-08

Nov-08

Dec-08

Jan-09

Feb-09

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Apr-09

May-09

Jun-09

Monday, 3 December 2012Aggregating quantitative metrics does not provide evidence of either success or failure of a CoP. For example, we need to understand:

1. The original purpose and intended outcomes of the community. Some will be light on discussion and strong on shared document building and vice versa. Others will be ‘one-shot’ supporting a single challenge.

2. The rhythm or cycle of the community. Not all communities will be a hive of activity, some will support its participants at a low level of interaction over a long period, others for short bursts around face-to-face-meetings or events.

3. The quality of the interactions and/or the viewings it attracts. An online community may be composed of lengthy, high quality, position statements or case-studies with relatively little discussion. Others, equally valid, may be filled with chit-chat and

gossip, sharing experience in a way that provides moral support for isolated individuals.

Two key lessons:• Don’t rely on metrics to claim your community is successful.• Use metrics and indicators to understand your community better.So any measure of success is likely to be a mix of qualitative and quantitative data.

Managers need to avoid interfering with the way that the CoPs are being run, particularly in the sense of setting targets and timescales. The more informed managers are aware that traditional command and control processes do not work for CoPs, and that instilling corporate processes on largely free-wheeling communities is likely to stifle and inhibit innovation and learning.

However, there is a cost in keeping this technology and support infrastructure going, and it is reasonable to expect questions from senior managers on what the benefits are and what the ROI is. It remains something of a conundrum on how best to respond to these questions in a way that will give senior managers the confidence to maintain investment.

Social Network Analysis provides insight and prompts questions

“I frequently or very frequently receive

information from this person that helps me

do my job.”

Monday, 3 December 2012•Knowledge flows along existing pathways in organizations. •To understand the knowledge flow, find out what the patterns are. •Create interventions to create, reinforce, or change the patterns to improve the knowledge flow.•Identify critical resources - e.g. Paul in this diagram. What would happen to the network if Paul decided to leave?

The ROI ConundrumCost of one face to face conference:

• 100 people attending an event in London

• Cost of rooms + lunch = £5000

• Average cost of travel = £30 per person

One face-to-face conference would cost £8000

Cost of an on-line community conference is virtually £0

If you can keep the ‘I’ small no-one will ask about the

R!

For those that measure value in £.s.d.

Monday, 3 December 2012So, if one wants to think of ‘value’ solely in terms of hard cash savings – then online conferences can save money. But it is wrong to confuse ‘costs’ with ‘value’. The real value comes from the learning and sharing opportunities provided by the on-line conference. There are also far more effective networking opportunities provided in a virtual (on-line) environment, where posted comments (in forums, blogs etc.) can reach a far wider audience.

The real value is in understanding your community

Contibutors

Power contibutors Observers

Inactive

Organisations will pay increasing attention to the people who make

collaboration possible and profitable.

Monday, 3 December 2012Understanding how your community works is the first step in developing your intervention strategies. Your contributors will always outnumber your observers (some call them ‘lurkers’).make sure you look after and give recognition to your contributors. They are the life-blood of the community. Ensure you are monitoring statistics for inactive users (the ones who have registered but have not engaged). Can they be encouraged to become active members? Should their accounts be removed if they are only adding to the clutter?

Anecdotes should be encouraged…and published!

“The concept of online conferences is a winner, instead of spending hours on a train to sit through various Powerpoint presentations, you access the conference when it’s convenient to you.“User, Hart District Council 

“If you find yourself drifting apart from your peers and you have to rely on regional meetings that take place several months apart, then the online community can bring and keep you together – its also great way of staying in touch with industry changes.”

User, West Lothian Council

Source: http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/

“Many of the online groups that we set up on the site either reflected new projects or were new groups working on a new priority that wasn’t covered under the business unit or structure. So for our change groups for example, it was a place for those new projects and communities to have a home.”

Innovation Unit, Kent County Council.

Monday, 3 December 2012Stories and anecdotes should be published, promoted and rewarded. Narrate your works and achievements. This will demonstrate value to other members and your managers.

Key Points

• Social is the new economy - we need to be connected and engaged to keep our knowledge relevant.

• CoPs are places for both professional and personal development.

• Effective community facilitation will enhance the value of the community to its members.

• Not everything that can be measured counts, and not everything that counts can be measured. Focus on understanding your community.

Monday, 3 December 2012

A final thought...

“Go to the People. Live with them Learn from them. Love them.

Start with what they know. Build with what they have.

But with the best leaders, when the work is done the task is accomplished. The people will say.....

‘We have done this ourselves’”

Lao Tsu, Chinese Philosopher (Contemporary of Confucius). Taken from Tao Te Ching c 500BC

Monday, 3 December 2012

Email: steve.dale@collabor8now.comTwitter: @stephendale, @collabor8nowProfile: http://about.me/stephendale

Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

License.

Monday, 3 December 2012