The voice of the people will always speak louder
than the din of narrow interests |
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-- Bill Clinton (Second Inaugural
Address)
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Happy 2001! It's been quite a year in the online community
biz -- a time of consolidation, retrenchment and reinvention. This
was the year that we saw high-profile
community portals struggling to survive, and community
startups going under - while community-oriented tools and systems
became more tightly integrated into diverse activities like corporate training,
multi-player gaming, and customer support. For me personally, this was
the year that "community" became less a buzzword, and more an essential
and accepted part of running an online business.
I also noticed an industry-wide shift away from staff-managed,
merit-based volunteer programs. The AOL
and EA
lawsuits have had a chilling effect on community leadership programs --
and many companies are actively
dismantling the volunteer infrastructure they've so carefully built
up.
Concurrently, I'm seeing a surge of interest in bottom-up,
member-driven mechanisms for spotlighting enthusiasts and empowering leaders.
I described an
early version of one such system - Slashdot - in my book, and there
are some intriguing new designs coming down the pike. I think we'll see
rapid evolution in this area, driven both by financial and legal concerns.
It's one of many signs that we're all learning how to use this powerful
medium more effectively.
At the close of 2000, I had the pleasure of sitting down
with John Hagel III (author of Net Gain and Net Worth) and hearing his
thoughts about the state of Web communities. Here's an excerpt from
that conversation.
| AJK: |
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Looking back on Net Gain, what do you think you got right? |
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| JH3: |
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Well, the core thing I wanted to communicate with Net Gain was the
idea that there are very different business models that are enabled by
online environments. At the highest level, I wanted to challenge businesspeople
to think out of the box about what's feasible online, and not just mechanically
apply their offline business models.
If you click down one more level, and think about the unique capabilities
- the core values -- of the Network, you'll realize that one of the things
the Network does best is connect people. It's not just about information
access and buying things - it's about connecting people, and developing
relationships. So I think that message stands the test of time. |
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| AJK: |
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In Net Gain, you proposed a model that says, in a nutshell: "If
you grow an online community, and get people to come back repeatedly and
trust you with their information, then you'll be well set-up to monetize
your community through e-commerce." Yet we've seen a number of "community
companies" go through unsuccessful attempts to integrate e-commerce into
their community activities. What can we learn from these early examples? |
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| JH3: |
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I still believe that you can start with community and work your way
into commerce - but from the examples I've seen, the people who start with
the community dimension tend to do it because that's their mindset, that's
where they're most comfortable. And they're not very commerce-oriented
- so when they actually try to attempt commerce, it's often a weak, poorly-executed
implementation.
I never had it in mind that as communities move into commerce, the community
organizers should become retailers in the traditional sense - that is,
selecting, organizing and mechandising products to the community. A more
likely model is to take the community relationships, and figure out how
to most efficiently connect people to what they need, when they need it
and do it by leveraging the commerce opportunities out there, rather than
creating a "walled garden" where community members are encouraged to buy
only through you. |
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| AJK: |
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Does that message apply in the B2B space, as well as the consumer
space? |
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| JHJ: |
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In Net Gain, we focused on the consumer space - which people instinctively
understand, and at some level is simpler to deal with. We de-emphasized
the B2B space because it's so complicated. As soon as you start to
parse out not just verticals, and job functions within verticals, it gets
very messy very fast.
I think many people are too simplistic about the B2B marketplace. They
think that everyone in a particular industry has a common set of interests
and needs. But if you're targeting commerce, you're actually going after
a very limited set of people -- typically purchasing directors who have
that responsibility. And maybe you also go after influencers who influence
the specification of the purchase. But you're NOT going after the average
employee in the business.
So you ask, "What needs do purchasing directors have to communicate
with each other? And what's sharable, and what's not? And your answers
depend on whether you're talking about strategic purchasing decisions for
core product components in your particular business, or peripheral purchasing
decisions which are generic across all industries, and not central to your
core product.
For example, I couldn't imagine purchasing directors in the computing
industry wanting to compare notes about who has the best source for memory
chips, and what kind of deal they were able to strike with one supplier
vs. another, because that's highly competitive information. Yet they might
be willing to share that information if they're talking about office supplies. |
What do you think about the current state of Web communities?
If you want to respond to the ideas raised in this newsletter, send
me your comments -- I'll read them all, and publish the best ones
in the next newsletter. I look forward to hearing from you. |
The Newsletter for Savvy Community-Builders