Busy

I’ve been considering a number of things for this blog. One being moving it to my own domain and doing some updates/refocusing. This is mainly because I think it will allow me to have more frequent updates (or rather, be more motivated to find time to update as it will allow me to write about the number of things I’m quite active in… which leads me to my next point.

Sorry about the lack of updates. I have been busy doing game design for Ascension. I’ve also been doing game design for a team I am working with on seeing where creating an MMORPG demo goes (should be available in a week or two), and designing/coding an interface for the alpha testing of a web 2.0ish product a friend of mine and I have been developing.

When either of the two become more public news, I will update accordingly.

I will also be making a post shortly about the book “Citizen Markters” that I’ve mentioned reading in a few prior posts.

Blue

I wanted to take a break from some business stuff for a little bit and excercise the creative, right side of my brain a bit more. I quite enjoy creative writing, so I decided to just start writing. Below are the fruits of my labor. I enjoyed the process, as I found a new voice I wasn’t aware I had.

Blue

I played with a ball, once, when I was young. It was large and blue, this ball. When I caught it I held it close because it smelt of rubber. But it wasn’t a bad smell, it smelt of new rubber, a scent that filled my lungs with an odd joy. A kind of guilty pleasure, but not quite. It was the kind of feeling you get when you’re happy, but you don’t want to tell anyone because you know they would give you that look- you know the kind. Yet still I held it close for the smell, at least for a moment because that’s all it took.

That’s all it took for the ball to tell me, to reverberate its message through the air around me, to whisper softly in my ear the next victim it wished to take. Then, as if in direct obedience, like a machine that couldn’t help but comply, I complied. I flung the ball towards that victim, and as it was propelled from its obedient machine, it always had a particular movement. A movement of wobbling while shouting ever so slightly as it had its own battles against the air molecules that resisted it. It held a particular majesty as it sailed through the air, too. But it never sailed long, no. Blue was impatient. It never took long for Blue to take its great climax. A climax everyone waited for, longed for, really. Because there was an everyone, everywhere. They were in front. Then to your side, your proclaimed ally’s- but they never were. They said they were, but they all knew they weren’t. That was okay though, because you knew it, too. Others were behind you, too, and you learned to never trust the ones behind. But still, no matter where they were -everyone waited. Those in front, those to your side, those behind, they all waited for that climactic moment, for that special moment in time when Blue impacted its chosen victim- for the sound of the impact. It was all about the noise. No one could ever explain what it sounded like. But we all knew what the sound felt like. Something like the sound the universe would make if it were to, more or less, explode.

And sure enough, the Blue finally took its climax., and it was quick. Blue impacted the victim it whispered ever so alluringly to me moments before. I was always sad after that climax. Everyone was. But it was never too long before you heard another climax, and then another person joined the ranks of everyone behind you. But it always felt long before another climax. Sometimes I would hear Blue’s brother, Red, as he shouted while I effortlessly moved from his path. I knew I wasn’t his victim. I made sure I wasn’t his victim. Sometimes people asked me why I was never a victim. I joked that it was because Blue and I had a deal. We didn’t really, that would be silly. But sometimes I wondered. I wondered if Blue whispered to Red, or to his other machines before they responded obediently. Maybe we did have a deal. I am not sure, but I do know that I almost always had the fake allies to my side. Until that one day when I had a real one… and that was the first time I became a victim.

How to build a community (part 1)

Following a recent post over at Creating Passionate Users that addressed building communities, I thought I would expand and add to a few of the elements that were mentioned as I have been doing community building in one form or another for a while. What I will be adding/expanding on is what I have used in the past to give me results such as a 47% increase in the number of active community members after only 1 month of starting these methods. The posts that will follow this will be dealing specifically with forums as that’s where a lot of my experience lies. I would consolidate this into a single post, however, it would be quite long, and seeing as how this post is already and I don’t have time to write everything now anyways, I will break them into a few posts.

A peak as to what the other parts will be:

• Encourage (that’s this post)
• Engage
• Remember
• Moderate

The very first thing mentioned over at Creating Passionate Users was to encourage new users. This is certainly true, however, I feel it misses a particular point. I feel it aught to be changed to Encourage everyone through simplicity. The easier you make it for members of your community to get involved, the more they will get involved. Over on Creating Passioante Users, though, it aims encouragement specifically at new members. After I elaborate on encouraging through simplicity I will explain why its important to not just encourage new members.

But how do you encourage through simplicity? How do you make it easier for members to get involved? As I see it, there are two means that can be used to accomplish this. The first is ease of mind in terms of what they think the community’s reaction will be to what they say, and how this will change others perception of them. The second is ease-ability in terms of how long it will take to get involved or how difficult it may be.

Ease of Mind Example:
An example of the ease of mind in use would be the “Introduce yourself” type threads. These threads provide an environment where new users have an opportunity to start their involvement with almost no risk of being persecuted by the existing community. It is safe because it’s about something they know better than anyone else – themselves.

Ease-Ability Example:
Ease-ability plays into this when it comes to how you direct new community members (or existing ones) to these focused threads (or activities). The easier you make it for them to understand what’s going on, get to it, and complete it so they feel more engaged with the community, the better. I will address this more when I write my Engage post.

In addition, there are a number Internet utilities that allow you to institute the concept of ease-ability and ease of mind. These utilities are often good ice breakers for new community members. Frappr, for example, is a great one. Not only that, it is a hidden power. Frappr is a utility that allows people to place their location on a map. This spurs conversations both within the thread itself and between members. Best of all, it also allows you (the “community manager”) to get a much better idea of where members of your community are located. This is especially helpful when it comes to planning events, estimating shipping costs for giving out free swag, and so forth.

Encouragement isn’t just for new members, it’s for every member.

While this partially deals with engagement, which I will write about soon, it is important to comment on now. Encouraging existing members for their efforts, their energy, their time, and their posts is just as important as encouraging new members to get involved and make it easy and pleasant. In fact, some of the nicest things community members have said have been sparked from the simple fact that they were made aware that people noticed their efforts and thanked them for it.

My messages were always hand tailored (again, more on that in my engagement post). They often looked something like:

“Hey X!

I notice that you’ve been posting a lot lately, but not only that, you’ve been posting a lot of really valuable information! It’s great to have people who are a part of this community and who are so eager to help others. I especially found X thread helpful, not just for new members, but for myself as well!

Thanks for spending the time to help us in creating the best community we can. It couldn’t get to where it is, or to where we all hope it will go without you!”

I often got many messages in response along the lines of:

“Thank you so much! I love being a part of this community but I never knew that people took such notice of my posts!”

Or

“Thank you for your kind words! I always try to encourage new people in the community and be as open and sharing as possible. I am that it sounds like I am glad succeeding in that :-)”

Growing a community isn’t about bringing new people in, as important as that can be. It’s about making sure the current members feel valued and appreciated. If they feel that way, then chances are you won’t be worrying too much about new, dedicated community members joining.

So I say “Encourage” is lacking. Instead, I say encourage everyone through simplicity.