Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Websites

I attended two workshops at today's Web 2.0 Expo: Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Best Practices and Patterns for Designing the Social Web and Designing Social Websites.

The first presentation was more of an read out on the analysis of different social features popular on sites like FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr and others. I wish they would have done more of an analysis of which ones actually work, what makes them work and who they work on. Anyhow, the slides are still interesting and can be viewed here.

For me the more interesting presentation was from Christina Wodtke. I've embedded her slides below and here are some of my key takeaways:

"Behavior is a function of a person and his/her environment," this is Christina's theory to social sites. Environment is half the equation and something we can control. Christina shared an interesting analogy that you can follow the same process to designing the architecture of a building as you would a website. For example when you build a wide and open staircase it becomes a natural place for people to take a seat and socialize (for more on this check out A Pattern Language).

Christina identifies 4 motivations for contribution:

1. Reciprocity - an example is LinkedIn endorsements, people who ask for endorsements are likely to give an endorsement back. Another example is when fund raising groups send you mailing labels as a gift, by doing so people are more likely to return the favor by opening their wallets.
2. Reputation - Cisco's NetPro discussion forum do a good job of this by through a point system.
3. Increased Need of Efficacy - The reason people use sites like Digg is because it's an effective way to obtain information they have something to gain.
   
4. Attachment to and Need of a Group - This goes back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, people want to have a sense of belonging. Then when they build their reputation it increases their self esteem.
   

Anyone who's building a social website should learn more about the Ross Mayfield's Power Law of Participation where a ' low threshold participation amounts to high engagement'. Then follow the AOF method:

1. Define your activity (ie. what are your users doing? what do they have to do for you to be successful)
   
2. Identify social objects (ie. videos for Netflix, photos for Flickr)
   
3. Choose your features (ie. sharing, tagging, advice)

(Note: this is an older version of the deck she shared at the Web 2.0 Expo, the slides are almost identical, when/if she updates SlideShare, I'll update the embed.)

Design for Product Managers

View more presentations from cwodtke.

Web 2.0 Expo - Friday Session Wrap-Up

I wasn't able to make it the Web 2.0 Expo on Thursday but I was there all day Friday and attended a few good sessions. But it was Friday after a long week so I apologize for the delay in getting this post up but here are my key takeaways:

Keynote: Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs
This guy is hilarious and he authors an entertaining blog from the perspective of Steve Jobs (on crack). He talked about how and why he started the blog and why he thinks it works. In the end it boils down to boredom, fear, an idea, and an engaged audience.

Boredom because it started as a prank that happened to take on a life of its own. Fear because as a traditional Forbes tech writer he saw print publications coming to an end due to the emergence of blogs. An idea - "what would Steve Jobs write if he really did go nuts?" And an engaged audience that included 90K monthly readers after just 6 months and 25-50 emails a day with suggestions on what to write next.

Games 2.0: Why the Future of Games Looks More Like Zombies and Scrabulous and Less Like Halo 3
This session ended up being a little different than what I expected but what was interesting is that while social networking sites are trying to deploy game dynamics in their communities as discussed in the 'Children of Flickr' session, game sites are trying to embed social relationships and social context into games.

The Audience is the Medium: Video 2.0 & Online Communities
I was a little late to this session but joined in on the debate of Live vs. On-Demand video. Live events have a higher interaction and allow viewers to be part of the conversation. BUT...the web is not equip to handle live video distribution and advertisers look at the big numbers as oppose to engagement. Ultimately there's a place for both and the decision needs to be made based on the objective.

The Power of Online Communities: Lessons from the Best of the Consumer & Business Community Managers
This session included community managers from SFDC, Dell, Yahoo!, Kiva and Flickr. Here are a few things worth passing on:

• SFDC put the responsibility of their community into the hands of their product managers by making it part of their job to create, encourage and maintain conversations for their product.
• Kiva lucked out and avoided formal marketing all together. They grow 100% organically through word of mouth - but a big part of this was knowing and connecting with the right people.
• Flickr suggests being 'elastic' and don't just try to make your audience do what you want them to do.
• When building a community create a feedback mechanism. Don't just listen - engage.
• When hiring a community manager look for someone with relationship building and communication skills - PR background a plus. Also someone who authors their own blog or possibly someone in your community.

Best-kept Secrets to Search Engine Optimization Success: the Art and the Science
This was a session on Wednesday that I attended but didn't have good notes for. This guy - Stephan Spencer - really knows his stuff but it was hard to keep up. Luckily he made his slides available and you can view them here:

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Bringing Web 2.0 to your Enterprise

This was a vendor driven session presented by David Carter, CTO of Awareness. Awareness helps companies build web 2.0 communities for internal or external use.

David started off the session stating that the challenges we faced in 1988 haven't changed within an enterprise. I thought this was interesting because as much as things changed they also stay the same. We are still trying to improve collaboration, trying to connect the right people and trying to make information easier to find (that's always fun). And these challenges only get harder as the organization grows.

David continued to talk about why this is a problem internally and that "the" collaboration tool within the enterprise is still EMAIL. Why is that a problem? Well, when people leave the organization so does all of that intellectual property. Common sense for most of my readers but it's still a problem most enterprises haven't solved. There's still a need to figure out what content to pull out of email and into collaboration tools like blogs, wiki's and discussion forums.

In the case of McDonald’s, Awareness was looking for creative ways to engage people and get them to share ideas. They did this during an event registration process which simultaneously built a person's online profile and with an optional question at the end. Hundreds of people were contributing content that was then made public and shared with the rest of the organization. By doing this they removed the barrier of entry and made it very easy and convenient for people to contribute. This was one of my favorite examples and I think it can be leveraged in multiple ways to kick start a new community.

Community Building: Good, Bad, and Ugly

I am at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco today surrounded by hundreds of other web geeks like myself.

I started off the day at the "Community Building: Good, Bad, and Ugly" session which was moderated by Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research and included three panelists: Dawn Foster from Jive Software, Bob Duffy from Intel, and Kellie Parker from PC World and Macworld.

Here's a summary of the panel discussion:

What is the opportunity when it comes to building a community?
Communities provide the platform for your evangelists to shine and talk about your products. This builds brand loyalty and allows you to engage with this audience and also learn and get feedback from them on your company/products.

Should you build or join a community?
Both. When people come to your side you want to give them the ability to interact and engage when they are there but you also want to interact in communities where you are the subject.

What skills are needed to manage a community?
Kellie explains her role as a community manager as the host of a party. Her role is to add value by introducing people and encourage conversation with the different people who show up.
Need to be diplomatic and let negative people know that they were heard. You need to have a customer mindset and remember that you are there to serve them - not the other way around.

You need to balance being an advocate of your company to your community while being the community advocate back to your company.

What are the challenges around community building?
Intel's biggest challenge was the organization and the resources available. To get around this Bob spent a lot of time getting data and building a strong strategy - then spent a few weeks evangelizing the plan to get buy-in and support.

Dawn's challenge was getting people to come after it was built. In this situation they reached out to their influencers and evangelist and they helped spread the word. By brining them in early and giving them beta access to the site they embraced the opportunity.

Dealing with trolls or negative people, don't be quick on the trigger. Be patient and allow the community to jump in . If your evangelists jump in it is seen as much more credible.
Getting people to engage can be a challenge. In this case Kellie recommends starting with something simple that everyone has an answer to.

What's the ROI, how do you measure success?
The common answer - it's based on the objective. Intel looked at organic traffic and how much their blogs and forums are driving that traffic as well as the increased number of logins and registration. Their goal is to build a stronger, loyal customer base. Jive is looking at participation and the number of messages posted. They don't try to tie it to sales and look at the community as an awareness tool. PC World/Macworld looks at both page views and interaction with number of messages posted.

Web 2.0 Expo - Session Summaries Part 1

Although the WebGuild Web 2.0 conference started out strong I can't say it stayed that way the rest of the day. With each session being only 45-minutes it was hard to get past the basics that I think most people in the room are already comfortable with. Also the quality of moderators ranged from - 'why are you even here' to 'stop badgering the panelists' to 'great way to keep the conversation going.'

I attended 5 sessions, here are my key takeaways for the first two: Community Building and Social Media Apps in the Enterprise (I'll get to the others in my next post).

Community Building

Moderated by Tom Corthrel, Vice President of Lithium with the following panelists: Jonathan Abrams, Founder & CEO of Socializr, Scott Wilder, General Manager of Small Business Online Communities at Intuit and Sylvia Marino, Executive Director of Community Operations at Edmonds.com.

The session started off asking what platform the panelists had used to build their communities. Both Intuit and Edmonds.com had parts of their communities built with Web Crossing. Edmonds.com also uses MovableType 4 for their blogs - everything else was homegrown and in Socializr's case open source.

When asked the open ended question of how they define success it came back to the customer. The ultimate goal in each case was to enhance the customers experience and give them the information they are looking for. Here are a few specifics of what that broke down to:

• Resolution Rates - the ability for users to solve user problems


• User Engagement - how well the content was consumed


• Community Enablement - allowing customers to build their own community and share resources with them

Then there was the question anyone who has tried to create a community has struggled with - how do you get people engaged and how do you motivate your thought leaders (particularly within the corporation)? Sylvia brought up the fact that Microsoft product managers are actually rated against the online product ratings. I personally like this approach and think it's the best way to get everyone thinking about the customer first - all of the time. Other softer approaches are to give people 'points for participation' and hope that the self gratification is enough to keep them engaged. Although I agree with Scott that a little hand holding can go a long way and of course Jonathan's point that you need to make it easy is a must.

Social Media Apps in the Enterprise

Moderated by Sylvia Marino, Executive Director of Community Operations at Edmonds.com with the following panelists: Anshu Sharma, Senior Director of Platform Strategy at Salesforce.com, Robert Rueckert, Senior Investment Manager at Intel Capital and Ajay Gandhi, Senior Director of Enterprise Social Computing at BEA Systems.

This session was focused around how enterprises use social media apps internally to communicate with each other. BEA Systems seems to have what many people talk about - a Facebook/LinkedIn-like platform that allows employees to find experts related to a specific topic. They do this primarily with tag clouds and ranking functionality. Although he admits it was a bit of a challenge to change people's behavior to do some of the "work" by tagging the content - the reputation-effect ended up being the motivator that got people on the bandwagon. With the "Semantic Web" some of this can be done automatically with search terms that were used to find the content (that would be cool).

An interesting point that Ajay brought up is the organizational complex that an app like this can create. When the new grad joins and is active in the internal communities and looking like the expert how is his/her boss going to feel about that? Maybe you don't need such a structured hierarchy anymore - one idea that Ajay brought up was the ability to capture knowledge and use semantics to recommend the right mix of people for a project team. Hmmm...do I hear enterprise 3.0? I wonder how long it will take us to get there.

I really like one key point that Anabu made around 'security' - it sometimes seems like IT has taken security precautions so far that it has handicapped some corporations. When challenged about security, Anabu asked his IT group what their security policy was on email and phone calls. These are two modes of communication that employees within the enterprise have the ability to freely communicate with each other with "no control" of the content that gets out. His point: don't over think social media apps.

Casting the Social Networking Net

Napoleon Bonaparte once said that only fear and interest unite men. Well, I have about a million customers with very common interests and now I’m tasked with bringing them together.

You may remember a couple of weeks back when I wrote about Business 2.0’s struggle to stay alive and the revelation that they had a thriving, active community of people willing to band together to save the site from impending doom. As remarkable as it was, it surprised and concerned me that they had such a healthy community that never actually interacted.

I started thinking about the very question I asked 'do you have a secret community that needs to be unleashed?' The answer for me is yes. We have a program with over 20,000 members who are only able to communicate with each other once a year at an event that we host for them. The $64,000 question of course is: what else should be doing? How do we tactfully and effectively encourage interaction amongst this community? Try to talk them all into joining our Facebook page? Probably not.

The Business 2.0 situation is somewhat unique. Their users were compelled to pull together and take action to serve a common self interest. So, short of faking a business closure, what compelling events could unite a bunch of users whose only common interest is my product?