Online Community Building and the Future of Websites

Matthew BurnettPro Bono Net

Travis AugustPro Bono Net

Outline

What is a community? What is an online or virtual community? Why develop online communities? Building and sustaining online

communities Tools and services for building online

communities Examples of online communities Questions/Contact information

What is community?

A community is a group of people who interact and share certain things as a group, including intent, belief, resources, preferences, needs, risks and a number of other conditions that may be present and common, and affect the identity of the participants and their degree of adhesion.

From “Community” on Wikipedia.org (a very good example of a robust online community)

What are some examples of real world communities? What makes them communities?

What is an online (or virtual) community?

An online community has the same characteristics as a real world community, except that the interactions and sharing take place (primarily) online.

A major benefit of online communities is that they can be both widely distributed and deeply networked, a feature that is supported by various online tools and services.

What are some examples of online communities that you belong to?

Why develop online communities?

Recruit membership/volunteers Increase visibility Share information/resources with a

wider network Organize/activate users around

issues or causes Coordinate trainings, events and

other activities

Tools and services for building online communities

There are a wealth of tools and services available to build and support online communities. These tools are sometimes referred to as “social software” or Community 2.0 (a derivative of Web 2.0). What distinguishes them is that they all emphasize collaboration among users.

Here are a few examples that have proven themselves to be useful, or may prove themselves be useful, to the poverty law community.

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Statewide Websites: Client sites:

Feedback Newsletters Online surveys

Advocate sites: Interactive content (calendars, news,

libraries, etc.) Listservs Multimedia

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Blogs/Blawgs (law blogs) Online journals where authors post a series of

articles in chronological order Take on a specific topic or cater to a specific

community of users Users can generally post comments/feedback Special features like track/linkbacks (notifies

an author that their entry has been linked to), RSS and inclusion in blog search engines (i.e. Technorati)

Free or small monthly fee, depending on the service

shlep: the Self-Help Law ExPress

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Webcasts Live/archived video streamed on the

internet (internet broadcasting) Can be used for advocate trainings,

client community education, etc. Live webcasts may include interactive

chat.

NYC Pro Bono Center

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Podcasts Like webcasts, only audio Can be syndicated using RSS or other

services (users can subscribe to a podcasts)

Relatively low bandwidth, can be downloaded and played with mobile devices (i.e. ipods, cell phones)

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Wikis Website that allows users to interact

and collaborate on a project or resource Users can add, delete and modify

information Tracks changes over time Can be made public or private

FEMAAnswers.org

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Content tags Metadata/terms associated with a piece of

content Folksonomy (ground-up) v. taxonomy (top-

down) Can be tagged by creators, consumers or both Examples:

Social bookmarking: used to store, share and search web bookmarks (i.e. del.icio.us)

Photo sharing: used to organize photos based on tags (i.e. flickr)

del.icio.us/popular/law

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) An easy way to syndicate content to

your community. Users can digest feeds into their:

Websites Blogs Newsreaders (also called feed readers or

feed aggregators) A simple way to bring relevant content

to your community.

IllinoisProBono.org

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Webinars/Online Meetings Collaborate using online tools (i.e. Webex,

GotoMeeting) to review documents, conduct trainings, etc.

Users call-in to a conference call number Can be saved for further trainings or to archive

project materials Reduce time and costs associate with travel,

increased audience (particularly when working with rural populations of clients or advocates)

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Online Project Management Share documents and interact with

other project partners online Can be for long-term or short-term

projects Commercial products/services are

available (i.e. Basecamp), but free services like wikis and blogs may work just as well

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Internet Forums Allow users to post questions and

answers using a simple, web-based application.

Allow administrators to set up different categories for discussion

Posts are threaded, which provides users a “map” of the discussion

Tools and services for building online communities (cont.)

Mobile Technologies SMS (text messaging) Instant Messaging to text mobile

phones Sending/syncing data between PDAs,

mobile phones, online services, etc. (i.e. photos, documents)

What’s next?

Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)

Identify your target audience Who are you trying to reach?

Example: clients, pro bono lawyers, law students

How will you reach them? Example: at the legal aid office,

communications with law firms/schools, substantive listservs, etc.

Why will they be interested? Example: to solve a legal problem, gain

insight into a new area of practice/career, networking opportunities

Building and sustaining online communities

Identify your goals What a your goals for building an online

community? Example: to build greater awareness of your

site’s resources How will building an online community satisfy

these goals? Example: sharing resources with a wider

audience will help build greater awareness How will you know if/when the goals have been

satisfied? Example: more resources downloaded from

the site; increase in demand for new resources, etc.

Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)

Identify the kinds of sharing and interactions that you hope to foster/facilitate What kinds of sharing or interactions?

One-to-one, one-to-many, many to many Do the interactions need to be real-time

or can they be asynchronous? What kinds of tools or services will help

to facilitate these interactions?

Building and sustaining online communities (cont.)

Identify any rules or community guidelines What are the rules or guidelines?

Example: flame-free, on-topic How will they be communicated?

Example: Join email, site policy/terms of use

How will they be enforced? Example: Warning, canceling membership

Second Life

EnviroLink

Common Circle

N-TEN

Global Voices

TakingITGlobal

Questions/Contact Information

Questions?

Contact information: Matthew Burnett

mburnett@probono.net Travis August

taugust@probono.net