If You Build It, They Won’t Come

Everyone wants to create a community and invite their users and prospects to join, but few people understand that communities create themselves. The best communities exist because the users of a product or service banded together to make it happen, not because the company stood up a community site and invited people to start talking.

Transcript

1. If You Build It They Won’t Come Amanda Folson Developer Advocate @ GitLab @AmbassadorAwsum
2. Who Am I? • Developer Advocate at GitLab • Have done community work professionally for several years now • Professional conference attendee and tinkerer
3. What is a community? 1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common. 2. a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.
4. Why community?
5. From a User Perspective • To receive support • To request features • To find like-minded people • To belong
6. From a Company Perspective • Inform about products/projects • Give support • Receive feedback • Source additional contributors • Fostering goodwill
7. Where it gets tricky... • People will make their own communities • You can’t control these ◦ BUT they can be guided • Growth is organic • Companies will set up a community and it won’t grow OR • It grows and they screw it up
8. Mistakes • People create communities for the sake of creating communities • No defined goals • No plans to nurture growth • Community is only used as sales funnel
9. Bridging the Gap • How can you find/create and nurture your community? • Community likely exists • Don’t clobber it
10. Community Managers • More of a cheerleader than a manager • Lead by example • Needs to be trusted • Not always an official position • Facilitates communication between parties • Avoid bureaucracy
11. Make Communication Easy
12. Conflict • With enough people (i.e. more than one) conflict will happen • Response is crucial • We all know bad PR when we see it • Happens for a variety of reasons
13. Conflict Resolution • Don’t take sides • Facilitate civil discourse • Negotiate! • Be open • DO NOT get aggressive
14. Avoiding Conflict • Adopt clear communication practices • Solicit feedback frequently • Be visible • Be approachable • Be empathetic
15. A Word About Codes of Conduct • One size doesn’t fit all • One might not be needed or wanted • Pitch one and allow for collaboration
16. Never Stop Improving • Always solicit feedback ◦ Even if it’s hard to hear • Surveys ◦ Offer anonymity
17. Metrics • Post counts aren’t a good metric ◦ Post frequency is better • Look to social media • Data is everywhere ◦ Time from PR to merge ◦ Current number of developers/rate of growth ◦ Number of downloads
18. Surveys • Great for quick feedback • Low barrier to feedback • Note that scales of 1-10 can be interpreted differently
19. Support • Be thinking about how to support the community • What resources are needed? • What is the commitment? • What are the goals?
20. How will we bring people in? • People need to be incentivized • They seek out communities because they need/want something • They need to belong • They need to have purpose • They need to feel welcome/invited
21. Thank you! Amanda Folson - Developer Advocate at GitLab amanda@gitlab.com @AmbassadorAwsum