How to Manage an Online Community - My Learnings

Managing an online community can be daunting. I shared some tips on how I have managed and grown Devcenter's community from 200 to over 1,800 members in under a year.

Transcript

1. Managing an Online
   Community
   By Osioke Itseuwa
   Community Manager, Devcenter
   

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2. a distributed community of software developers, designers and
   PMs across Africa, helping clients build world class software.
   

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3. Hello, I am Osioke Onoarue Oarue-Itseuwa
   (aka Sprime).
   ● Traveler
   ● Street Photographer (see https://instagram.com/ganinigeria)
   ● DIYer
   ● Life Hacker (see https://spracks.com)
   ● Explorer (see https://blog.ganinigeria.com)
   ● Open source lover
   In one sentence: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. I am Jack.
   

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4. Me exploring and having fun
   

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5. Street photographs and
   pictures of places I explored
   

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6. My Community history
   2009: Member of the defunct FOSS NG, Founder of the defunct OpenIT
   Community, AIESECer.
   2013: NYSC IT trainer.
   2014/2015: Google Local Guide community lead, Open source project community
   lead (States & Cities and later Disease Info).
   2016/2017: Community manager Devcenter Square, Together with Google
   Developer program, and a GitHub Super Fan.
   

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7. Community focus: Devcenter Square
   400+ people talking weekly,
   750+ people active weekly,
   2,400+ members,
   40+ sub-communities.
   

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8. Screenshot of the Slack
   community
   

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9. Screenshot of Nov 2017
   stats for the Slack
   community
   

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10. Screenshot of all time stats
    for the Slack community
    

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11. How Can You Do It
    In one sentence: Make your community comfortable.
    ● Create code of conduct, guides and community docs
    ○ After creating them, make them very easy to be seen by members
    ● Discussions and chats arranged into different channels
    ○ And make sure members stick to this
    ● Moderation should be on fleek
    ○ DO NOT JOKE WITH MODERATION.
    ● In the early days, welcoming new join ins, personally. Try to do it from time to time
    even as the community goes larger.
    ○ It helps them bond in faster, and makes them fill more settled.
    

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12. Tips and Resources
    ● Join other online communities, study them, be active in them, and learn from them.
    E.g. Feverbee (experts.feverbee.com), CMX Hub on Slack and Facebook
    (cmxslack.github.io), Buffer on Slack (buffer.com/slack), Devcenter Square
    (devcenter-square.github.io)
    ● Read and research a lot. Favourite places to go to: Feverbee.com, CMX Hub
    (cmxhub.com).
    ○ Books: Hooked by Nir Eyal & Platform Revolution by Geoffrey Parker
    

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13. Tips & Resources
    ● Understand a little of User Experience design, how people behave
    (behavioral psychology), product design and people management. It will
    help you create better processes for your members.
    ○ Sign up for hackdesign.org’s class
    ○ Read through productpsychology.com and nirandfar.com
    ○ Play some games on beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com to better understand internet
    bullying and how bad it can be
    ■ Also read this post -
    https://medium.com/humane-tech/the-immortal-myths-about-online-abuse-a15
    6e3370aee
    

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14. Thank you
    @osioke
    bit.ly/dcs-slack
    

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