Wednesday, March 4 was already the fourth # CMNL meeting. This time, the Caballero Factory Wink Waves and the stage for an interesting measuring up between Dutch community managers. Nice to see how we can become a kickoff group of five people in four meetings have grown to a Linkedin group with over 70 members and nearly 25 professionals last night, despite the municipal still sought out the Hague.

The host facilitates the snacks and the program content, so last night was the turn of René Jacobs of Wink Waves to their experiences with community management revealed to do. The experiences of Wink Waves are based on the four years that they are as an agency for social media and knowledge exist, in which they practice experiences from the establishment of online comunities to customers combined with scientific research. That it leads to an interesting approach to community management discipline was evident from the lively discussions that arose yesterday.

The presentation was in the main dominated by two issues: how do you design for online communities and what role it plays online community? Two questions for community managers in a knowledge intensive society and organization of course, extremely relevant. Principle is that where 40% of the work we all do consists of knowledge intensive work, we each facilitated to be in our work suitable partners to find, learn together, to give meaning and to cooperate and finally another to fascinate and bind. Social media is the belief, may play an important role. These principles, however, have significant implications for how to design online communities and look at how the role of community managers fit in it. It forces us to think beyond features and actions and think about how the game functions and actions that facilitate the community is played.

How do you design for online communities?

The model for designing online communities (or knowledge-intensive environments) is based on the theory of Sociology and around Wenger Communities of Practice (since I still have a thesis and the appropriate blog posts written about). The Theory of Wenger's about how we as people interact, collaborate and learn. Sociality, the natural geneigheid to come together, it is central. That sociality is the dualities between "Social Structures" (the influence of group behavior has on you as an individual) and "Situated Experience" (you choose the behavior you exhibited spreading, but does have an impact on the group) and the "Theories of Practice" (we do) "and" Theories of identity (who we are) on the other. These four dimensions provide the theory how social groups work and develop.

The position is that if you facilitate this process (whether through the use of technology), then you will have four dimensions should give full scope to develop. What it comes with it is caught in the four "Realms" (domains) in the picture above.

• The Realm of enabling practice: facilitating what people always wanted to do
• The Realm of mimi cking Reality: In line with ideas and patterns that practitioners already have (terminology can be very important!)
• The Realm of identity building: Let members can connect with the group, let them feel that they belong.
• The Realm of actualizing self: Do more members out of themselves. Hold a mirror up to them how they stand compared to the group and the group towards them.

It sparked an interesting discussion on the sustainability and usability of such a model in the daily work of community managers. First is really seeking the "silver bullet", which has direct effect and what can I show them to my managers? There is the realization that every community is different, it is not determined by the features you offer, but rather by the behavior that people exhibit spread and the fact that they feel comfortable and happy to get your community.

My argument would be that as community manager should look for how laws applied in sociology (as an example of this model, but also a great list of Richard Millington can serve as a basis ) to facilitate your online community. People are simply not based on functionality member of a community. A platform in itself is nothing. They are members of a community because they have something in common with the people who are active. Thus, once again confirms that top-down communities by Corporate Communications departments are often very successful because there is no sense of ownership among members.

The argument yesterday was suggested that many communities in the here and now I live or not to go. I believe that good communities just a historical building and creating with each other. It's in small and big things: recognize each other during meetings, refer to old events in the community and determine policy for new members. Build communities that are not historical or not may not wish to maintain its success, perhaps even superficial. I think the Hyves and Facebooks of this world as an example to be (at least at first glance and at the front). Twitter is different, because within Twitter such relationships do arise. Let's community managers working on the idea that we facilitate our members to share a history that is valuable to them, to build.

What is the role of the online community manager in an online environment?

This arises naturally the question of what a community manager should do to such a view of facilitating communities. It presented a simple model Rene (with big implications) of the three core tasks of a community manager. In short: the work of a community manager is not limited to supporting the community members. What happens within a community is a game and the role of community managers is this game and the players understand, to design them and then support. This is a difficult and challenging (but rewarding) process, the fact that communities are often in fits and starts to develop, as the identified life stages of a community show.

The propositions were, finally, the role of community manager in more operational processes. Especially in the gray area where it is clear that a situation which is not in best interest of the community, but not so much that needs immediate intervention, is often questioned what to do. Kirsten said there's a nice case which best practice is to focus the dialogue with stakeholders, which often in 95% of cases the sting is removed from the debate. In other cases, more is needed. There was still here and passing a balloon embarrassed if something of a Trias Politica surrounding communities is needed. Clearly fodder for one of these meetings seems to me ...

Next meeting May 12

After the presentation of Rene the talk you for days. The scientific approach to community management had clearly struck a chord. All in all, was # CMNL4 a very successful session with content interesting discussions and a great organization (special thanks to Nophert!).

Yet, the next meeting scheduled for May 12 The theme is likely to success! be. Location unknown. Until next CMNL # !