What helps you feel invested in an online community?

[Christine Martell]

I know we have been kicking around related pieces of this question since we started this Ning group in September. Sue Waters raises some great points in her post Ownership and Online Communities about how challenging it is to keep communities like Ning going when there is a perception of one person owning it. I've been an administrator on this network since the beginning, and while I have been doing things in the background and trying to actively participate, I certainly have let Michele be front and center. So now she has said she wants the community to own the Ning, so I am coming forward. But I don't want it to shift to a perception of Michele and Christine owning it either. I'd love it if there was a larger group of active members who wanted to share the administration. What do you think? Would that help us all feel we own this space?

Michele also wrote a great post today, Egocentric vs. Object Centric Networks: I Think I Know the Problem .... She talks about how ego-centric communities like Facebook and Linkedin that center around individuals struggle with the issue of ownership in contrast to object-centered ones like Flickr and Youtube which center around sharing content.

This made a lot of sense to me. I still don't have a clue what I am supposed to do on Facebook, and while I get Linkedin a bit more, I don't actually use it for much. To me these places put me back in junior high school where I felt awkward all the time and imagined that everybody else was getting something I wasn't. If only I belonged to the right group or had enough friends. So the last thing I want to do is create the Ning equivalent!

This group came out of a common focus on making our blogs better, and I do think that is still a worthy common goal. Now we just need to collectively figure out how to adjust what we are doing to better serve the community at large. And that includes weathering the ups and downs of people's lives getting too busy to participate from time to time.

Simon and I have been talking about doing blog reviews for each other. I think it's an idea worth trying. So perhaps we can spend December figuring out the logistics of how it could work and collecting volunteers who want suggestions for their blogs. Then we can be ready to try it in January? What do you think? Would this shift the focus of the group back to our common interest in better blogging?

Would you feel invested? If not, is there anything that would help you feel more a part of this Ning group?

[Simon Thomas]

I just posted a comment on Michele's blog saying that i think we need something the community can take ownership. While the goal of this community is to create better blogs, the blogs are personal, so following Michele's post on ego centric vs object centric, once people make improvements to their blog, they can stop participating in this community without feeling like they've lost anything.

I'm not sure what the joint goal could be. I liked the idea of the shared bookmarks we have on del.icio.us, but as they are effectively separate from the ning platform, it's not necessarily easy to get people to use them. But if we could maintain a list of blogging resources, that everyone contributes to, it might be a start. Just something we can all contribute to, so people feel more attached, and less likely to stop participating. Although I'm very aware that I've pretty much just reiterated what you've said about ownership...

[Christine Martell]

Not sure wither, but whatever it is I think the challenge is how to organize it so it doesn't just become another overwhelming mass of information. Intelligent filtering seems to be key, which we certainly can do if we can figure out how to utilize the tools available effectively. let's keep thinking about it.

[Suzanne]

Personally I don't find 'ownership' has any effect on my participation levels - I'm a person who enjoys participating and interacting with colleagues and peers online, and I get a lot out of it. I think that online communities are a perfect example of the 'you get out what you put in' mantra.

I would be interested in participating in a review process...

[Emma Duke-Williams]

I've recently been thinking about a related aspect - the "people centric" vs the "community centric" systems. I actually find Ning rather too community centric for me. It annoys me that I have to login to Ning, then again to each community - and that I can't easily see what I've done in each community as an overview. In other ways, the separation of communities can be nice. I'd really like, though, to be able to create a single, central profile in Ning (more than just a location/photo), and then for particular communities change / hide / reveal particular aspects.

At the moment, I think that my preferred system is Elgg - which does let me have a little more granularity over who can see what - but, it doesn't have as many features at community level as Ning does. On the other hand, it's relatively easy for me to see what I've done & what my friends have done.

I'm a face book user, pretty lightweight really, and would be even less of a user, if I didn't know people there! That seems to be increasing in the levels of granularity offered - though still not to the same extend as Elgg. And, it makes it incredibly easy (perhaps too easy!) to see what your friends have done.

I guess the ideal would be to have features of each, and a few extra features that none of them have! (The customisable profile in particular)

I agree with Suzanne about the ownership aspects - I enjoy participating. I suspect that there are some people who put great importance on ownership (wonder if they're the same people who put great importance on how many Facebook friends you have - and collect them willy-nilly rather than being more thoughtful about the process...)

[Christine Martell]

When I think about Ning across multiple communities, you are so right, it is a pain. So much so, that I think of them totally separately. It would be much easier to be able to login once and see across all of them.

I went looking for Elgg, is it still in beta? It was hard to get a sense....is it like Ning where anyone can set something up. Or is it a user centric place where you have interest groups? Or something else?

I know I get totally overwhelmed by all the different communities and spaces, but I think you are right, it's the people and relationships that get me in one space over another.

[Cammy Bean]

For me -- I feel that social pressure of being part of a group -- friends. It's been awhile since I've been in here, but it's the people that bring me back (not the wanting to blog better....)

[Mike Ryder]

I do agree that there can be a disconnect between a community of bloggers when the blogs begin to become too personal, but the opposite is not good either. If everyone writes completely for the reader and doesn't add any kind of personal touch or viewpoint, the result is a disconnected group of bland, unoriginal blogs. But at the end of the day, everyone is going to write about whatever is on their mind at the time in their own writing style, which develops naturally over time. I do think that people want to feel they are a part of something, but the key is definitely keeping everything as simple and user friendly as possible to make users comfortable.

[Carole McCulloch]

Yes, Mike, simple is as simple does. Wise words! Sounds a little like something Forrest Gump would say.

Keeping community members comfortable is paramount - often the minute you put any pressure on 'doing' then attendance drops off.

Blogs are a personal space for writing and as you say, everyone is going to write about whatever is on their mind at the time in their own writing style, but a blog can be so much more for the user. Something I'm learning as I build mine for a better online presence and business blog. That was my intention when I joined the 31 day challenge (have to admit I could only sustain the challenge for half that time with the tasks that were of interest to me) and in doing those tasks that helped me focus on building my blog as a business site, I was in a win win situtation. So being a part of the 'challenge' was useful for a period of time.

Another Ning community I joined in the summer months also sustained me for that connectivity and presented several group collaborative challenges. This CoP wants to continue - there was a great deal of 'bonding'.

In summary what I'm advocating is a time based challenge for members of this community to sustain our interest and foster our willingness to return more frequently. It requires a driver who 'reminds' us all the time about the challenge and it must be meaningful to the members.

An idea sprang into my head as I was writing this post - time is not appropriate now (I don't think) - but it would have been really smart for a Ning community to have been used to generate the interest of those Australian practitioners who are submitting their proposals for funding for elearning projects. Maybe that's an idea for 2010.

Regards from Carole