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Social Networking Platform for Private Online Communities

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Your Community Intent – Building an online community

April 22, 2014 by Mark Sylvester Leave a Comment

Creating Value

Have you looked at your existing Community or the one you are considering and asked the question, “What is the INTENT of this effort?” Chances are you have, maybe you haven’t. We have some ideas of how you might think about the WHY of your effort and will try to convince you that if you are not thinking about how it contributes to creating value for your organization, then, maybe you should be rethinking your efforts. Often people are distracted by the bright shiny new feature on a social platform. They lose track of what outcomes a community needs to bring them and instead they are only thinking about the ‘new thing’ that caught their attention. Capturing attention is important. More important is making sure that everything you do in efforts to better communicate and collaborate are intentional and driven by an informed plan. When you have a purpose and intent, you will be successful. We think about Community Intent with something that’s easy to remember, called the Four I’s – Interaction – Information – Insight – Initiative. These concepts are interrelated and each one contributes to creating value for your organization. In fact, they are in a circle on purpose. As each step leads to the other and continues as long as you have a Community. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Business Development, Community Management, Community Tips, Member Communities

Data Driven Decisions

April 10, 2013 by Mark Sylvester Leave a Comment

Data Graphic from the introNetwork System We are used to looking at charts and graphs and deriving meaning from them. I would suggest that we should be thinking about how these charts and graphs can be used to help us in making smarter decisions and not just eye-candy. When we build a Community, we are helping users make smarter connections with each other because the connections are data-driven. The tags selected in their profile are matched to others that result in a ‘smart’ connection for them to make. So this is obviously of great value to the individual user and happens without them having to really do anything except build a robust profile. However, when we are helping a client with the initial site design, we always ask the question;
What do you want to know about your audience that you do not know today? Once you know the answer, what are you going to do about it to improve your organization?
We call this Actionable Business Intelligence. Which means they don’t ask a question in the Profile  that they don’t already have a plan for what they will do with the answer. This is data driven decision making. Makes sense, right? This is one of the most challenging aspects of the design phase. People don’t know what they don’t know and they don’t know how to ask the right question. It’s a conundrum to be sure. That’s why we are glad we have kept hundreds of these types of questions from sites previously built to help clients during the brainstorming of a new community design. We love this quote and repeat it often
If you want better answers, ask better questions – Tony Robbins
We apply this by suggesting to clients, If you want to make better decisions, ask better questions and let the answers drive your decisions. Here are three examples of how you might make data driven decisions:
  • You are designing an educational program and want to make sure you apply your limited time and resources to creating the most needed courses. If you had asked a question such as: Areas I need help. Then you could easily look at the answers to the question and quickly find the top five items you should focus on, rather than guessing.
  • You are putting together a task force to investigate an industry challenge. If you have asked the question: Biggest challenge facing our industry today, you may find that 79 people had said: Government Regulations. You could then invite the  79 people to seed your group instantly.
  • You are wanting to best understand the motivation for people joining your community. By asking the question: What do you expect from this Community (see image above from the NEON site), you would have the range of answers and be able to enlist others based on this knowledge.
It’s not hard. But it does take some future thinking on your part. It also removes the anecdotal aspect from the decision, by being data driven, you have more certainty that you are working with the right people, which will help you be more successful. Would love to hear your point of view on this, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Filed Under: Business Development, Community Tips, Smart Connections

Case Study:

Nasa_103

NEON Educators Online Network

For collaboration and shared learning, Groups have been designed to accommodate a diverse set of interests in all areas of STEM education. To date there are over 250 Groups that are sorted by geography, area of interest, specific programs and events. Resources, lesson plans, peer-to-peer discussions are all readily available on NEON. >>> Learn More

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TEDx_103

TEDxMidwest Event Community

introNetworks started ten years ago as a project to connect the attendees at the then very private TED Conference. Since those lofty beginnings the platform has been extended to the world of TEDx and is used to connect attendees at a local level in communities that want to make smarter connections and share “Ideas Worth Spreading” >>> Learn More
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