Tips into building a community aside a variety of already existing tools

community
4

I wanted to take a moment to summarise what I have learned so far through various discussions we had on the chat to bring it back into the open. First of all thanks to @JammyDodger and @tobiaseigen for the time they spent into it!

Time and planning

Building a community takes time and requires some planning. It could become quite overwhelming to do everything in one big step.

JammyDodger
#community

I'd take it category by category, and plan out what you'd like each to function as. So the first 'division' would be between public and private information (customer vs staff/insider), and permission-gating some of the categories to provide those private areas

Bring people

One of the main concern I had was how to bring internal, knowledgeable people into the community:

JammyDodger
#community

Sometimes all it takes to entice people in is creating the space and showing off a few of the features, and letting them explore and discover for themselves

So I think trusting and bringing the enthusiasm around the people is one key element and also accept that not everybody will be onboard on day 1.

JammyDodger
#community

[...] you may want to offer encouragment and a place for them to build relationships between themselves (eg something like the Lounge category, though other versions are certainly possible)

JammyDodger
#community

Providing a space and shape for that purpose is the first step, though you will likely have to also adapt and encourage as you go. :slightly_smiling_face: Though this also helps the contributors feel a sense of ownership of the space too, which can motivate them to help build it further

Knowledge sharing

Knowledge management is a key when we talk about a community and Discourse can help when everything is centralised:

tobiaseigen
#community

I also like the idea of having as much activity as possible in one place, so you don't end up scattering everyone's attention (and the info!) all over the place

Discourse has some powerful functionalities like Wiki, group inbox, whispers, read indicators and plugins like Discourse policy and Discourse Docs. However in some complex infrastructure with many assets, it may be interesting to invest a bit more to connect the dots or do it step by step:

tobiaseigen
#community

As you have probably seen, discourse has an API and webhooks, so you can set up your monitoring tools to send to discourse instead of slack. This is what we have done ourselves since we switched from mattermost (and previously slack) to discourse chat, our internal discourse.

Structure

One other key concept is bringing structure through curators (as @rosiesherry says above) but also:

JammyDodger
#community

I think a lot of those elements can be catered for with a bit of structure to your different areas. A mix of formal guides, and more informal discussion topics which encourage more back and forth

Basically, there is no “one way” to build a community and it is a matter of trial & error, do it step by step, engaging and encouraging people and structure where there is need after gaining some more insights.

8 Likes