The Art of Community - Building the New Age of Participation

Online communities provide a wide range of opportunities for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or building open source software. The Art of Community helps you recruit members, motivate them, and manage them as active participants. Author Jono Bacon offers experiences and observations from his 14-year effort to build and manage communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu.
Discover how your community can become a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas, and a powerful marketing force. This expanded edition shows you how to keep community projects on track, make use of social media, and organize collaborative events. Interviews with 12 community management leaders, including Linus Torvalds, Tim O'Reilly, and Mike Shinoda, provide useful insights. Develop specific objectives and goals for building your community Build processes to help contributors perform tasks, work together, and share successes Provide tools and infrastructure that enable members to work quickly Create buzz around your community to get more people involved Harness social media to broadcast information, collaborate, and get feedback Use several techniques to track progress on community goals Identify and manage conflict, such as dealing with divisive personalities

List of contents

Foreword from the First Edition;
Foreword;
Preface;
Documenting the Undocumented;
The Second Edition;
Who Is This Book For?;
The Road Ahead;
If You Like (or Don't Like) This Book;
License;
Join Our Community;
Typographical Conventions Used in This Book;
Safari® Books Online;
How to Contact Us;
Acknowledgments;
Chapter 1: The Art of Community;
1.1 Collaboration-Driven Ethos;
1.2 The Essence of Community;
1.3 The Basis of Communication;
1.4 Unwrapping Opportunity;
1.5 A Community Manager: Becoming the Community;
1.6 Moving Forward;
Chapter 2: Planning Your Community;
2.1 Planning for Success;
2.2 Teams: The Building Blocks of Belonging;
2.3 Designing Your Community;
2.4 Filling Out the Plan;
2.5 Pulling Together the Threads;
2.6 Documenting Your Strategy;
2.7 Financially Supporting Your Community;
2.8 Wrapping Up;
Chapter 3: Communicating Clearly;
3.1 He Said, She Said;
3.2 Building Your Communication Channels;
3.3 Leading by Example;
3.4 Summary;
Chapter 4: Processes: Simple Is Sustainable;
4.1 Eyes on the Prize;
4.2 Building Great Processes;
4.3 Assessing Needs;
4.4 Getting Buy-In for Your Processes;
4.5 The On-Ramp: Creating Collaborative Processes;
4.6 Process Reassessment;
4.7 Moving On;
Chapter 5: Supporting Workflow with Tools and Data;
5.1 Understanding Your Workflow;
5.2 Building Great Infrastructure;
5.3 Avoiding Resource Fetishism;
5.4 Technical Considerations;
5.5 Building and Maintaining Transparency;
5.6 Regular Workflow Assessment;
5.7 Moving On;
Chapter 6: Social Media;
6.1 Don't Be That Guy/Girl;
6.2 Being Social;
6.3 Social Media Services in a Nutshell;
6.4 Harnessing Social Media;
6.5 Social Media on Your Terms;
Chapter 7: Building Buzz;
7.1 Mindshare;
7.2 The Building Blocks of Buzz;
7.3 Setting Up Your Base;
7.4 The Buzz Cycle;
7.5 Buzz Targets;
7.6 Building Alliances;
7.7 Events and Conferences;
7.8 Summary;
Chapter 8: Measuring Community;
8.1 Community Self-Reflection;
8.2 The Foundations of Feedback;
8.3 Hooks 'n' Data;
8.4 Anonymity and Privacy;
8.5 Moving On;
Chapter 9: Managing and Tracking Work;
9.1 Credibility and the Need to Track Progress;
9.2 The Importance of Tracking Our Work;
9.3 What We Need to Manage;
9.4 Tracking Projects;
9.5 Tracking Growth and Decline;
9.6 Tracking Health;
9.7 Reacting to Community Concerns;
9.8 Moving On;
Chapter 10: Governance;
10.1 Accountability;
10.2 Governance Does Not Suck;
10.3 Governance and Community;
10.4 The Case for Governance;
10.5 Learning from the Leaders;
10.6 Setting Up a Community Council;
10.7 Ubuntu Governance Example;
10.8 Expanding Governance;
10.9 Summary;
Chapter 11: Handling Conflict and Relationships;
11.1 The Nature of the Beast;
11.2 The Calm Before the Storm;
11.3 The Conflict Resolution Process;
11.4 Dealing with Burnout;
11.5 Handling Absence;
11.6 Handling Bereavement;
11.7 Summary;
Chapter 12: Creating and Running Events;
12.1 Building Family Values;
12.2 Events;
12.3 Getting Organized;
12.4 Organizing Physical Events;
12.5 Getting Sponsorship;
12.6 Case Study: The Ubuntu Developer Summit;
12.7 Organizing Online Events;
12.8 Summary;
Chapter 13: Hiring a Community Manager;
13.1 Why Community Building Has Become a Big Business;
13.2 The Role of a Community Manager in the Corporation;
13.3 Managing Your Community Manager;
13.4 Summary;
Chapter 14: Community Case Book;
14.1 Linus Torvalds, Linux;
14.2 Mike Shinoda, Linkin Park;
14.3 Mårten Mickos, MySQL and Eucalyptus;
14.4 Mike Linksvayer, Creative Commons;
14.5 Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media;
14.6 Carolyn Mellor, X.commerce, PayPal, and eBay;
14.7 Ilan Rabinovitch, Southern California Linux Expo;
14.8 Richard Esguerra, Humble Indie Bundle;
14.9 Mark Bussler, Classic Game Room;
14.10 Mary Colvig, Mozilla;
14.11 Dries Buytaert, Drupal and Acquia;
14.12 James Spafford, Media Molecule;
Chapter 15: Onward and Upward;
15.1 Building Our Own Community;
15.2 The Community Leadership Summit;
15.3 Keeping in Touch;
Colophon;

About the author

Jono Bacon is an established writer, developer, and musician. He has been working as a full-time writer and technology consultant/developer since 2000 and has worked for a variety of publishers and companies. They include Linux Format, Linux Pro, Linux Magazine, Linux User & Developer, Linux Journal, PC Plus, MacFormat, MacTech, Digital Home, Newsforge, Sitepoint, and Content People. Jono Bacon has also worked as a writer/consultant/developer withTrolltech, Apple, the Kompany.com, University of Wolverhampton, Delta Institute, and others. In addition to his work, Jono has been a part of the Linux community since 1998 and has worked for various free software projects including KDE and Kafka; he founded Linux UK, the KDE Usability Study, and KDE Enterprise.

Summary

Online communities offer a wide range of opportunities today for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or developing open source software. The Art of Community helps you develop the talents you need to recruit members to your community, and motivate and manage them to become active participants.

Product details

• Authors: Jono Bacon, Bacon Jono
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.06.2012
• EAN: 9781449312060
• ISBN: 978-1-4493-1206-0
• No. of pages: 576
• Weight: 890 g
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > IT, data processing > Data communication, networks; Online-Marketing, Ethische und soziale Fragen der IT