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During a panel session on Community-  The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, at Web 2.0 Expo, the concept of  internal communities was raised.  According to Jeremiah Owyang, currently the social media analyst at  Forrester Research, internal communities will make up 40% of all social networks in the next few years.  With this in mind, does it make sense for those comapnies with external-facing communities to talk the talk and walk the walk and make community the full mind-set within the organization, thus capturing the full learning and behaviors associated with using social apps for work?  What a concept.  What do you think?

I just attended a great workshop at Web 2.0 Expo here is San Francisco. It was given by Todd Wilkens on behalf of Adaptive Path . The focus was on Experience-Driven Product Strategy and a lot of the content is from Adaptive Path’s new book, “Subject to Change”.   What I got out of the session was tips for building a product strategy that is focused on the customer - his/her experience, behavior, motivations – rather than the feature set. It’s an easy Product trap to fall into.

As I begin to think about creating my community strategy for TechOnline, I’m thinking about how to approach the planning of what community looks like on TechOnline from an experience-driven standpoint – so rather than focusing on tasks, goals and preferences of the community, I will focus my planning on their behaviors, motivations and meanings to create a “system” for community.  But basically, as i sat in the room listening to this great way of thinking, it occurred to me that one of my starting points will be to come up with the right questions for understanding for whom the community system will be created for.   Initial questions that come to my mind are:

Who are the people you engage with for your work — background, expertise, relationship to self

How do you currently engage — how often, when, where

What types of information do you seek from others

What do you like to do in your time away from work

I’m sure I will come up with many more questions once I really get started, but these are a few to get the wheels turning and the thought process started on the right foot.

I’m just transitioning to a new position and one I am very excited about — Managing Director, Community Development and Audience Monetization, TechOnline. TechOnline is a resource site for the architects and engineers who create technology. I’m still in transition mode and have yet to actually start, but as I attend web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco I’m sure mind will be buzzing. So stay tuned to my blog as I write up some things I learn and think of during the Conference. And if you are currently in the web community building space, I hope you will participate in this blog.