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In 2008, Local Motors enabled anyone to submit designs for The Rally Fighter via their community (which was also their homepage).
The winner, Sangho Kim, pocked $10k for winning the competition. Further community competitions to design interiors, light bars, side vents, and more followed. The winners picked up between $500 and $2k. Hundreds more designs were submitted. The vehicle was launched within 12 months – likely a peacetime record.
Don’t treat every newcomer the same.
This is a list provided by Discourse of newcomers to our community (names cropped):
Which do you think most deserve personal attention and a great welcome to tip them into being a regular contributor?
Big noble goals may win verbal approval, but it’s day-to-day relevance that makes professional communities thrive.
Your members might want to improve how they use photoshop (big, noble, goal), but this morning they need to figure out how to remove layers.
Don’t confuse opinions with passions.
I’m combing through survey data of 5000+ members a prospective client has sent through.
We’ve done this hundreds of times and keep seeing the same mistake.
If you build a community concept (or action plan) around survey data, you’re building a plan based upon your audience’s opinions on an issue, not their passion for the issue.
Do you want to deflect customers? Send people elsewhere? Stop them from contacting you?
Or do you want to bring them closer? Collaborate with them? And understand their wants and needs better?
How about instead of measuring tickets deflected, you measure insights gains?
If you’re truly building the community with the community (or even for it), shouldn’t they be represented in all major decisions?
This means real representation (voting/veto rights), not just the ability to give feedback and be ignored if the feedback doesn’t sync with what you wanted.
What happens when your community charter forces you to get major decisions approved by the very audience you claim to be building the community for?
On March 11, 2017, 132 Wikipedians went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to participate in an ‘edit-a-thon’ (a portmanteau of edit and marathon) organized by Art+Feminism.
The goal was to add and update as many articles about female artists as possible.
In 7 hours they added 27,400 words via 789 edits across 168 articles. 10 new artists were added and 19 common resources were uploaded.
Sending out reminders asking people to properly tag their articles for the benefit of the community is going to bore people to tears.
Sending out a guide explaining how to ensure their questions and answers have the most impact, reach the most people, and grow their credibility is going to get the action you want.
