Referring back to the Amcor
story:
“So
far, around 800 users are live with the platform – called Amcor Connect
internally – and have already created more than 200 online communities aligned around
common business issues.”
Is 1 community per every 4 users
sustainable?
The minimum for a focused working group is typically 8 to 12. Any
fewer and the group struggles for activity, relevance, and breadth of
expertise.
Given that a large number of users (perhaps 50%) are probably not
participating, we can predict that the overwhelming majority of these
communities are dead.
This is ok if each was a short-term group that resolved the
issue. Yet if this is the case, perhaps
they work better as simpler forum discussions with published results?
If they are ongoing groups, however, then this presents a problem. New
members browsing through groups are going to find that the majority of groups
are dead. This doesn’t bode well for their future participation.
Be careful of pushing members to create and join multiple groups in a
short amount of time, because they might just do it.
Work for FeverBee: We’re hiring a community manager and a community coordinator. If you’re a community manager that loves the data/theory behind communities, click here. If you’re new to the community profession and want to work with us, click here.
