CommunityBuildrs

Was: July 26th, 2007 at 7:00 PM at the Santa Monica Public Library Community Meeting Room

Meeting Notes:

First and foremost I want to thank everyone who attended for participating in the conversation and sharing your thoughts and perspectives on community building.  As this topic continues to grow in importance and transitions from "what the kids are up to" to "vital business channel" and "vital grass-roots channel" it is nice to know we can share the journey.

Now for my disclaimer.  As I sit here attempting to recap the meeting I find myself a bit stumped on how to capture the free-form discussion that we had.  I'm afraid I have ended up instead with a few bullet points that horrifically under-represent the conversation.  In the spirit of "giving it the old Harvard try" here we go:

• What is a community anyway?  Just what are we talking about here? - A point raised by Bruce and turning into a bit of a head-scratcher.  Turns out community as a word represents connections as tenuous as two people who happen to have a similar interest in any topic all the way to the kind of close social and emotional interactions of family.  In an online space, how do we cater to that range of participation?  How do we regard "lurkers" who like to watch but stay on the sidelines?  They are important too but incredibly hard to know if you are serving.  Some questions here for the philosophers...
• What kind of group should this be and what should it do?  An important topic for any newly forming organization to address.  Our answer?  Well, I'm not sure what it is!  We know we want to share knowledge, inspire each other, and also make connections for skills and perspectives to draw on as we build.  Perhaps that is our answer.  I'd like to add in here that based on what I have seen happen to other groups, it is likely that eventually businesses will come looking for consultants to help them with their projects.  Having a "directory of willing consultants" might not be a horrible idea for those of you who have the time/inclination to do some freelance gigs.
• Why do so many of us use Drupal?  A bit of a challenge to answer this question.  It isn't so much that Drupal is hands down the best system.  There are lots of cool tools out there in the CMS world.  What it really came down to as a consensus (more or less) is that the developer community and culture appears to be stronger for Drupal than the other available options as we see them.  (Those of us using Drupal.)  Which technology platform you operate on is probably not going to be a primary factor in the success or failure of your community however.  Eventual success is more likely to depend on marketing, business skills, and community management/support.
• Before I forget... I want to make sure I include a link here to the slideshare presentation that Crystal mentioned from the WordCamp conference.  The key points from the presentation are clear from the slides and make me wish I had been there to hear the presentation...  Rashmi Sinha Slideshare
• How often should we meet and what is the best type of venue?  There wasn't a clear line of thought on this topic but it seems that a roughly monthly basis would make sense with the occassional skipped month probably cropping up.  (December for example is a great month to not hold meetings.)  Chris was kind enough to volunteer his company's training facility for the next meeting and it sounds like we might even have some sponsorship possibilities.  (Free pizza... everyone's farovite kind!)
• How to better utilize this website?  Some good recommendations here that I appreciate.  First on my list is to create a profile system for each user so we can identify skills and capabilities to make it easier to know who to contact for what kind of questions.  My offer of admin logins for volunteers was met with a lot of avoided eye contact so I will settle for your suggestions!  Please keep them coming and I'll take it on to bring them to reality...

That is my recap.  Woefully inadequate and for that I apologize.  If you attended the meeting and have points that should be included here let me know and I will add them right away!

Thanks to all for attending,

Kirk Eisele