E2.0 Community Approval Criteria

In my last blog post I covered open vs. managed community creation inside the enterprise.  The next logical question I am asked is “If we do go the managed creation route, what types of questions should we ask the requestors?”.  I hear this question often and so decided to share what I share with my customers and ask you to chime in with what else you might have to add.  (Keeping in mind we are talking about internal communities within the enterprise.)

 

So instead of a “Create a community” button you have a “Request a Community” button.  When a user clicks that button she sees a form with some questions.  Here are some of the typical questions I see companies asking:

• Have you checked to see if a similar community already exists?
• What is the purpose of the community?
• Who are the target members?
• Will this be an ongoing community or will it be needed for a set period of time?
• If a set period of time, how long?
• Will you be the community manager?
• As the community manager, do you understand and agree to your responsibility to manage the community?
• (The other questions you need to know in order to actually create it – Community Name, Description, Private or Public, etc.)

 

The criteria tend to be:

• Is it a duplicate of or very similar to a community that already exists?
• Is it appropriate to your corporate policies?  (Some companies don’t allow any social communities – they HAVE to be business-related.  Others have found that by allowing social communities people get to know each other better and work together better, as well as get to know the technology better and use it better when it comes to work.  This is up to each company but I always recommend allowing some social communities.)
• Is the description of the community clear enough so that if someone finds it they know what it is about?

 

Other tips

• When someone does get a community approved (and I wouldn’t be too strict especially in the beginning) send him a community manager’s guide so he knows how to seed the community with content and he understands his responsibility as community manager. 
• On the community request form/page, make it clear that by requesting the community this person is taking on a responsibility to nurture the community.  Clearly state that if the community goes inactive for x months (6 months is standard) it will be removed.
• Be careful of being too strict in the beginning because it feels like a community won’t have a broad audience.  If someone requests a University of CO alumni community you might dismiss it until you find out later that 15% of your staff went to school there.  As the communities are building I would tend toward the lenient side.  One of our customers was really surprised that one of their most active communities was a “Going green” community.  It wasn’t work-related but the value was it got people excited about interacting online and they started exploring and using the rest of the tool in a business-related way, thereby driving adoption.
• Don’t worry if a community is going to be a private community of just 6 members.  That work group could get a lot of work accomplished there.  If it helps that team be more productive, than the solution is achieving its goal.  Not all successful communities are going to be on the macro level.
• Set an expectation of how long the approval/creation process takes.  It shouldn’t take much longer than a business day – but you should make it very clear so that your users aren’t left wondering after they hit that submit button.  The last thing you want to do is take away from their excitement level.

 

Are you using a managed community creation process inside your organization?  If so, do you have any additions to the questions or criteria I listed above?  I would love to hear what you have to add.