Golden rules from online community facilitators

Golden Rules from
Online Community
Facilitators
Compiled by Michael Norton
Online Facilitators Community

Contributors
Tim Ellis
Alex Marshall
Liz Copeland
Jo Allchurch
Rachel Stevens
Melissa Whittle
Barrie Minney
Jamie Kirk
Richard Overy
Edmund Lee
Rebecca Cox
John Jarvis
Nick Wellington
Ceri Wild
Vicki Goddard
Heidi De Wolf

Tim Ellis
Project and Programme Management Community
Golden Rules from Online Community Facilitators
“It’s all about people and engaging them. Find people who want to
contribute and be involved in organising the group. So to achieve that you
need to make people feel valued and recognised but you also need to find
what works for them in their day job because there aren’t many people who
can do it purely out of the goodness of their heart. It’s going to be more
about if there is some kind of synergy for them.”

Barrie Minney
Local Authority Civil Enforcement Forum (LACEF)
“Be enthusiastic, sometimes you have to very diplomatic because you get
emails direct complaining bitterly that they can’t do something and
sometimes you just have to phone them. Some people have very poor IT
skills but I know if they can get into it and get the result they want they will
be very pleased..”

Melissa Whittle
GeoPlace Authority Contacts Group
“It’s hard work, it’s about putting the work in and encouraging people to
join, but by doing that you will definitely reap the benefits and rewards and
the community will be successfully for everyone. It a lot of hard work
initially and a lot of work throughout but if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing
well. Also you don’t have to be alone, if you can have other facilitators
helping as well, two or three other colleagues that can share the workload
with and take different roles, that will help”

John Jarvis
Supporting Troubled Families
“Try and ensure that each post gets a response. Even if you don’t know
the answers, at least acknowledge the fact that someone has posted.
Either open it up again to the community and say you’re not entirely sure
does anyone else know or alternatively recognise it and go offline and try
and find someone who knows and try and force them to post a response.”

Alex Marshall
LG Inform - Improving services through information
“Make sure your content is current. I’m always updating the group
announcement with new content. I try to post something new every day,
even if it’s a little update or a question. This generates an email alert and
helps members come back again to the community and builds up a rich
bank of information.”

Nick Wellington
Food Hygiene Forum
“Have a constant stream of new material, which is either interesting or of
technical use. It’s a bit like social media that you have got to keep posting
stuff up there; hopefully what you post up will catch the current interest of
members or prove to be of use as a knowledge base in the future. But I
think you have to keep that tick over of stuff being feed into the group and
making sure that there’s always something new to see on the site.”

Rachel Stevens
National Member Development Group
“Make the most of Google Analytics. How people are accessing your
community group and are they visiting more after the newsletter has been
uploaded? By watching the timings when visits peak and when the quiet
periods are, you can get a real feel for the dynamics of the group. The
more you click on the Google Analytics reports, the more you want to
know.”

Jamie Kirk
Top Talent Programme
“Community facilitation should be about putting people first and technology
second - to use the best tools available so that you can collaboratively
work on a project or goal. If you make a conscious effort to build your group
around a specific/narrow purpose then you’ll be able to tie it more easily to
business objectives and communicate with your members more
effectively... .”

Ceri Wild
Windows 7 Implementation
“Use face-to-face meetings alongside the online activity, it reinforces and
consolidate the learning that the community has generated - regular
meetings have always been of great assistance.
The meetings have also helped to cement relationships, putting names to
faces etc and have assisted in nurturing a strong comradery among the
group. Appreciate that if members are disparately placed this might not
always be possible to organise, yet if you can convene regular meetings -
they are a huge help..”

Liz Copeland
Local Government News
“Don't get downhearted. If you find there aren't many people engaging in
conversation, don't worry. Keep plugging away. Keep things ticking over.
Use the techniques people have suggested, like adding new content
regularly - and share this role with your fellow facilitators. After a while
you'll post something that will engage people and discussion will happen.
You need to put the work in of course, and it'll probably be the thing you
least expect that will get things going, but it will happen. So, stay positive!”

Richard Overy
Information Graphics and Visualisation
“Promote your new community through a blog, tell people what you are up
to or talk about a subject you feel passionately about (and make sure you
have a link at the end of the post to the community) the easier you make it
for audience to engage the better!”

Vicki Goddard
Local Government News
“Be clear of what your community’s objectives are and then act
accordingly. It’s very easy for a community of practice to consume and be
the focus of everything you do.
You need to be objective and sit back and think am I working on something
unnecessarily?”

Jo Allchurch
FlowNet
“Before you start the community make sure you have a core membership
of people who are really engaged and ask them to make quite a few
contributions in the first few weeks to encourage others.
Also make sure the communications are right and make sure you have
enough material to start off with so the first time people go in to the new
group they can see that it is really relevant to them.”

Edmund Lee
Historic Environment
“Focus on the people and not the technology, try to work out what it is that
you want to communicate to a well-defined audience and then the
technology is secondary to that. Find out about the people that you’re
working with and then investigate the tools. The Knowledge Hub gives you
great suite of tools to use. But it doesn’t have to be just the Knowledge
Hub other things may work better for your particular audience.”

Heidi De Wolf
Lincolnshire CC People Strategy CoP
“Be as creative as you can be with your words. Different things speak to
different people. For example, in my community I have asked members to
share their thoughts about a variety of subjects, by completing the
sentences I have started for them. For example, Great leadership is great
because … . “

Rebecca Cox
Localism
“Content is king. If you do not have interesting content it will be very hard to
engage people. It will be hard at first but it is worth putting in the time up
front as it will pay off further down the line”.

Golden rules from online community facilitators

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