Building Intentional On-line Community

Experience From 117,000 Messages

Carol Anne Ogdin
Founder, Deep Woods Technology, Inc.
http://www.deepwoods.com
  Abstract:  A commercial extra-net, with thousands of computers connected via modem and Internet, supports multiple on-line discussions.   One of these is a particular standout, and the only one in which intentional plans to build a community have been executed.  This is the story of that Forum, and the lessons we learned through the process.

After false starts and mistakes, the discussion database began to grow.  In the past six years, over 4,100 people have participated, and each month about 500 members of a constantly varying cast are responsible for creating over 3,000 messages of hope, help and hilarity.

© 1998, Deep Woods Technology, Inc.

    

 

Business Purpose

     In March, 1991, while Lotus Development Corp. was building its unique Business Partner distribution channel for the Lotus Notes product, Arlene Greene said, "Let's use our product to communicate with our Partners!"  She commissioned a couple of 486-based servers, had Lotus Notes Release 2 installed, and had phone lines and modems installed.  It was called "Notes Net."

     The intent was for Business Partners (BP) to communicate with other BP, to share ideas, experiences and knowledge.  And, perhaps, to build communications links between BP and Lotus employees.  And, maybe, provide a way for customers to communicate, too.  After lots of lessons learned and some mistakes, it has emerged as a thriving, active, mutually-supportive meeting place in cyberspace who's participants eagerly look forward to the annual Orlando Lotusphere meeting as an opportunity to renew old friendships first forged on-line.

   Every successful
on-line discussion
must have a clear
and articulated
purpose
before it can become
community.
 


Short Version of Evolution    

     So, a discussion database was set up, and partners notified they could connect their servers to Notes Net, and communicate.  And the BP stayed away in droves.  By erecting the discussion, and effectively leaving it to the participants to decide how to use it, Lotus discovered that few people had the motivations or the interest.  And those who did visit for the first time were disappointed in what they saw, and never returned.  The results were pitiful.

    
       It looked like a promising start in May '91, with a progression of growing number of posts per month. But without any intrinsic "draw," something to really bring people into the cyberspace and keep them there until they begin to communicate among themselves, participation dwindled.  Then, in October, '92, the numbers really started to climb again. Early Forum Experience
 
     Without attention and intention, discussion databases languish; this one shows a period of eleven months during which there were only seven posts.  There's too little content to attract people to visit frequently, and without lots of people there's never a "critical mass" of core frequent participants to ensure a welcoming space to future newcomers.  Getting to and sustaining critical mass is a critical success factor for any discussion database.

     But, something magical happened in September, '92, which inspired more people to participate in October and November.  And the growth continued from there.  Nobody seems to know what happened.  Perhaps more BP had begun to get connected to the world; perhaps Lotus' BP Program department publicized the availability.  Nobody recorded why, but it commenced spontaneous growth.     		 

It's the deadly
embrace that kills
most on-line
discussions:  Nobody
posts, so there's
nothing to read, so
nobody posts.
 


Intentional Community

     To create "intentional community," we have to know what we mean by "community," and a lot about the "intentions."

Community

     A community is a group of people who've decided, volunteered or elected to join with other people for some common interest.  But, so is a mob.   What distinguishes a community from a mob is the nature of the relationships among the participants:  In a community, there is some concern about the benefits being derived by others; in a mob, no body particular cares about what others are deriving, so long as I get what I want.

     In a community, the participants or members care about each other; a mob has no such caring members.

     A community is defined, also, by some boundary:   There people inside the community, and they are distinguishable in some way from the other people are not members.  The boundary may be geographic (the community of Oak Grove), by affiliation (the community of pilots), or by common interest (the community of vintage car exhibitors).  With technology, we seldom see a geographic boundary; technology allows us to transcend political or geographic boundaries.

     Membership may be directed (say, by assignment from a person in authority; the community of incarcerated juveniles), required (the community of attorneys, to which professional association is virtually mandatory), or voluntary.   With technology, it is hard to legislate participation; these communities are virtually always voluntary.  Part of the reason for this the the kind of motivation:   Extrinsic motivation (that is, under pressure or reward) may inject a person into a community, but they'll fare poorly if their behavior is coerced.  Intrinsic motivation (that is, for personal gain) is always preferred, because such people don't have to pressured into acting on their responsibilities as community members.

     Community membership does carry with it certain responsibilities and authorities.  Unless these duties are carried out in accordance with the culture of the community, the erstwhile participant may be ostracized by other members.  In the database studied here, for example, there was one person who never appeared unless and until he had a complaint to raise or a specific question to ask.   He consistently ignored the duties to be responsive to other messages posted.   As a consequence, people slowly began to decline offering  responses, with the result that the community member who kept violating the taboo against taking without giving found it unrewarding to participate and has not been seen in several months.

Intentionality

     To create a community, the leadership must have the clear intention to do so.  Willful intention drives the long-term interventions that are required and provide the pattern for planning and execution.  You reap what you sow.   If you ignore the problems, if you fail to stimulate responses, if you avoid the events that build trust among participants out of some "non-interventionist" mentality, you have only luck as your partner in community creation.  However, if you look at every posting as a new opportunity to stimulate community

     While some writers would assert that teams12ptem.gif (833 bytes)and by extension, communities, can't be intentionally created, we have enough evidence to assert, emphatically, that they can.  However, those intending to form community must be willing to engage in a wide variety of behaviors.

Deep Woods' Role

     As Lotus Business Partner (from 1992), Deep Woods Technology is quite unique:  By exclusively focusing on the intersection of technology (like Notes) and culture, we bridge the fields.  We are neither technologists, developing and deploying applications, or organizational developers; we operate with both sets of skills.  To date, we are the only Lotus Business Partner in that unique niche.   As a consequence, Lotus wasn't quite sure during the early years just what our "magic" was!  So, in early 1994, I asked permission of (then) VP of Business Partner Programs, Don Bulens, to demonstrate what we do by transforming the Partner Forum from a loose technical discussion forum into a strong, supportive community.   By September, 1996, he'd seen the effects of that work (and our results with Lotus customers) and engaged our firm as consultant to Lotus to address other culture/technology issues.

     During those two years, I made a point of participating regularly (usually daily), and making some of the interventions which, if you weren't aware of my intentions, would have looked rather unusual.  For one example, I became a frequent initiator of controversy, and was often associated with controversial topics and positions.  Some participants even worried (via e-mail) that my contributions were "over the top," and potentially destructive.  But, because I held a clear set of outcomes in mind, it was easy to withstand those objections and "stay the course."  (You can find more about the "The Uses of Controversy" in the companion article, "Nurturing Community Through Collaboration.")

     Let the numbers tell the tale.

   There are
no groups who
cannot be forged
into community.
There are many
insufficiently
flexible would-be
community leaders.
 


Then and Now

     Analysis of the BP Technical Forum shows an astounding growth:   It took more than 28 months to accumulate 3,000 posts; during 1997, every month that number was exceeded.

    
  A pattern of consistent growth is evident, despite variations.  The four distinct colors represent four successive database designs.  You can also see the transition times, during which participants had to monitor both an "old" and a "new" forum.  The transitions spanned four months; evidence suggests we've learned how to improve that; the February, 1998 transition (after this data) has happened in one month Post Volume Growth, Five years, by Month
 
     The four distinct incarnations of the "Partner Forum" each had different names.  Originally, the goal was to enable communication among Lotus Business Partners, without much regard to content or focus.  Hence, the generic name.  When the Partner Forum grew to nearly 20,000 messages, it was supplanted by the "New Partner Forum 10/94+" (October '94 and onward).  There was some significant transition confusion at that time; the older database was disabled prematurely, significantly affecting the growth.

     By early '96, the need for a new database was evident.  There were lots of wishes for changes in design, and we then past 25,000 posts.  With many users clamoring for a new database, but many unresolved issues about design on the table, Lotus spawned a new discussion, called the "Forum Design Discussion."  On his own initiative, Alex Wilson, one of the more prolific members of the community, designed a whole new database and circulated it to willing peers for experimentation.

     There's a sad tale of how the "BP Technical Forum 96" came to be deployed, and Alex Wilson was very angry as a result.   The community came together to express outrage that one of their colleagues should be so shabbily treated, yet it was a blessing in disguise:  It allowed the nascent community to express a unified voice in support of controlling their own destiny.  Eventually, the entire brouhaha settled down.  And, in the process, one of the changes made was to rename the database "BP Technical Forum 96", forever raising the technical bent of the forum to the stature of label and identity.

     All of us having learned our lessons, Mike Woolsey, who'd been consistently active since early '93, stepped into the space vacated by a bruised and abused Alex Wilson, and created yet another iteration in design excellence.  That design was deployed in June, 1997, as "BP Technical Forum 97."  Wilson's design was so sound, Woolsey's improvements so significant, and key Lotus employees had become so much more collaborative, the design was merely fine tuned and became the basis of "BP Technical Forum 98" in February (which is why our analysis in this monograph stops in January, 1998).

     To this day, the design continues to evolve (the latest tweaks were a mere two weeks prior to this writing).  Because the designers and the people who advise on the design are active community participants, it is one of the richest and convenient discussion I've ever used.  It is a sterling example of what collaboration and hard work by stellar designers can accomplish.  Compared to it's vibrant colors, other Notes discussion databases I've used are mottled pastels.  And, comparing the Notes discussion database we use in the Forum is not unlike contrasting fine art and childlike scribbles.

    Throughout this monograph, I use "The Forum" to denote the totality of all the various discrete designs that were deployed.  Where it is important to distinguish between the discrete designs, I use their specific names:

  Forum Title First Post Final Post
  Partner Forum May '91 Dec. '94
  New Partner Forum, 10/94+ July '94 Sept. '96
  BP Technical Forum 96 Apr. '96 Sept. '97
  BP Technical Forum 97 June '97 Feb. '98
  Even disasters may
become opportunities
for community
formation.
 


Core Influences

     After the initial "false-start" phase, there was some initial growth in participation by a growing population of Lotus BP.  There was some Lotus employee participation, albeit mostly of an "announcement" kind.   The one notable exception was Scott Brown, the Lotus Notes expert on modems12ptem.gif (833 bytes)known to his friends at the time as "Quasimodem."  Scott had more experience than anyone in the world with how to make the vast variety of commercial modems work properly with Lotus Notes across multiple operating systems.  He'd consolidated that information into a unique Notes database, called the "Mobile Survival Kit," that survives to this day as a key customer resource.

The Insider

     But Scott's involvement was more than helping BP with modem questions.  In his very first post (Sept. '92), Scott set the pattern of his involvement by answering an outstanding BP question with information from the Lotus Support organization.  He was also the first person to post a humorous poem, a parody of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" just in time for the holiday season of 1992.   That wasn't, however the first humor in the Forum; that was a cartoon posted by Steve Brown (no relation), of ISI Infortext, who was roundly trounced for putting such a large graphic in the database (about which, see the discussion of  attachments, below), and who seldom posted after that.

     Scott brought an important resource to the medium:  A responsive Lotus representative.  Other Lotus-originated posts were generally announcements, within very narrowly circumscribed areas of responsiveness, and Technical Support people were explictly prohibited from the Forum,  perhaps because management feared the Forum could become an unauthorized route into Support.

     As a contractor to Lotus, Scott was unencumbered by the customary politics that might restrain an employee...and he made most of it.  He represented a link into the larger Lotus from participants who were employees of the much smaller Business Partners.  Because of his position within Lotus' Quality Engineering organization, Scott's most immediate resources were the very people responsible for developing the product.  As a consequence, the Partner Forum began to take a decidedly technical orientation to its posts.  And, as some of the early frequent participants grew their organizations and moved into management (e.g., Mark Tebbe of Lante, Ken Norland of DSSI, now part of Ernst & Young), their participation waned.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

     Through 1995, Scott Brown continued to be an unofficial link between Business Partners and the Lotus Support organization.  Occasionally, he would call or e-mail a colleague in another department, advising them to come respond to something in the Forum, and that was all hush-hush, and behind-the-scenes.  But Scott's immediate superior, and the director of the worldwide Business Partner program noticed, and in April, 1996, Scott was officially appointed to the post, and assigned full-time responsibility for that job.  (Since then, Scott has been joined by three other full-time Lotus employees who respond to questions, test for purported bugs reported by BP, and intercede with developers of new products with BP recommendations.

The Outsider

     There are many things an employee of a sponsoring organization cannot do; such things are usually called "career-limiting moves."  It's always useful to have an outsider who can play that role...and I've always said, "There are no career-limiting moves for a consultant."  So, after I'd promised to apply our professional skills to moving the Partner Forum to the next level, the first thing I set out to do was to coordinate with Scott Brown.   After all, he'd been there before me, and already had established a presence; I didn't want to run afoul of a natural leader who'd emerged from the hurly-burly of frequent postings.

     Through e-mail and phone calls, quite outside the discussion database, I started letting Scott know what I was doing.  As with any team (and, especially, in an ad hoc team like this one, with a new participant elbowing her way in), we had our frictions.  But, we resolved them amicably and began a long-term mutually-supportive collaboration

   Balancing "inside"
knowledge with
"outside" freedom
leads to the maximum
possible range of
informed behaviors.
 

Corps of Regulars

     Every community thrives on continuity:  Some members who are there before newcomers arrive, and are there long after the casual participants depart.  In most cases, Pareto's Rule of 80/20 applies, and it's no exception here.   The Partner Forum had a cadre of about 20% who have participated for six or more consecutive months of at least one post each month1.   And, as one Regular move on to other pastures, there's inevitably someone else who steps into the gap.  A few members of the community have participated in the various incarnations of the Partner Forum for five years or more.  They carry (and shape) the culture of the cyberspace.

    
  The Core Regulars carry the culture of the community across time, exhibiting behaviors that New participants can model.  Most participants are neither Regulars or New, but casuals, who may drop by for a specific solution, or to offer some additional experience.

(The apparent decline in final months is an artifact of the rolling average method used to categorize Regular and New participants.)		 Population of Participants '92-'97
 
     We learn to read before we write; the effective participant in a discussion database reads posts to observe the customs of the cyberplace before they post.  Whether they post long or short messages, or they include attachments or not, or whether they use hostile or abusive language or not is determined for most people by the volumes of messages on file that newcomer reads.  And the exemplary practices of the cybercommunity are most often shaped by the Regulars.  The newcomers and casual participants have models to emulate in style.

     There have been about 100 Regulars active in the Forum for the past year; they comprise about 20-25% of the total number of unique people who participant, month-in and month-out.  Newcomers (defined2 as people who consistently post for three or four months, never having been seen before); account for about 10% of each months' participants.  Everyone else is part of the General population, those who infrequently participate, or stop by then move on.

  Incidentally, it's amazing to me how people can drop in, post one question, and then express disappointment that the other participants aren't willing to drop everything for that query.  As one such "passer-by" said to me when I explained the community spirit that exists, "That's too bad; I just wanted an answer, not a relationship."  Sad.  
  About a quarter
of your members
will be Regulars;
court them.
 

Movers and Shakers

     There is an elite subset of the Core Regulars who, over time, will make the most memorable contributions.  They're present for a long span of time (not necessarily the full life of the community), and they make frequent posts.  And, in some unmeasurable or indefinable way, the quality of their posts seems to be a cut above the rest.

     I don't have a clue how to create "Movers and Shakers," but they're important to the formation of community in cyberspace.  I do know, however, they need to be encouraged and nurtured.  These are the people who make the most memorable posts, or have a distinctive pattern of humor.  If you were to poll the active participants in the Forum and ask for names of people who's posts they always read, these names would crop up on most lists.

     In the Partner Forum, there are probably about 100 whom I'd identify as the "Movers and Shakers."  In a discussion within the Forum coincident with writing this monograph, several people raised objections to naming the people by name, so I've elected to individually inform them via e-mail.   But, there are a few people to stand out so dramatically, I really want to use them as models:

 
Wilfredo Lorenzo (who participated from mid-93 to early '96), who shared a particularly clever solution to a vexing and persistent problems many other members of the community experienced that is still recalled as an exemplary model.
 
Rick "I've got a million middle names, but none of them are 'Rich'" Dickinson (mid-94 to mid-97), who made lots of significant technical contribution, penned many parodies, and who always manages to concoct an hilarious and wildly appropriate middle name.
 
Richard Davis (mid-93 to early-95), a self-taught programmer who's solutions were often so inventive and elegant, other participants would request "King Richard's" help with nasty problems.
 

     Unfortunately, these are also often the "Up-'n'-Outers."  They make significant contributions, but are often so far advanced ahead of the rest of the population that they find little value in staying around.  In order for people to return, they have to perceive some value in the community for them.  When the value they contribute outweighs the value they receive, you can expect they'll eventually migrate away from the community.

     Finding ways to retain and motivate the "Movers and Shakers," to keep them from becoming "Up-'n'-Outers" is an important step in unifying the community.  Honor it's naturally-emerging leaders.

Relationships

     How members of these various subgroups interact is an important factor of success.  For example, if the Core Regulars are so "tight" that new and casual participants feel excluded by a clique, it's hard for the community to grow.  Fortunately, I've never seen a situation where these subgroups appeared to be splintering off or at odds.  Rather, the members of the Core Group seem to readily remember when they, too, were novices in need of help, and respond accordingly.

   There are some
participants who
deserve unique
recognition.
Work hard to
keep them, for
they are treasures.
 


Steps Taken

     From early 1994, as I've said before, when I mentally stepped in the role of an unofficial facilitator of the Forum, I responded to the various posts with the intention of seeing just how strong a community could be created in this new medium.  Some of the significant events in time include:

  Date Contribution
  9/13/93 Published "Words are Not Enough," about the limitations of communicating in a text-only medium; some modest discussion [Intention:  get some dialog started about what communicator's expectations may be]
  9/22/93 Published "Outcomes:  Key to Team Cohesion," about how getting clear on objectives and goals will help teams work better together [Intention:   spur dialog about outcomes among participants]
  12/15/93 Proposed deletion of some specific threads of dialog as no longer relevant [Intention:  spur discussion of what rules we should have about keeping, deleting things in the Forum]
  1/7/94 Published "YOYOW" (You Own Your Own Words, a paraphrase of Stewart Brand's policies at The WELL) [Intention:  get rules clear about who owns what's in the database.]
  1/19/94 Published "The Function of the Agora," about the value and utility of "off-topic" discussions, the permissibility of humor, and "topic drift."  [Intention:  seed a discussion about the boundaries of what's legitimate to talk about in the Forum.]
  5/24/95 Summarized a published work, "Cowboys, Communicators, Collaborators...and Communities" [Intention:  test whether people would express interest in 'soft' topics by requesting a copy; we mailed out a dozen or so copies.]
  Some specific
intentional acts
to stimulate
formation of
community.
 

Spontaneous Emergence

     I don't mean to suggest that my own contributions were the only important moments.   In fact, many other people made significant interventions; I just don't know whether they were intentional or not.  And rather than risk leaving anyone out, I've decided not to list those whom I noticed.

     But, there was a sequence of transactions in late 1993 that illustrates perfectly the spontaneous emergence of community norms, which often appear a unique words, phrases or symbols.  In this case, several subtle things coalesced into a custom that survives to this day.

     During October, 1993, there was a newly emerging population of users, some of whom assumed the database was strictly for technical issues, others of whom came to the experience with the assumption they'd relate to their peers.  One of the "technology only" proponents was Richard Davis who proposed those who really wanted to share humor in the Forum precede the subject line with the ">" mark, so the serious participants would know they were safe to ignore that message.   A 50-message thread ensued, during which the practice of using ">" to flag non-technical topic "drift", including humor and personal remarks was adopted.

     Then, about five days later, Dave Varberg mentioned it would be nice to have a similar kind of flag to mark messages with only a title, meaning the recipients would not have to open the message to find it empty.  Jeff O'Halloran immediately suggested using the "*" character.  What Jeff didn't mention explicitly was that Ken Norland had been using that character for exactly that purpose since March; Jeff was apparently the first person to recognize it's value and significance.
 

   The best kind
of change:
Spontaneously
emergent from
collective action
of participants.
  Three message titles that signal messages with no body text or other contents.

  *Message with no body here
  >I lurk, why should I care?
  *>Maybe you should :-)
 
     Quickly, the Forum was ornamented with title lines starting with "*" and ">", and even "*>" (or "<*"), meaning "it's a one-line off-topic message."  In his design of what eventually became "BP Technical Forum '96," Alex Wilson introduced the idea of a "Post Type" to transform these symbols into a larger set of options that could be selected by name (e.g., One-liner, Divergence, Idea, Question).   The ">" to mean divergence eventually declined, but "*" was so valuable it was retained by most users.  When Alex Wilson designed "BP Technical Forum 96," he institutionalized it even further by noticing those posts that started with "*", and automatically selected the "One-Liner" PostType for the user.

     It is moments like these that the intentional creator of community relishes:  They're evidence that the community is forming it's own rules, which implies that some of the participants want to have a community.

    
 

Evoking Passion

     At several points in on-going discussion topics, I made a point of offering affirmation, thanks or other positive feedback.  My intention was to model the process of respect for each other, and to mark off those posts that were, in my opinion, contributory to community.

     At the same time, I sometimes used a response in an attempt to provoke some passionate response.  And, some of those seeds sprouted.

     There are two major forms of discussion fora, called Bulletin Board and Outline.

 
Bulletin Board style is the simplest; the technology provides no tools for capturing the connection of original posts and their dependent responses.  Each new post is added to the collection in simple chronological order; it is the responsibility of the author of each individual post to provide guidance as to which prior messages this response may relate.  The Internet USENET newsgroups are discussions of this form, and each message typically includes some (or all) of an earlier message to provide context and linkage.

It is hard to isolate the specific "threads" of discussion in a Bulletin Board style of discussion.  At best, one can measure along two dimensions: the number of posts in a discussion, and the period over which they occurred.
 
Outline style maintains, through indenting of lines, a "post/response" relationship.  One message is a principal post; other messages related to that original are displayed under, and indented toward the right.  And responses may have further responses.  The hierarchy of original/response relationship is maintained, even at the expense of keeping things in chronological order.  These discussions are often call "threaded," as the relationship of multiple (often simultaneous) threads of the on-going discussions are preserved.

It is much easier to isolate which posts "belong" to the same discussion in Outline form, because they're naturally isolated.  An Outline form discussion can be measured along three dimensions:  The total number of posts in the entire collection, the number of levels of indenture to which the discussion is taken, and the period of time spanned from the first message to the last.  The level of indenting suggests the complexity of the discussion.  The time span (usually measured in days) usually relates to the importance of the issue to the participants.

All discussions in the Forum are of the Outline form.  It is a native property of Lotus Notes.

     The most lively discussions are those that have the largest number of messages, the deepest number of indent levels, for the longest period of time.   In the Forum, the most lively and enduring discussions have generally been about non-technical issues.  The largest discussion of all (416 messages, 21 levels deep) was about the rules for governing the Forum itself, in mid-1996.

     From inception, the Forum has experienced 19 threads with 100 or more messages.  One of those threads was a response to an offer by Randel Oulton for a free Notes database full of icons.  Every one of the other eighteen had some contribution to make toward the formation of community:

 
# Level Days Start Date Class Summary

416

21

117

2/24/96

Gov

 Debate over proposed rules

182

15

154

1/25/94

Rel

 "Where does everybody live?"

152

16

54

1/21/94

Val

 About "guys" and gender-specificity

132

6

220

5/17/95

 (Requests for free icon database)

125

13

36

12/15/93

Rel

 Remembering early computers

124

21

66

10/19/93

Gov

 Appropriateness of humor in Forum

124

8

31

3/31/95

Isu

 Unhappiness with billing procedures

120

11

207

1/30/95

Isu

 Unhappiness with certification exams

117

11

203

9/4/93

Gov

 E-mail etiquette and legalities

117

5

53

2/4/96

Rel

 "Happy Birthday" in many languages

116

3

89

5/18/94

Gov

 Appropriateness of large documents

115

17

427

10/11/93

Isu

 Opinions about User Interface design

105

12

91

5/16/96

Isu

 Product reliability experiences

105

4

112

6/10/94

Rel

 Privacy/publicity of member info

104

20

37

2/22/94

Isu

 Encouraging change in Lotus policy

104

12

7

10/31/96

Rel

 Long thread about being a long thread

103

8

17

1/5/98

Isu

 Benefits of becoming certified

102

18

558

3/11/93

Gov

 Rules for governing growing Forum

101

7

90

6/28/95

Isu

 Brainstorming TV ads for Lotus
           
 
Legend
  
#  Total number of posts in thread
Level  Number of indent levels
Days  Period of discussion
Start Date  Date of original post
Class  Relevance to community formation:
 
Code   Explanation
Gov   About governance and rules
Rel   About each other, and relationships
Val   About values shared (and not shared)
Isu   About issues for which strong opinions (both pro and con) are expressed
Summary  Summary description of thread contents

     These eighteen threads, encompassing over 2,400 messages, represent significant moments in the formation of community.  It was in these ostensibly off-topic, "fluff," or "time-wasting" dialogues that much of the work of community values was threshed out.  The specific topics, in many cases, were utterly irrelevant:  A long discussion about the use of "guys," and how some women feel excluded (and many "guys" feel about that) could have been about another other emotion-laden topic.  It exposed styles, and values and communication skills of the participants.  It allowed people the space (or cyberspace) to get to know each other.

     By way of contrast, at the other end of the spectrum, there were nearly 2,700 original main topics posted that never garnered a single response.   And, most of these were requests for technical help or posed other technical questions.

   Participants invest
their energies in
highly-charged
debates and issues.
 


Avenues Not Explored

     With 20/20 hindsight, there are things I'd certainly do differently.  The most difficult problem, largely in Scott Brown's hands, was the inclusion of other knowledgeable Lotus employees in the discussion.  Many of the most informed people have been reluctant to participate because it would expose their name and e-mail address as the person responsible for a particular topic.  From time-to-time, Scott has had to post reminders to Forum participants that they should not abuse the good people who lend their expertise and their time...yet some people persist.

     If we had it to do all over again, I would attempt to collaborate with Lotus to have more direct engagement of more senior people in the Forum, under stricter rules of engagement.  That would have attracted more participants, earlier, achieving critical mass sooner. 

     There have been about 4,100 different individuals who've participated in the Forum over it's life.  There is a population to draw on of 18,000 Lotus Business Partners; if each of them have, say, three technical employees, that a potential population of 54,000 people who should be participants.  (We do not know how many of them are "lurkers," reading but never posting to the Forum.)   With a more aggressive program to "draw" people to the Forum, we could probably have tripled  population statistics.

  Fortunately, we are now engaged in a project where we have the opportunity to test this hypothesis within a completely new discussion that we'll be transforming to community.  We'll be using the same technology, drawing on the same Business Partner population, and testing a much more aggressive approach to attracting that initial critical mass of participants.  We'll report on our progress when the trend is clear.  

     Another issue that non-participating Business Partners cite is the appearance of "time-wasting" reading of irrelevant posts.  But, active participants will testify to the virtues and benefits to them that far outweigh the time they spend.  One may spend hours reading and participating in the Forum...and find a solution that saves days of effort.

     The other major issue non-participants raise is the fear that their best people, publicly identified in the Forum, will become targets for recruiting by other Business Partners.  However, the community addressed this issue early in 1997, and declared such behaviors out-of-bounds.  We have seen individuals change jobs, and reappear in the Forum with a new affiliation.  In most cases, that is the first time we've seen that new affiliation, which would suggest that their posts had little to do with having been recruited.  It is an issue we probably should address at the policy level in collaboration with Lotus, and may at a future date.

   With
"20/20 hindsight"
I'd own the casino!
But lessons learned
from our experience
and from others
means we always
improve.
 


Patterns of Messages

     It's interesting exploring the pattern of messages over time.   In looking over more than 100,000 messages (I've made no attempt to re-read them all), there are some patterns that are rather obvious.

Questions & Answers

     The core of the Forum is Q&A about issues that are important to the originator of the thread.  Often, the responses are proclaimed richer, more relevant or faster than answers that might be expected from the traditional sources, such as Lotus' own Technical Support.  However, part of the usage guidelines for the Forum make it clear that it is not to be considered a TechSupport alternative.

     It's not surprising that the Forum surpasses TechSupport in some cases:  The Forum is populated with practicing professionals, some of whom have years of experience in delivering solutions to customers.  Traditionally, TechSupport personnel are highly trained in the specifics of the product, but may not yet have spent much time in solving customer's problems.

     However, focusing on these difference in experience levels hides even more important distinctions between the Forum and Lotus' TechSupport:

    Partner Forum Lotus TechSupport
  Certainty of Response No Yes
  Experience-based solutions Yes Seldom
  Escalation processes for follow-thru on complex issues Limited Yes
  Access to developers, other internal Lotus expertise Occasionally Yes
  Opinions and other "fuzzy" information Yes Seldom
  Quick response (<24 hrs) Seldom Yes

Clearly, there is a place for both the informal Forum, and the more formal capabilities and processes of the formal TechSupport system.  Often, when a new participant begins to treat the Forum as an alternative to TechSupport, more experienced people chide them for not using the appropriate resources.

Wishlists / Feature Requests

     From earliest days of the Forum, participants posted wishes and dreams for what they would like to see in the Notes/Domino product that would make it easier to deliver solutions to customers.  During the first four years, few of these requests were formally acknowledged by Lotus.  However, from April, 1996, when Scott Brown was assigned formal authority to act as "go-between" for Forum members and Lotus, he (and, subsequently, his colleagues) began forwarding "wishlists" and feature requests to the cognizant Lotus employees.  And, when the "BP Technical Forum 96" was deployed, it contained a new document type named "Wishlist", which provided a means to make sure relevant information was appropriately tagged.   And, a "Vote" type was provided for other participants to add their support (or lack thereof) for the idea, so Lotus would have some gauge as to the importance of the issue to these Business Partners.

     Wishlist messages have now become a formal part of the feedback Forum members can give to Lotus.  And now, instead of the idea just sitting there for Lotus' consideration, Scott and his team post a message when they've transferred the messages into the developer's internal system for enhancement and bug fix requests.   And, as part of community building between Forum members and Lotus, we often see "Thank you" messages appended to the original thread then a new release contains the enhancement requested.

Problem and Bug Reports

     Because so many of the Forum members are operating at the leading edge of customer solutions, they often come across anomalies or subtle bugs that are virtually inevitable in a product as complex as Domino and Notes.  However, these sometimes have also been evidence of a lack of understanding of the product or newcomers' inexperience with the product.  In the earliest days of the Forum, participants might post a "Bug Report," but even if true, there was no certainty that the report would be seen by Lotus' developers.  Message authors were encouraged to also report the problem through Lotus' Technical Support to make sure the report was entered into the company's internal problem report databases for future consideration.

     Like "Wishlists," the handling of "Probable Bug Reports" (PBR) have evolved.  The reasons PBRs are encouraged in the Forum are several:

 
For rare or subtle bugs, other Forum participants may be able to shed light on the conditions by offering their own experience or additional sample cases because they now know they're not the only people experience the issue,
 
When people post "Bug Reports," the reason they're called "Probable" is that sometimes what perceived as a "bug" is, in fact, the intentional way the product works.  Fixing that problem might prohibit some other essential feature.   The Forum members, with their rich variety and depth of experience, can often help the reporting member understand the issue, or offer temporary workarounds.  Thus, extraneous bug reports never make their way into Lotus' internal reporting systems.

     During 1997, Carolynn Rago joined Scott Brown's team, and has distinguished herself by actually setting up the reported configuration in an attempt to duplicate the problem.  If she successfully reproduces the problem, she reports in the forum the "case number" assigned to the problem.  In many cases, she finds that the problem has been previously reported, and can another case example to the file.

     If the problem cannot be duplicated in the laboratory, Carolynn reports that to the Forum, providing the opportunity for the original message author to expand on the conditions.  Sometimes, other members add test case data that help identify the specific conditions that induce the problem, resulting in a formal problem report being generated within Lotus.

Social Lubricants

     Many of the messages...probably as many as 25%...are what I call the "social lubricants."  These are "thank you" and "good idea" and "Yes, me too" posts that serve to reinforce the desirable behavior of the member who authored the original post.  As I've pointed out earlier, these posts are part of the community ambience.

     Some of these messages are, frankly, irrelevant to the main topic of the database:  A recent thread about the release of a new version of the Quake computer game, exchanges of jokes or stories.  Unless and until some participants begin to complain about the volume of such "off-topic" posts, they tend to be tolerated.  In most cases, the participants themselves allow the discussions to dwindle out without complaints from other members.

   This is the pattern
of messages in
the Forum.
Each community is
bound to be unique.
 


Cultural Emergence

     It is my contention that community does not emerge spontaneously; it requires the execution of one or more of these important influences:

 
A core group of "regulars" to shape and encourage the group norms, to "carry the culture" in the pattern of their posts.
 
A trustworthy environment, where people can see that it is safe to make a mistake without being ostracized or prohibited from participating in the community (no one has ever been forcibly ejected from the Forum; many have changed their styles, or left voluntarily).
 
An ever-expanding cadre of participants whom each individual in the Forum comes to trust, perhaps in specific contexts.
 
Some extra-Forum opportunities for participants to engage, such as face-to-face meetings.
Specific Interventions

     In addition to the specific actions I took with the intention of fostering community (see here), there were many on-going kinds of interactions that several members of the Core Regulars engaged in:

   
Scott Brown and I worked diligently to "herd" people into the Forum, largely by making the mental connection between on-going events and people we knew and e-mailing them with encouragement to respond.  Scott's activities in bringing Lotus employees into the Forum expanded this cyberspace from one originally intended for Partner-to-Partner interchange to enriching Partner-to-Lotus dialog as well.
 
The ever-changing ranks of Core Regulars, not unlike the successive generations of some isolated culture, shaped and reinforced the culture of the Forum.  Over time, there've been about 100 especially notable "movers and shakers," some of whom are mentioned in this monograph, and only about half of whom are still active.  These are the people who through their wit, logic or persistence made an indelible change in their wake.  I suspect these, like the legends of a "live community," can only be identified in retrospect; there's precious little I can name we did to active encourage them.  But, these natural leaders will naturally emerge, and they are key to success.
 
We courted controversy, never allowing the Forum to "go bland."  There were many times when Lotus executives, unaware of the requisite dynamics of on-line interpersonal dynamics, took umbrage or expressed deep concerns about the "white water" stages.  Indeed, in these turbulent times there was a rich suite of "side" e-mail discussions among participants, among the Forum leadership, and between community members and "outsiders" that addressed the rationale behind some of the actions.
 
We allowed mistakes without letting them be terminal.  There was a time, for instance, when Scott Brown and I had a serious disagreement about dealing with some controversy among the members.  Early in the resolution of that difference of opinion we agreed to agree that our goal was support and nurture the Forum to the benefit of it's members and of Lotus.  And the Forum is rife with apologies, accepted without penalty (including, interestingly, some times when I overstepped cultural boundaries inadvertently myself; while I was chagrined to be castigated by the members, I was also pleased that their sense of community boundaries was strong enough that they were compelled to protect them).

I have abstracted some of the general "lessons learned" as a guide to would-be creators of on-line community that synthesizes some of these experiences into recommendations.

Taboos of the Culture

     One of the classical signs for the existence of culture is the appearance of taboos:  Generally accepted rules of behavior that are seldom explicitly defined, but for which there are penalties for violation.  Some of the taboos of the Forum:

 
To post with an identity other than one's own.  During the first few years, the technology permitted arbitrary changing of one's name of record on a posting.  Then with the second generation of technology, names were taken strictly from the User ID of the author.  However, some people would use the console of a Notes (later Domino) server, and that would show the server's name.   From that time, one or another of the Regulars would remind the frequent-violator or first-timer of the rules.

From the time of "BP Technical Forum 96," the technology has supported the ability to fill in a Profile form, and now users who fail to create a Profile after a few weeks are generally chided to more fully identify themselves.  Clearly, people want to know with whom they're communicating.
 
To post a message with a large attachment or graphic image (the limit, which evolved during 1996, is 100K bytes).  This is the infamous "Dave's Cat" rule, named for the debate that originally ensued after Dave Varberg posted a picture of his cat.  Later, a new person posted a 6 Megabyte file advertising a new product, and that sparked the rule which is now enforced quite regularly.

Technology has played a part in this process.  With deployment of the "BP Technical Forum 96," a companion database, "Large Objects 96" was introduced.  From the Forum, a user can submit a large document or image, but only a message without the attachment or image is stored.  The document(s) or image(s) are separately mailed into the "Large Objects" database, where a new document is created.  Each partner maintains a local copy of both databases, and when they want to actually receive the objects, they click a button, receive them in e-mail from a central source.  Only those who want Large Objects ever see them.
 
Advertising; people who use the Forum for shameless self-promotion or to sell goods and services are ardently discouraged by Core Regulars.  The response is so virulent that it may, in fact, discourage some people from posting what might be useful information.   During 1997, the rules clarified a bit, and community members recognized that promoting one's one products or services in response to a plea for help was legitimate practice.

One form of advertising is strictly prohibited, and people who have tried have seldom survived the response:  No one is interested in seeing recruiting messages.  As these are some of the most experienced Notes and Domino experts in the world, it's a juicy, but off-limits target.
 
Criticizing our hosts, Lotus.  The community takes pride in having attracted many busy Lotus employees to take time from their duties to participate, or to visit occasionally and answer specific questions.  The community clearly recognizes that severe criticism, and ad hominem attacks drive people away.  People can report problems they're having, and wish for different features in products, but scurrilous attacks of the company, its products or its people are universally considered way out of bounds.
 
Inappropriate uses of the technology.  Notes and Domino are designed for automatic replication of databases to a local server or workstation.  While the Forum can be accessed by dialing up the Lotus Notes Network computers and reading it on-line, it has never been contractually discouraged because nobody ever imagined that someone would try to use it that way.  It's not economical, and it's not practical, but some people occasionally try.  When they post, they then appear to be using a Server's ID, and are usually quickly advised to use the technology in appropriate ways.
Cultural Self-Policing

     I assumed the self-assigned responsibility of enforcing the evolving norms of the community from an early time.  As new participants showed up and appeared to violate the taboos, I took it upon myself to offer feedback.  During 1995 through early-1997, I tried to check the Forum for messages at least once a day.

     Once, in 1996, while a new person was violating several of the taboos, I reproached him in the Forum.  He responded with a demanding query about my authority to be dictating rules to him.  Several of the Core Regulars then took up the battle, defended my recommendations, added their own opinions, and sanctioned my actions.

     Since then, I have relaxed my vigilance, relying on the fact that many of the Regulars will now step in and take care of the policing function if I leave them the room.  Most of my contributions during 1997 were as a Regular member of the Forum, or to identify issues that I saw emerging that deserved further discussion or attention.

     In early 1996, some of us were notified that Lotus planned on expanding participation beyond North America into Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA).  Knowing that we would have many new participants for whom English was not a native language, I was concerned about our ability to maintain the cozy, unofficial self-policing.  So, in February, I posted some recommendations for the formation of a Forum-elected governing council.  That became the largest thread of discussion to-date.  And, in the end, it was clear that it was about a 50/50 split between those who wanted leave the status quo and those who feared, like me, that a lack of formal rule-setting body might allow the Forum to degenerate to anarchy.  Without a clear majority toward change, the discussion withered out, leaving