Here you'll find a summary about what I presented at the third Kom Je Ook? Public as Programmer.
Basically I begin my presentation by stating that although a lot of organisations are interested in having an online community, just a few actually have platforms in which interaction is taking place.
This means the problem is not creating an online community or a platform. The problem is the participation of members. If it's such a great platform, why are people not contributing and participating?
In order to answer that question, I demonstrate some examples of websites in which people are participating like crazy. Mind that these websites all are commercial or made by the public. This is for I couldn't find ANY website of a cultural organisation in which the members are interacting at a certain level that is worth mentioning.
The commercial organisations make use of a rewarding system. Yunomi offers prices for participating and earning 'noni's'. Starbucks promises to put the ideas with the highest rating in action. Current.tv gives the option of becoming a group leader of a certain subject of video's/comments/articles. In that way the group leader of the subject is responsible for the participation of others: motivating them to contribute worthy articles/video's etc. to his subject.
Looking at examples of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace, I could see the rewarding system doesn't apply. People participate because the initiator of the website/blog is participating regularly/personally. Moreover the website is made by the public, which automatically lowers the barriers for entry. People don't trust the big media online. There's a great consensus their trust will be used for commercial goals. This especially applies to young people.
So what can we conclude: It doesn't matter what kind of rewarding-system you implement on your website. The rewards also don't seem to be the issue, whether they're prices, or popularity, it all comes down to one thing:
People love to participate if they are free to do that. So make sure the communication is open (not hierarchical), keep it personal and reward them with your own participation (at least write a comment saying:'thank you for your contribution, appreciate that').
Keep in mind people spend their well-earned free-time on your website. They should at least be treated well, like they were in your own home. Welcome them inside, make them a drink, make them feel comfortable. Before you know it, people will be gathering around each other, chatting up, the party will be pumping and they'll be making plans for the next time.
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