DtT ch 5 and 6

Influence

• This chapter is about designing influence and allowing members to feel a sense of control in the online community. There needs to be a balance between structural boundaries and individual responsibility.

What is influence? It exists in a community when its members believe that they can control or shape the policies, procedures, topics and standards of evidence used to persuade others in an online community or social network.

Why is influence important? Everyone needs to have a feeling of control in order to feel safe and comfortable.

When designing an online community you must:

• understand the influence needs of members
• find a balance between keeping members on task and staying inside reasonable boundaries
• give them the ability to play with the space within those boundaries

Play: the boundaries that members of the community should not go beyond, as well as, the sense of creative freedom and joy.

Types of Members and Need for Influence

There are three classification systems:

1. Li and Bernoff's social technographics ladder

• Creators: create the primary content for a community or network. They must know they are being read and have some impact.
• Critics: comment on the entry creators post. They need feedback that helps them determine how values in the community are lining up.
• Collectors: add value to social networks by sorting content created by creators and critics into ordered and ranked categories. They need to have questions sent to them asking if they have archived information that will benefit the community, and that their collecting behaviors are valued by the community.
• Joiners: have influence by virtue of their profiles that they fill out and complete. They need to see that people view their profiles.
• Spectators: consume what the rest produce. They need to see that creators and critics appreciate the time they invest in reading their posts and blogs.
• Inactives: spend no energy on behalf of the social network and don't participate. They need what the others need, yet the needs aren't met.

2. Kim's membership life cycle model

• Visitors: people without persistent identity in the community
• Novices: new members who need to learn the ropes and be introduced into community life
• Regulars: established members that are comfortably participating in community life
• Leaders: volunteers, contractors and staff that keep the community running
• Elders: long time regulars and leaders who share their knowledge and pass along the culture

3. Wenger's five learning trajectories

• Peripheral trajectories: provide a kind of access to a community and its practice that becomes significant enough to one's identity, but doesn't lead to full participation
• Inbound trajectories: newcomers' identities are invested in their future participation, even though at present their participation may be peripheral
• Insider trajectories: the formation of an identity does not end with full membership because of changes to the community causing continuous renegotiating one's identity
• Boundary trajectories: find their value in spanning boundaries and linking communities of practice. Although challenging, they sustain their identity across boundaries
• Outbound trajectories: these lead out of the community. This demonstrates how a form of participation enables what comes next.

* Trajectories describe the individual's position relative to the community over time. A trajectory maps their temporal relationship to the community's boundaries.

Techniques

These are ways you can ensure that your social network or community meets the influence needs of different members of our group.

1. Set up an advisory council
2. Respond to every concern without administrivia
3. Show the number of times a message has been viewed
4. Have a report a problem on every page of the site
5. Include in your application why they want to join
6. Have exit surveys
7. Run periodic surveys
8. Allow avatars
9. Require profiles
10. Create a visitor's center
11. Put novices with novices
12. Give Elders opportunities
13. Demand respect
14. Publish and enforce safety policies

Belonging

• a sense of one's social presence in a community, and a feeling or awareness of the shared bonds a member has with others in the group
• Belonging is created in a community through shared mythologies, stories of origin, symbols and cultural codes

Initiation Rituals: allow for members of a group to have shared experiences in which they relate to one another

Stories of Origin: help bring members together and show the values of the community

Leveling up Rituals

Initiation rituals allow new members to become apart of a community, but also can allow for levels within membership of a community.

• The upside of these rituals for levels is the celebration and recognition that comes with it, allowing for the opportunity to build community.
• The downside of these rituals is that it can create jealousy between members, and members feel distanced from the community.

Mythologies: shared histories that express values of the community. These are useful to illustrate values and to show desired behavior within the community.

Symbols and Codes: a sense of belonging can also be accomplished through visual and audio elements in design.

• corporate branding

Protocols, Routines, and Schemas: ritualized behaviors that members of a community use to identify and greet other members, and to understand correct behavior to use in different social situations

Techniques

The following techniques are useful in creating a feeling of belonging for online communities:

1. Create and distribute a story of origin
2. Create an initiation ritual
3. Encourage your leaders and elders to share mythologies
4. Encourage members to share myths and stories about themselves
5. Create leveling up ceremonies
6. Establish routines and protocols
7. Establish symbols, colors and visual identities
8. Use a membership application as an initiation ritual