Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation

Online communities offer a wide range of opportunities today for supporting a cause, marketing a product or service, or developing open source software. The Art of Community helps you develop the talents you need to recruit members to your community, and motivate and manage them to become active participants. This expanded edition offers advice for using social networking platforms, organizing summits, and tracking progress on your goals. You'll also benefit from interviews with several community management leaders. Author Jono Bacon offers experiences and observations from his decade-long effort to build and manage communities, including his current position as manager for Ubuntu. Discover how a vibrant community can provide a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas, and a powerful marketing force - vital ingredients for any organization or project, particularly when money is tight. * Develop specific objectives and goals for building your community * Build simple, nonbureaucratic processes to help your community perform tasks, work together, and share successes * Provide tools and infrastructure that let contributors work quickly * Create buzz around your community to get more people involved * Track the community's work so it can be optimized and simplified * Explore a capable, representative governance strategy for your community * Identify and manage conflict, such as dealing with divisive personalities