Tag Archives: space

Building a Social Community [#USXSW FRI 3/8/13 5pET]

Building a Social Community #USXSW 3 FRI 3/8 4pET

Building a Social Community (c) 2009 Amberwood Media Group

People are social creatures, that much is clear.  We enjoy the company of others, and thrive when we feel connected and included.  But why is it that some communities must be designed and planned, while others seem to appear and grow more spontaneously?

What forces are at work?  What is happening behind the scenes?

Amber and I, like many of our colleagues and friends at SMCHAT, USGUYS, BLOGCHAT MEDIACHAT, KAIZENBIZ, SOBCON, ECOSYS and CDNA, have been witness and party to the evolution of many social communities.  Let’s take the next hour to try to understand the forces at work, to see how we might influence them.  What are the key building blocks?  What is in the DNA of a strong Social Community?

Q1. What is the dynamic that sparks & expands common ground, vision, or a sense of purpose?

Q2. How important are individual relationships, and in what conditions are they formed?

Q3. What key factors influence success of a social community?

Q4. What key factors lead to the demise of a social community?

Q5. Does a social community have an ideal size?

Q6. What advice would you give to someone who wants a social community to grow/thrive in their physical or virtual space?

Join us Friday, 3/8, for #USXSW topic 3, at 5pET.  It should be a great conversation.  We’d love your thoughts.

For a deeper dive?  Check out The DNA of Collaboration, Part 4 on FLOW which takes on many of the process and relationship dynamics introduced here ..

See you online!

Your co-moderators for this segment,

Chris Jones & Amber Cleveland


A Time and Place, Venues for Flow (Ch.13)

Clearly, collaboration requires a venue, a space where people can come together and share ideas.  But to open opportunities for flow, we’ll need to work to get outside the box of traditional meetings. As low tech and old school as it seems, a conference room provides many of the necessary trappings needed for in-depth conversation.

But what else is needed for flow?

As we prepare for KMW12 W5 tomorrow, let’s tap tonight’s special #cdna chat to unpack this.

  • Q1. How can space be modified to capture ideas more fluidly, perhaps using un-conferences as a guide?
  • Q2. How might adaptive facilitation further open dialog?
  • Q3. What metaphors for flow might help collaborators further shed notions of structured facilitation?
  • Q4. Can visualizing idea streams make a difference?

Hope to see you online, as we begin to unpack “flow” in the collaborative context.

– Chris Jones aka SourcePOV, author, The DNA of Collaboration