I was just looking over my notes from Webstock 2009 (Yes, I have been reflecting on these notes since and am aware this is far from liveblogging…) and thought I would share those from my favourite speaker, Meg Pickard from Guardian.co.uk who gave a fantastic presentation on Content, Communities & Collaboration. This presentation was right up my alley, the Guardian online is very much an online leader for an “old media” company, so of course I picked Meg’s brains further at the after match function.
1. INTERACTING WITH CONTENT
Users interact with content in a lot of different ways:
a) Consume
b) React
c) Curate
d) Create
a) Consume
-Old activity reading news, but people are now consuming in new ways (RSS, Mobile)
-Was “passive”, with no interaction required
b) React
-Last 50 years this reaction to content has existed.
e.g. Letters to the Editor –> now this is commenting on news/blog sites.
c) Curate
-”Word of 2009″ in media objectives. Users are now stringing stories together in new ways. New stories/content are put together by users passionate about the subject or topic via comment threads on a news story, the article evolves and develops further with different opinions and angles presented.
d) Create
-Lowers barriers of entry so people can participate. Quality.
-Social media is not social networking.
-Content gets better as people use it. As they experience and feed into the content it gets better.
-It is no longer so that content is king, it is context is everything.
-Text, Data, Multimedia and Social Aspects all feed into the context. Video/audio are sometimes a better way to tell a story than text. Through social channels people help the story make more sense.
-Think of the bus stop example, the people gathered at the stop do not have a relationship with each other, but the relationship with the bus. Pages and stories put together with context.
-Social media does not need to be sociable E.g. Bookmarking your own links on delicious and does not need to be complicated. E.g. Comments, Polls, Profile data.
2. PEOPLE, TECHNOLOGY AND EDITORIAL
a) People
Reward, notice and commend.
b) Technology
Employ technology to make people better. Make it elegant, simple and make it well used.
c) Editorial
Thinking about why this should be community system, why people should get involved, how the debate it framed and the tone used. What will you do if people contribute?
3. FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE PARTICIPATION
a) Commission, write, edit and curate for the web
Always write for the web, how do we build in linking and write in a tone to improve participation.
b) Plan and Predict for likely interaction
Do we want people to agree with us? Debate amongst selves? Will we get involved? Think about what you want before you encourage people to do things. Think about this so pitching this way to users. Set framing questions to increase participation.
c) Participate and Encourage Participation
There is noone better to engage, find relevant topical links, pull conversation together than the original author. The publish button is the start and not the end.
d) Recognise and Reward Quality Contributions
Ignore trolls, conversely reward quality publically. Internally isn’t enough. Be part of the conversation by rewarding good behaviour, strengthens the psychological and emotional impact of that behaviour.
e) Listen, be inspired, curate, follow up, act
Don’t just employ “bouncers”, to guard against bad behaviour, but employ hosts that are to ensure people are having a good time. Use conversations/comments on Blog/story to create new stories and to take them in new directions. Feed back to the users, you said a), b), c) link here is relevant to that. Your job is to curate the conversation, to look in at doors opened and conversations started.
4. OTHER IMPORTANT POINTS
a) Audience
Unique browsers is the wrong metric, doesn’t tell you the level of engagement.
b) Participants
Encourage people to leave trails of information on your site.
c) Communities
Always used plurally, as you don’t just have one community. You can’t manufacture these either. You have to find people, their passions, their contexts and people will create the conversations.
Communities form, they are not made, they are formed and then supported.