The Glue Project

About the Stuff the Binds Communities Together

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Andrew Krzmarzick I Hate "Lurkers"

Originally published on GovLoop - Social Network for Government - excellent comments there that enhance the cross-post below. Eager to get this community's insight.
I just finished reading an article called
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Added by Andrew Krzmarzick on February 26, 2010 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Are Twitter, Facebook et al just another media?

My recent conversations with marketing people brought this home to me. They tend to refer to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace et al as social media.

The people who build these things call them social platforms or utilities. The people who work at Ning, Meetup, Facebook etc see them as the new social infrastructure whe

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Added by Douglas Atkin on February 23, 2010 at 3:10pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Conversation with Gina Bianchini Part 2

In this part we cover tips for community leaders on Ning, how the Ning platform has evolved, the importance of customization and Gina's views on which social platforms will survive.

Top tips for successful

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Added by Douglas Atkin on February 5, 2010 at 12:49pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Following on from the previous post that attempts to distinguish between fan, follower and community…

Following on from the previous post that attempts to distinguish between fan, follower and community member, here’s a brief and imperfect review of the major platforms that we generally consider as suitable for community building.


Bear in mind that each of these do some of the other (and increasingly so as they develop more functionality). But this is a broad-stroke review designed to help someone who’s considering how to create an online platform for community (if they’re

… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on February 5, 2010 at 12:33pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Fan, Follower or Community Member?

Over the past week I’ve been interviewing people about whether they are enabling real community. Most of them have been in the commercial arena. Many of them want to create communities around their brands to create more commitment. There are really a few simple questions that they can ask themselves to clarify whether they are creating true community or not. Why should they bother to clarify this? Because there seems (to me) to be a bit of confusion about whether they’re creating fans, follower… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 28, 2010 at 10:23am — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Conversation with Gina Bianchini (Part 1)

This is the first of two parts of a conversation I had with Gina Bianchini. Gina is CEO and Co-Founder (with Mark Andreessen) of Ning. Ning is a social platform that enables people to form communities of interests a… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 22, 2010 at 1:53pm — 1 Comment

Douglas Atkin Ingredient: #12: Myths

...they aren't lies, they're core Truths! Myths are stories, but with a critical difference. They have symbolic importance. They embody what the community is all about: its purpose, its beliefs and its actions. Regular stories that relate things like events and achievements and that are captured in photos, videos and words are good for collective memory-making and co-creation…all great things for stickiness. Myths are slightly different.They become elevated to a special status because… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 22, 2010 at 1:12pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Glue Ingredient #11: Tell Stories

From Homer to Hollywood, Troubadours to Tweeters, stories have entertained, informed, bonded and reminded us who we are. These are critical benefits for communities. They’re vehicles for shared memories. They’re the narratives and dramas that vividly describe why we’re together, what we’ve done and why others should join. The most successful recruiters into networks and groups (including religions) are good storytellers. They’ll dramatize how and why they joined. They’ll tell stories about th… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 14, 2010 at 10:01am — 1 Comment

Douglas Atkin Gating and Culling: How to's #6-8

This is the last in the series about gating and culling. And the last of the 'How-To's of accepting/rejecting/ejecting. 6. Accountability. Self-Policing. Transparency. Col, an Aussie Karting guy has predisposed his community towards good behavior by making each member ‘visible’ and knowable to everyone else. He disallows anonymity, which would otherwise be an awfully convenient shield to hide behind when indulging in anti-social behavior. High functioning communities work because ther… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 7, 2010 at 1:03pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Gating and Culling: How-To's #'s 2 through 5

In this sequence of posts about how to gate and cull, we've looked at the first tool you can use: your purpose or ideology to accept/reject/eject people. Now we'll look at #2 through #5: Use Rules, Approve membership, Cultural Sieve and Like-get-like. 2. Have rules and enforce them consistently and fairly. Codes of Conduct in most communities tend to establish the very basic norms of civility and expectations of engagement. When I asked a selection of community organizers what 5 piece… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on January 5, 2010 at 3:43pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Gating and Culling #3: How?

We've covered Why and Who you should reject and eject in the previous two posts. Now we'll talk about the difficult job of how to do it. In the case of culling, the general rule here is respectfully, kindly and keeping the rest of the community informed about why the person is removed. In the case of rejecting a potential member, again, respectfully and explaining why. Those are the general rules. Here are some specific tools you can use to ensure you get and keep the righ… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 29, 2009 at 5:17pm — No Comments

Douglas Atkin Gating and Culling #2: Who and What

This is the second post about the controversial subject of gating and culling. The first post discussed why you should gate and cull. This one covers who you should gate and cull, and what they do to deserve it. Here are some of the key characters who can both undermine the community’s core purpose, as well as its operation. WHO should you reject and eject? I’ve seen five categories: 1. Spammers: abusers of access. 2. Social Toxics (including Trolls)… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 22, 2009 at 12:38pm — 1 Comment

Douglas Atkin Should all Communities be Gated?

Should all Communities be Gated? Should some members be Culled? This is the first of three posts that covers a controversial, but I believe absolutely necessary responsibility of any community leader: be clear about why and who you accept-reject-eject. And act on it with resolution. The last thing you think about when you start an online or offline community is turning people away and throwing people out. You’re in an expansive mode. You want to recruit, recruit, recruit! Everyone’s we… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 18, 2009 at 11:45am — No Comments

Andrea Schneider Collaboration

I recently answered these questions from Christina Jordan on Ned.com. I thought they were excellent questions to ask and wanted to share them here. Click this Link for the whole post: Love some comments, additions, etc. * What does the term "collaboration" mean to you when it's applied to your thinking about Social Change? * Can you share good or bad examples of colla… Continue

Added by Andrea Schneider on December 18, 2009 at 12:26am — 2 Comments

Douglas Atkin Interview with Caterina Fake, Part 2

Douglas: What do you think are the key ingredients of a high-functioning community? Caterina: Well, obviously I think that there needs to be a reason for people to get together, and that can be an affiliation or an interest or proximity or some kind of common goal or need. And I think that there needs to be people that care deeply a… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 9, 2009 at 9:00am — 2 Comments

Douglas Atkin What are the top 5?

“What are the top five pieces of advice you’d give to new community leaders?” “What are the five things you wished you’d known when you started out?” I’ve been asking these questions of community leaders. I also asked the same question that got some great responses on Discussion boards on this site, and on Ning. I’m still building the list. And I’d like you to add some. But here are the key themes that emerged. And I’ve also reprinted, near the end of this post, the complete answers of some o… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 6, 2009 at 8:02am — 1 Comment

Andrea Schneider Community, Collaboration, Social Networking and Me

My interest in this subject derives from an ah ha moment. I realized I was good at looking at foundations, and the whole house, before I looked at its parts. I wondered why we/society were spending so much money treating problems, if we could look at the root "causes" instead. This is not usually a straight line, but made so much sense to me in terms of effectiveness and scope. I wanted to start spending the dollar once. I'm a big picture person with a big imagination. In the last year, I've s… Continue

Added by Andrea Schneider on December 6, 2009 at 12:51am — 2 Comments

Andrea Schneider Innovation by Example

I saw this on the web. It's a simple way to talk about the traits of innovation researched by credible folks. Seems easy enough. I use this word a lot and see it everyday. The ability to be innovative seems to go along with confidence, comfort with risk taking, support somewhere, an opportunity to try things out and test drive the idea, good failure analysis and ability to collaborate with others. It would really be good if we could catalog the most innovative community efforts and use them as… Continue

Added by Andrea Schneider on December 3, 2009 at 6:00pm — 1 Comment

Douglas Atkin Community is Protection

In my conversation with Linda Stone (internet guru), she brought up an interesting exchange she had had with a younger woman. It was about how two generations derived a sense of protection from two different sources. Linda paraphrased the young woman’s view this way: “Protection to my baby boomer parents and protection to me are completely different things. For my parents they feel protected when they have paid off their house. They feel p… Continue

Added by Douglas Atkin on December 3, 2009 at 5:06am — No Comments

Margy Rydzynski Introducing Myself

Hello, Glue Project community. I'm a Ning network administrator for a small business community in the Arlington, Massachusetts area. I first read about this network on the Ning blog and found myself very interested in the project. We are a nation of disconnected communities and I'd like to see how we can change that. I look forward to hearing more about initiatives, and to sharing my experiences with you all. FYI, my Ning site is:… Continue

Added by Margy Rydzynski on November 30, 2009 at 8:38pm — No Comments

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