Ed Mitchell: Platform neutral

Community members opinions and how to handle them

As you might know, I find equal inspiration for group facilitation from the online and offline worlds. As well as this, I find inspiration from books and blogs etc. just as much as it exists in pubs, parties, festivals and life on the streets around me - there are lessons to be learnt all over the place, and one just popped up in my street.

Our local pub, The Cadbury, is something of an institution in Bristol. It is raucous, bawdy and fun, has good ales, a great garden, and attracts plenty of controversy. There is a cigarette lighter on the wall that apparently dispenses cigarette lighters, but not according to a local who stuck the following on it:

So you’re the new landlord, Wayne. Do you:

• Remove the sign in a huff and admonish the complainant?
• Check the machine and sort it out?
• Ignore it or laugh at it?
• Poll the locals to see if they actually want it?
• Something else

This made me think of a few questions around supporting or launching virtual communities, the relationship between community members, facilitators, and the tools they are given to do their thing, and issues around the ownership of space:

• If the members don’t like a tool, do you keep it?
• If a tool doesn’t work, who is responsible for deciding whether to keep it or not?
• If members want different tools, how do you extract this information and sort it out?
• Do the members have the tools they actuall want and need, or are they the tools you installed as part of a platform?
• If the members make their opinions felt in a manner that isn’t strictly ‘polite’, how do you respond?
• If the members don’t like some activity or tool, but the group sponsor needs it, what do you do to resolve the difference?

Like I say, only questions; revolving around technology stewardship, online facilitation, and that all important balance of power in shared group spaces.