Community Answers

Issue 7

Welcome to the seventh issue of conduit. Have a great rest of the week, and we will look forward to sending you the next issue in 2002. Happy New Year!

This issues quote: "The turtle makes progress only when he sticks his neck out." - Unknown

In this issue of conduit:

1) Featured Question and Answer: "Intranet Communities?"

2) Your Community Answer: "Does giving community contributors special recognition make a difference to community activity?"

3) Community Wire: "The Case of On-line Communities": An article that provides support for online communities and their validity.

4) Community Voice: A Letter from the CommunityAnswers.com Staff

Featured Question and Answer

This issue's question was brought to us by a large company interested in setting up an intranet, and was posed as follows:

"What special considerations are related to intranet communities? My team is tasked with building communities for the service delivery audience. Our vision to create a single access point (portal is a four-letter word) for all service and technical product information. Our hope is that communities will foster a collaborative environment (without collaboration tools) where individuals will share solutions and experiences -- basically, optimizing their tacit knowledge."

To view CommunityAnswers.com's suggestions, please visit "Intranet Communities?"

~Are you searching for information on a particular topic? Check out our searchable archive of past question and answers.

Your Community Answer

The recent McKinsey Quarterly article, "The case for on-line communities" says that giving community contributors rewards or special status for being involved should be considered best-practice. What do you think, either as a site owner, manager or community user?

Does giving community contributors special recognition make a difference to community activity?

Make your vote count.

Community Wire

The McKinsey Quarterly recently published an article, "The case for on-line communities", based on their own research in conjuction with Jupiter Media Matrix that supports how community features create value for retail and content-based sites.

The article is based on research of 17 major consumer sites, interviews with industry leaders and a study of 40,000 consumers. The findings indicate that sites which offer community features for their consumers:

- benefit from an increase in user activity and involvement;

- enjoy increased site and product loyalty; and,

- generate twice as many sales, in comparison to sites that do not offer community.

A key conclusion of the research, aside from the benefits of community, was the relatively untapped nature of online communities - few of the major consumer sites in such areas as apparel and general merchandise offer community features.

In addition, the article outlines some useful best-practice guidelines according to industry experts and the authors' own findings. Are you excelling in the key areas they identify?

If you are contemplating implementing community on your site, have been asked to provide a business case for community, or simply wish to read some supporting evidence for communities then this article is well worth a read.

If you wish to submit an article or comment to be featured within conduit's CommunityWire, please do so by using our online submission form.

Community Voice

As the New Year is fast upon us, it is a time for reflection, recognizing the things that we hold near and dear.

First and foremost, CommunityAnswers.com is grateful to all our dedicated subscribers and visitors for your continued participation and support. Without all of you CommunityAnswers.com would have no reason to exist. Thank you for allowing us to share with and learn from you.

Despite some of the difficulties and tragedies faced during the year 2001, such as the September 11th bombing, company lay-offs and an unstable economy, we had the opportunity to witness some amazing acts. Online communities shone with their ability to bring people together during a time of great sadness and crisis. We witnessed people sharing and caring about one another regardless of geographical constraints or other barriers which might restrict communication in the "real world" sense. This left us feeling extremely proud and thankful to be in the industry we are in.

Our commitment to providing the best quality service to our visitors and subscribers is unwavering and strong. From that commitment we are actively developing new features and services to bring to the site in the year 2002 with the hope that these new additions will continue to provide you with the value and assistance that you need. With this in mind, we ask of you a small favor; if you ever feel like we are faltering in our commitment to you and the services we provide, please let us know. Your thoughts, feedback and contributions are important to us.

We wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year. May 2002 bring each one of you all that is positive, productive and prosperous.

You can contribute to communityanswers.com and gain valuable insights by asking a question right now: