An Online Community is More Than a Place

I often hear of or talk to Optaros prospects who want to “build an online community.” That’s great, and I certainly don’t want to discourage them, but I think the phrase risks greatly oversimplifies what’s involved in building a community.

It suggests than an “online community” is something you build like you build: a web site, or a portal. It suggests that the community is the site itself. (It’s a strange kind of synecdoche, in which the web platform where some community interaction takes place is taken to be the actual community itself).
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Web Content 2008 Presentation

Wednesday was day two of Web Content 2008, and I presented in the afternoon on the rise of user-contributed content and community, and the impact that’s had on content management.

I had thought about calling it “From Content Management to Community Management” or maybe “Content Management is Dead” but ended up instead with: “Upload, Tag, Share, Discuss: Content Management in the Age of Participation.”
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