Are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of Community’s past?

Reading the media’s accounts of online community becoming an important component of marketing, I am struck by the fact that many of the people being quoted think that online community is something new and exciting to offer customers and site visitors.

Take P&G’s latest foray into communities with its interactive agency ZiZo Group for example:

“Capessa.com is an innovative example of how companies are strategically innovating with digital media,” adds Roger Fishman, founder and president of The ZiZo Group. “Developing sustainable digital business models provides new ways to listen to, learn from and engage with online communities and is key for long term brand-building.”

Um, Roger this is not new in any sense of the word…

And from CSO’s blog post, Gartner’s comments:

Peter Sondergaard, global head of research for Gartner, told CEOs at Cebit on Wednesday that blogs and online communities like MySpace may have started in the consumer realm, but they’ll have a big impact on businesses in the coming years.

Peter, where have you been?

Yes, online communities should be part of the mix of any organization that wants and desires to get closer to their customers/members/prospects. But thinking this is something new is silly.

It reminds me of several comments made during the initial BlogOn 2004 meeting in Berkeley where most of the bloggers presenting spoke of how blogs were going to revolutionize the world, change how people interact with each other, and dominate how organizations delivered content to everyone. These comments were usually followed up with discussions about the lack of a business model that worked or a discussion on whether advertising on blogs would be enough to cover a salary plus expenses. What these folks never even contemplated was that all these discussions had taken place before. They assumed that because they had found something new, it was new. They misunderstood the power of a new tool with the power of community. The knowledge of the past work in online communities was irrelevant to them because blogs were new.

The same thing is starting to happen again as the online community world grows. Too many people who are covering this industry believe that it’s new, shiny, and exciting without ever researching what has already happened. When I see companies like SAP, HP, and others labeled as old world or as traditional companies I cringe. Companies like these (and I’d add Cisco and Microsoft as well), have embedded the idea of online community so deeply into their organizations that there is true enterprise knowledge being gained.

For every MySpace there is a GeoCities. For every Capessa there is an iVillage. There is knowledge and experience to be mined in order to avoid stepping on the landmines that await new online communities. Whether it will ever be tapped into is another question.

(Cross posted to the FUTURE OF COMMUNITY blog) Want to gain that experience and learn how to avoid the common pitfalls of launching and operating an online community? Contact us for a free consultation.

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