Do we need an online community industry council?

After the Communities 2.0 conference earlier this week in Las Vegas, there was a meeting for those attendees and other interested parties to discuss the formation of the Community Management and Marketing Council (CMMC). It is being spear-headed by Francois Gossieaux with support from the many folks who are in this industry. But the question that many folks have is WHY?

In an attempt to learn about why people in who run online communities, sell the software and services to run online communities, as well as the academics who study the field think, I’ve emailed our Online Community Roundtable members as well as a few dozen other folks I know in the industry. My purpose is to help define what the benefits of membership could be.

After sending my initial email out on Wednesday night from Las Vegas while waiting for my Red Eye flight back to D.C., I was surprised by the number of responses from my network. A couple of early responses indicate that potential members would like to see us:

• Provide a network of peers to share relevant ideas to enhancing the community experiences of their audience
• Develop relationships with members who have more experience
• Stay on top of the changing technology landscape (who’s hot, who’s developing something we could use, etc.)
• A strong network of organizations where case studies that cross companies/organizations could be developed to demonstrate true best practices
• Benchmarking of key success metrics for online communities

But there is some concern as well:

• Peers are organizations involved in this, not individuals who have a blog
• How do you ensure that our ideas aren’t given to our direct competitors?
• There needs to be a separate group for those of us who have moved beyond the basics of online communities. We can help less experienced companies, but that shouldn’t be the main point of our joining your group.

So, we have the same concerns as we’ve seen in the past when Impact Interactions first put its roundtable together. As I get more responses, I’ll post again on this topic. You can find more information at Francois’ blog The Future of Communities and at CMMCouncil.org.

But overall, I believe this is a good idea. With the online community world growing in importance, there are many issues and projects that an industry council could tackle. It’s not just about the networking, it can also be about where this industry goes from a professional standpoint. And that’s exciting to think about. Feel free to leave a comment here or to contact us.

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2 Responses to “Do we need an online community industry council?”

Mukund Mohan says:

March 16, 2007 at 6:01 pm

Mike
Great to see that you talked to a few folks already and I can see that you are both passionate and also very well connected with the key folks to make this happen.

I am looking forward to working with you on this.
Mukund

Francois Gossieaux says:

March 18, 2007 at 8:28 pm

Mike,

Thank you so much for doing this and for supporting this effort. I have ran into some of the same concerns and agree 100% that we need to address them.

I will post updates on the blogs you mentioned in the coming week and address some of those issues.

Again – thank you for helping make this happen. Together I believe that we can build a group that will benefit the industry as a whole!

Francois