Shifting from passive consumer to producer

Clay Shirky, professor at NYU who consults on the impact of the internet and technology on culture and economics, gives a thought provoking speech at this year’s Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

He observes that for today’s generation, “media includes consuming, producing and sharing.” And that “media that’s targeted at you, but doesn’t include you may not be worth sitting still for.”

I think he’s mostly right. (I can’t say entirely, because I do still enjoy the guilty pleasure of plopping myself in front of my big screen Mac, mowing down jalapeno cheese puffs while being completely obsessed with the latest season of Survivor.)

But I do agree that people want to be involved. We no longer want to be entirely passive receivers of information – we want to receive, then give back. Whether it’s posting a silly shot to lolcats, uploading a video of last night’s escapades to YouTube, or displaying our latest photo shoot on Flickr.

Sharing is at the core of what people want to do. (But please keep Survivor going….)

Building communities, inside and out

I read a fantastic article today called Community: From Little Things, Big Things Grow by George Oates (a member of the team that created Flickr).

She talks about how you develop a meaningful online community….that above all, it takes time to nurture, to set the tone and grow.

Oates explores several themes…that online communities should:

• be a space for play and exploration
• have a personal voice and unobtrusive design
• create a flexible space that allows members of the community to design new ways of using it that the creators never thought of
• provide the option to remain anonymous (though acknowledges that if you don’t “out” yourself eventually, you’re viewed suspiciously)
• and that you shouldn’t create too many rules or guidelines

While I read the article I couldn’t help think about how the discussion applied to an internally-focused online community.

Do people want to play when they’re on their intranet? Do corporations want them to be “exploring” – maybe not. But for the most part I agree with her community advice. It takes time to establish any sense of community, whether online or not. And above all I think it takes a personal stake….people can’t just build the community then abandon it. You have to invest personal time to establish a true community.