Long Live Mega Collaboration at the CompTIA EMEA Conference

The barriers to collaboration online continue to fall, more and more, year over year. With the volume of people sharing content on Facebook, YouTube, Google apps, and others increasing by thousands each month, more than the majority of people now are on some form of online community.

With this collaborative access to new products and services, interactions between vendor and customer change the process of discovery for the audience. How do you get engaged and use communities for mega collaboration?

Susanne Dansey, Managing Director, Purple Cow Ideas Management, said, “Cloud is not an excuse to not talk to the customer.” Communications still need multiple touch points, and “pressing the flesh” is still critically important to businesses. While exploding in growth, “Community is only part of the brand conversation.”

In starting your online initiatives, goals, strategy, and tactics are the 3 items needed to give you the focus to deliver your message online. Without these, community engagement often fails. Having someone specifically employed to run these initiatives can be the key driving success factor.

Tips for Success:
-Acquire Skills to use community sites (Facebook, YouTube, etc.)
-Cede some control of the conversation to the community
-Define (and realign) your goals as a business for your communities
-Make it easy for people to contribute
-Edit, don’t create
-Reward, but don’t over-reward participation
-Use proven technologies as your platform

Communities are about interpretation. Set your goals, apply a human element to the conversation, and solicit and encourage feedback to make participants feel appreciated. Understand the specifics to your community and use online communities as one part of your strategic business goals.

Visit the CompTIA EMEA Member Conference website and press room for highlights of the conference. Presentations, including this session with Susanne Dansey, will be posted after the event.