Strategy to keep your community thriving and a culture that makes your members at home.

1. Dove c’è community
c’è casa
Alessio Fattorini

2. Because is warm,
welcoming, friendly
and supportive

3. “Great leaders develop
environments of safety,
trust and cooperation,
where they put others first
- Simon Sinek

4. Vision
What is the future your
community exists to create?

5. Mission
How is your community
creating that change?

6. Values
The principles that shape the
community culture

7. Hello!
Alessio Fattorini
community.nethserver.org

8. NethServer Community
★ Vision: making NethServer strongly
community-driven
★ Mission: building NethServer with the
most vibrant, supportive and friendly
community in the open source space
(and not just..)

9. NethServer Community
★ Values: put people first, learn by doing,
be always inclusive, don’t be afraid to
ask stupid questions, your participation
counts, community belongs to all of us

10. Keep your
values always in
check
No fuzzy words

11. Be Welcoming

12. Be Welcoming
★ First experience is critical
★ Feel acknowledged
★ Know what to do first
★ First post prompt response

13. Be inclusive

14. Be inclusive
★ Create a space of emotional safety
★ Be humble - no patronize
★ Your opinions counts
★ Don’t take yourself too serious

16. Be supportive

17. Be supportive
★ They join community to get help not to
give it
★ Social Debt Culture between members
★ Offer opportunities to members to give
help in return
★ Call upon specific people to help other
specific people (Tagging skills)

18. An answer for everyone
★ Don’t let everyone is talking but no one
is listening and responding
★ Train your community to answer
Outcomes
Inclined
to participate
Leading
by example

19. Have the right people

20. Have the right people
★ The will help you to define the culture
★ They will set the bar high
★ They have to share the same vision,
mission, values, and voice
★ Find members who have great social
skills (D. Atkin)

21. Do things that don’t scale

22. Do things that don’t scale
★ Doing small things that have a limited
but very powerful impact
★ Focus on a narrow group
★ 20% - 80% rule
★ Offer super personalized help

23. Activity is not enough
Changing long-term
behaviour matters
(R. Millington)

24. Are my actions so effective?
Am I wasting my time?

25. Culture is not
enough we
need strategy

27. Identity

28. Identity
★ Member’s identity aligns with the
identity of the community
★ Social categorization
★ Create a strong community identity
that appeals new members

29. Trust

30. Trust
★ Trust in the community as a whole
★ Trust in specific members of the
community
★ Trust comes from reputation of the
community
★ Trust comes from relationships
between members

31. Participation

32. Participation
★ Trigger - what reminds the member to
come back to the community?
★ Action - how the member respons to
the trigger?
★ Experience - what the member does
after they take action?

35. I lurkers
★ Take any level into consideration
★ Don’t assume lurkers have no value or
they gain no value from your
community
★ Lukers are potential Active or Power
members

36. Reward

37. Reward
★ The member gets value from his
participation
★ Critical: make him wants to participate
again
★ Extrinsic reward VS Intrinsic rewards
★ Community should provide both

38. Intrinsic Rewards
★ Increase their personal/pro profile
★ Helping others
★ Feel connected with something larger
than themselves
★ Feel heard, seen, understood
★ Feel they have a sense of freedom,
accomplishment and autonomy
by Carrie Jones

39. Make your community
a habit

43. Examples from NethServer
★ Potential-Trust: slightly trust the
product and the content
★ New-Reward: personally welcomed
★ Active-Identity: identifies as NethServer
Community member and joins a team
★ Power-Partecipation: answers support
topics, write docs, beta testers

45. Content Plan
★ Everything is a content
★ Plan your content thoughtfull and with
structure
★ Create value for your member
★ Ask your member what they want
★ Try different typs of content until one
sticks

48. If you think every new member
joins with the aim of actively
participating and adding value
YOU’RE WRONG
They join purely for selfish reasons
They want to solve a problem (M. Reed)

49. Turning this individualism into
something that will end up
benefitting the entire community
That’s the community manager’s job

51. Thanks!
Any questions?
You can find me at @ale_fattorini