Jan Isakovic's blog

The business benefits of hosting or connecting to online communities are becoming more and more apparent. The analyst firm Gartner confirmed it a few days ago with the prediction that by 2010, more than 60 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies with a Web site will connect to or host some form of online community that can be utilized for customer relationship purposes.

They see several causes for this: from upcoming "Generation Virtual", accustomed to communication via social applications, to gaining valuable information about their customer base. “Data can be collected and used for product development, customer feedback, loyalty management, customer segmentation, campaign targeting, and individual or group customer satisfaction management. This wealth of data can be used for marketing, in particular, as well as an entire customer-focused organization,” said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.

But the road to there will not be simple: Gartner estimates that "more than 50 percent of companies that have established an online community will fail to establish mutual purpose, ultimately eroding customer and company values."

We agree that a clearly defined community purpose, which specifies the community added value for the organization and for the community members, is vital - that is why we have placed it at the core of our community building process.

More information:

• More about Gartner's findings
• "Using online communities in business" whitepaper
  

The Artesia team is attending the Mindtrek 2008 conference in Tampere, Finland next week (Oct 7th - Oct 9th). Our presentation, titled "A Value-added Methodology for Defining Virtual Communities for Enterprises", is scheduled for 2PM on October 7th at the Social Media track. We'll be presenting the SocialMatch™ methodology and talk about our experiences in building enteprirse online communities.

If you're attending Mindtrek, come and say hi!

The number of different virtual worlds grows almost daily, and with $345 million of VC investment in 39 companies developing virtual worlds in H1 2008, it does not seem like it will stop any time soon. Their technology, feature set and target audiences are very different and it's sometimes hard to make sense of it all.

Association of Virtual Worlds' reference resources are a good source for basic information about most virtual worlds, and KZERO does a great job of tracking user numbers and company presence over different virtual worlds.

This guide does not go to the same depths; instead, we want to present our virtual world categories with examples and links.

For more information about the business potential of virtual worlds, check out our whitepaper! It's freely available in our Library.

If you're reading this on the web, you have probably noticed that Artesia's web page got a face lift (if you're reading this in your RSS reader, come and check it out!). But the visual presentation was just the beginning of the big changes we made during this summer. Let me give you a quick overview:

1. More - and more useful - content

During last year, we have talked with a lot of people about user communities, virtual worlds and social media. We have discovered a need for two kinds of information: first, a general overview of selected topics - a kind of "Quick-start guide" that would present the basics and provide a few pointers, and second, a kind of radar that would showcase interesting news from these fields. While all this information is already present on the web, it's usually scattered over a myriad of blog posts - or extremely focused on a single aspect.

Our whitepapers aim to address the first need. For now, we have prepared two whitepapers - "Using online communities in business" and "Introduction to virtual worlds". Both give an introduction on the subject and include many examples to help you figure out the way you could use them in your business, too. They are available in our Library, with more content on its way.

"Artesia Spotlight"  is our answer to the second need. It's a bi-weekly review of key developments in the fields of social tools, user communities and virtual worlds and a showcase of interesting blog posts, videos or events. We'll sift the hundreds of RSS feeds and thousands of news items to find the few nuggets of gold - so you don't have to :) You can sign up for the newsletter by entering your email into the box below and clicking "Go" - your privacy is guaranteed (or by clicking here!)

2. New Second Life office

After a year in Second Life, we've outgrown our offices in Silicon Island. We've moved to a beautiful location (new SLURL) hosted by Beta Technologies, with whom we're cooperating in an exciting new VW venture - stay tuned for more information!

If you have any comments or suggestions regarding our whitepapers, Artesia Spotiight or the site redesign, leave us a comment!

Community building is a long and resource intensive task. Before you embark on an expensive project, make sure you can answer the following questions:

1. What is the value for the community members and for the company?

You must have a clear view of what the users will gain by being a part of your community. The value can be extremely varied - from awards like frequent flyer miles to ego boosts, but it must always be foremost in your mind. The second part of the value equation is what you are getting from the community - from eyeballs on banners to branding and increased sales.

2. Why should somebody register with your community?

What can you offer the user that he can’t get via a Google search or a portal?

3. Why should she be back regularly?

In other words - do you really need a community of your own? Can your needs be served by attaching to an existing community or community platform?

4. Why will a possible competitor be unable to simply copy our project in 12 months?

The value of a network (and a community) exponentially increases with size. How will you harness network effects to make it harder on your competition?

5. What social tools is your target group using?

Get to know the users before you start designing the platform. This will enable you to customize the platform to their wants and needs. Not everybody wants to post blogs!

At first glance virtual worlds have nothing in common with African people in need. One is a "game" for wealthy Westerners and the others struggle to get through the day on a bowl of rice. Alanagh Recreant, Second Life embodiment of Dorette Steenkamp, founder and co-executive director of Uthango, disagrees. Uthango is a non-profit organization in South Africa, a unique investment and development company with a special focus on bridging the digital divide, micro-enterprise development, intercultural dialogue, crime prevention, community mental health and most importantly, infrastructure development. They specialize in social innovation to implement best practices in sustainable development. The name 'Uthango' is a Nguni term that refers to the traditional circular kraal where families protect their livestock, encourage dialogue and make important decisions in rural Africa.

Kraal

Uthango is also the first African non-profit to use virtual worlds for strategic positioning and raising global awareness of their goals and programs. Their answer to the question ‘what does an NGO do in virtual worlds’ and ‘are you not better off in the real world addressing poverty’ is: “It is not an either or for us; we need to be in both areas to use technology and its innovative edge to make a difference in the lives of our beneficiaries”. Their challenge is to find resources to make it possible, and they hope that their courage will be contagious.

Uthango offices in Second Life

To better understand the activities of Uthango in Second Life, we asked the co-executive director Dorette Steenkamp to answer a few questions.