Early days in online communities: access and social presence

This is a model of research community socialisation that I developed in a white paper for Virtual Surveys a couple of years ago.   I was inspired by two sources: first, the ‘forming, storming, norming, performing’ model of focus group dynamics that all qualitative researchers have drilled into them; and a similar five-step model developed by [...]

The meaning of silence in an online context

I’ve been pondering a few of the discussions I’ve seen on online versus offline research approaches:  Zebrabites’ thoughts on the need to understand users in person as well as hypertext;  Matt Rhodes of Freshnetworks’ recommendation that we understand people in natural online communities as well as specially-constructed research communities.   People share themselves and their opinions [...]

The business of making communities

On Tuesday I went to Freshnetworks’ session on online communities in retail. Incredibly interesting morning, with 3 different speakers talking about the use of social media from different perspectives:  Helen Trim from Freshnetworks giving her top tips on what to do (and what not to do) in terms of social media;  Joanne Jacobs on measuring [...]