Nancy White and Matt Moore emphasised the importance of this in their workshops – it will drive the design. Keep returning to it or risk losing your community. (More on online communities here at Nancy’s wikispaces.)

Some other useful ideas:

• There is no greenfield in online community
• It is best to find existing offline communities and start with them – they will already have a shared interest.
• ‘Build and they will come’ is probably a recipe for failure.
• People need rewards for changing their practice and building online community into their lives – they are too busy just to add it to their daily lives
• Start the technology where people currently are, be that email and sms, start small and take small steps
• The platform is not the community
• If you co-design the technology with the offline community, they will own the online version.

Nancy also emphasised the difference between network and community:

• Network – large numbers (150 upwards), members may be anonymous, join and depart without being noticed
• Community – probably <150 people, identity will be known, missing members will be noticed.

For people to change and take part in an online community:

• It must be worth the effort – what is the value?
• I must be able to do it – What skills do I need?

Providing relevant resources is a good way to engage people – especially video.