communication department

Volume XX Number 5

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Designing Your SIG Community

By Karen Mardahl, Comanager, AccessAbility Special Interest Group

Collaborating Virtual Style: Hints from STC’s SIG Leaders For each issue of Tieline, a representative of the twenty STC Special Interest Groups (SIGs) shares wisdom, hints, and lessons learned on different aspects of facilitating virtual STC communities, whether subject matter- or geographically-based. Currently, SIG leaders are rapidly exploring various collaborative tools and management styles to provide benefits for their SIG members—and to recruit SIG volunteers and leaders. As Edwin Schlossberg says, “True interactivity is not about clicking on icons or downloading files, it's about encouraging communication.” SIG leaders are working on just that. We hope that some of the information in this series will be applicable and helpful to other STC community leaders as well. Judith M. Herr, STC SIG Advocate

Are you looking for inspiration to maintain or refresh your SIG community? Take a look at Derek Powazek’s Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places.

Powazek wrote this book in 2001 to describe the process of building a successful Web community. The essence of the book is still valid and vibrant despite technological advances that have made some parts slightly outdated. To me, the entire book can be used as a framework for evaluating SIGs—the virtual communities of STC. Powazek’s enthusiasm caught my attention and inspired me. Each chapter centers on a concept that I found can be put into one word. Let me take you on a brief tour of several chapters, and explain what I see in Powazek’s writing.

Chapter 1: Planning

The chapter title, “Is This Trip Really Necessary?” asks an all-important question. Each new action or feature of a SIG needs to be planned and questioned. Do we really need—or want—to maintain or implement that feature? Question all assumptions, as Powazek later writes. As technical communicators, this ought to be second nature to us.

If you have a charter or vision and mission statement, use it as a measuring stick to gauge your plans. Will the new adventure take you on a tangent? What are the possible consequences? Think—before you end up with too many straggly ends that drain energy and resources.

Chapter 2: Content

What can you offer your members? More importantly, what can your members offer the community? Getting members to contribute is the best way to empower them and make them feel a sense of responsibility for their virtual home. Perhaps you can encourage the “proactive, positive members” to participate in the growth of the community. The content of your site or e-mail discussion list plays a huge role in attracting and keeping members. It sets the tone for a mature community.

Chapter 3: Design

How does—or will—your community experience your community? Membership is an experience, and you need to make it the best. When did you last look at the design of your community? According to Powazek, your design needs to consider audience, flexibility, experience, simplicity, readability, and beauty. He provokes, too, writing: “give up control.” Do you need to dictate and micromanage all member actions? What do you think will happen if you do? Member interaction and give-and-take are what truly foster community growth.

Chapter 5: Policy

Powazek writes:

“The challenge, then, is to set the rules wisely, communicate them clearly, and enforce them fairly.”

Policing a community is nobody’s favorite task. But one must provide a voice of sanity in times of crisis. There should be something for everyone in this chapter’s discussion of community policies.

Chapter 6: Survival

This chapter discusses community moderation. This is the realm of trust and balance—and credibility. Do your members believe in their community? This question is not as simple as it may appear. Many of this chapter’s concepts evolve out of the previous chapter, with a further exploration of policy and policing.

Chapter 7: Boundaries

After credibility comes intimacy. What is the intimacy level of your community? How comfortable do your members feel? Can they safely open up about workplace issues affecting them as technical communicators? To establish the proper boundaries, consider your community’s level of trust, respect, and honesty. Members are most likely seeking like minds. When they feel they can relax and be comfortable, they may open up and begin to share knowledge and exchange ideas that will thrill the collective heart of the leadership team!

The Lone Writer SIG (of which I am a member) has that intimacy and will fight fiercely to maintain it. Those outside the SIG may not understand it, but they must respect it. It is valuable to members, and therefore essential to the SIG’s existence. Powazek calls intimacy the magic element of a community. Perhaps some people won’t want to join such a community, however, because intimacy makes them feel uncomfortable—which brings us to barriers.

Chapter 8: Barriers

As a comanager of the AccessAbility SIG, I consider barriers an absolute no-no for any virtual community. The nature of the Web is inclusive. But there are reasons for certain barriers. Some discussion lists limit the topics permitted. This is a barrier that may be necessary to maintain a sane level of mail in a very large discussion list, and to maintain the list’s credibility. Focus is required to maintain relevance. Barriers may be necessary to filter out those who are not really committed to the community—but they should not filter out your core users. Because “communities are always a work in progress,” according to Powazek, today’s barrier may not be necessary tomorrow.

Chapter 9: E-mail

Despite the emergence of RSS, Twitter, and whatever is invented tomorrow, e-mail is still here. New applications are always evolving, but not everyone embraces them. Perhaps a closed e-mail community where you must be a member to obtain access—and mail archives are not public—is what people want for their SIG fees. Why should anyone pay for something that is freely available on the Web? Why should anyone contribute freely to a community when that contribution is made available on the Web to all? Thoughts to ponder!

Chapter 12: Tomorrow

So, what’s next? An interview with Howard Rheingold closes the book. One of the movers and shakers of all things Web-related, Rheingold discusses how “the Internet and virtual communities are valuable to the degree that people put in more than they take out.”

As your community makes the transition to new leaders and activities, steps such as careful planning, considering the content of your community’s communication materials, and evaluating the design of your community will put you on the right track toward getting your very real members to put more into their virtual community.

Suggested Reading

Powazek, Derek M. Design for Community: The Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2002.

The book is available at safari.oreilly.com.

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