HOW TO: Manage a Sustainable Online Community

 Interesting read...

A community is constantly in one or more of the following states with the exception of the On-Board state:

• On-Board: This is the starting point of any community, characterized by people (seekers) looking for value (content), most of which is created by the community’s founders.
• Established: The community is becoming self-sustaining, with the members (influencers, originators, etc.) creating and maintaining value within the community, although some reliance on the founders is still necessary. It is the established phases of the community where analytics can be used to understand user behavior and value.
• Mature: The community is self-sustaining, and clear relationships between individuals are being formed. Users are organized into clear types (influencers, seekers, moderators, originators, etc.) and take full ownership and responsibility for content. Little to no supervision is required by the founders, who become no more than credible participants.
• Mitosis: Core community members become disenfranchised with new participants who don’t share the same values. These core community members seek more focus as they gravitate towards specific topics and relationships. Successful communities enable this and allow the community to split into smaller nodes, thus returning to an Established phase and repeating the life cycle process.

 

 

http://mashable.com/2010/07/30/sustainable-online-community/