Last weekend, the CommunityCamp 2012 took place in Berlin. The CommunityCamp is a barcamp for social media and community managers. You can have a glance at the conversations surrounding the event by looking at the Twitter stream with the hashtag #ccb12. Here is one of the few blog posts in English about the event, written by Monica Zaldivar.
Doing research on the use of social media and online communities in organizations, I was thrilled to be there. Listening closely to some of the discussions, I was able to identify a number of issues that I have previously come across in the literature. As a delayed contribution to the barcamp, I thought I could provide a small reading list for practitioners. I consider the references below to be of high practical relevance. They provide answers to questions such as:
- What is an online community?
- How to manage an online community?
- What are relevant psychological and social aspects when dealing with online communities?
- Where to position community management within the organization?
- Which tools may be used for connecting different kinds of stakeholders?
If you know of additional material that should be listed here, please feel free to drop me a line. Providing an overview of recent literature on the topic is probably a nice idea for next year’s CommunityCamp.
Here are my suggestions:
Faraj, S., Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Majchrzak, A. (2011). Knowledge Collaboration in Online Communities. Organization Science, 22(5), 1224–1239. doi:10.1287/orsc.1100.0614
Kane, G. C., Fichman, R. G., Gallaugher, J., & Glaser, J. (2009). Community Relations 2.0. Harvard Business Review, 87(11), 45–50. Retrieved from http://hbr.org/2009/11/community-relations-20/ar/1
Kietzmann, J. H., Hermkens, K., McCarthy, I. P., & Silvestre, B. S. (2011). Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media. Business Horizons, 54(3), 241–251. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005
Kraut, R. E., & Resnick, P. (2011). Building Successful Online Communities: Evidence-Based Social Design. MIT Press.
McAfee, A. (2009). Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization’s Toughest Challenges. Harvard Business School Press.
Wallace, P. M. (2001). The Psychology of the Internet. Cambridge University Press.