Matthew Lees Research

Online Community Platform Evaluation Matrix, Version 2, July 2, 2009

Matthew Lees — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Our Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms presents the criteria we believe to be important when evaluating technology systems to support and enable your customer community. Because each organization is different, you should focus on evaluating those features that are most important to your situation. To assist you in this, we present our evaluation criteria in matrix form with blank columns for the platforms under consideration. You can use this matrix to notate the capabilities of the short list of products you are currently investigating and/or to evaluate the capabilities of your current purchased or home-grown solution.

Read a sample of this report.
About Matthew Lees.

Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms, Version 3

Matthew Lees — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Online communities can empower customers and strengthen the relationships between them and your company. This happens through careful planning, assigning sufficient resources, and selecting the right tools. While the human element is a crucial factor, the underlying technology platform plays an essential role in your community’s success. We’ve developed this framework to help you evaluate such platforms and identify the one that’s best for you. This third version reflects the technological advances and increased expectations for what community platforms can and should be able do, including an emphasis on collaboration, viral marketing, search engine optimization, and mobile access.

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About Matthew Lees.

Leveraging Social Media in Your Business

Matthew Lees — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Despite some hype to the contrary, social media is not purely about marketing and PR. But the starting point for thinking about social media shouldn’t be what you are trying to get out of it, but what your customers are trying to do. This report identifies which tools from the “social media toolbox” (forums, blogs, ratings, etc.) can best support your and your customers’ objectives. It also discusses the challenges raised by social media and provides five key recommendations to help you leverage social media throughout your organization.

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About Matthew Lees.

Online Community Platform Company and Product Update - 2H 2008

Matthew Lees — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

While things slowed down since first half of the year, results were still good in 2H 2008 for most of the 13 companies on our watch list: Awareness, Blogtronix, HiveLive, Jive Software, Leverage Software, Lithium Technologies, LiveWorld, Mzinga, Pluck, Powered, Small World Labs, Telligent, and Webcrossing. For the most part, customer acquisition continued, albeit at a slower pace. Private investment all but stopped, and about half the companies went through reductions in force. But several companies saw record revenues, and others staffed up considerably, positioning themselves to gain market share as the economic downturn continues.

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Community Server 2008.5

Matthew Lees — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Telligent Systems' Community Server is a well-designed, secure, stable, and scalable platform that can support online communities of nearly any size. It has a large feature set built around an integrated suite of core components—forums, blogs, galleries, wikis, and groups—and social media apps (member profiles, tagging, ratings, etc.). Not an on-demand, SaaS platform, it will be most appealing to organizations that can host the community on their own servers and have in-house Microsoft expertise (it's built on the .NET framework). But other hosting options do exist, and, overall, Community Server can support just about any online community use case.

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Puzzle #3 – Acrostic Quotation

Matthew Lees — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Acrostics are a form of wordplay with roots in ancient literature, especially poetry. In its basic form, the first letter of each word or line in an acrostic spells out another word or message. In this acrostic puzzle (also known as an “anacrostic” or “double crostic”), the goal is to figure out the amusing and insightful technology-themed quotation—and its author—by solving the 17 clues, most of which relate to technology and business. Choose either the easy or hard version. Enjoy!

Puzzle #3 – Acrostic Quotation Solution

Matthew Lees — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Here we present the solution to the acrostic puzzle. We hope you enjoyed solving it.

Community and the Customer Lifecycle

Matthew Lees — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Customer communities touch all phases of the customer lifecycle: Plan, Explore, Select, Buy, Use, Maintain/Manage, and Renew/Replenish. Conversations within communities span all of these phases, which in turn fall under the responsibilities of the various business units within your organization. By understanding (1) the dynamics of the customer lifecycle, and (2) the ways in which your customer community and your own company support lifecycle phases, you’ll be able to better leverage both the community and your organization to make it easier for your customers to do business with you.

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Best Practices in Corporate Blogging

Matthew Lees — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

While blogging certainly isn't a new communications medium, many companies are still getting the hang of it. Blogging takes commitment, and there are valid concerns about how blogs can amplify undesirable messages. But these issues can be handled through proper planning, sufficient resources, and organizational support. The benefits of blogging are attainable for organizations following best practices such as recruiting the right people, thinking in terms of an ongoing program, knowing what your audience wants to read about, using an appropriate technology platform, developing and enforcing reasonable policies, and analyzing and reporting on trends, insights, and issues.

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10 Critical Success Factors for Generating ROI from Online Customer Communities

Matthew Lees — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Online customer communities have been around for many years, yet companies all too often have little idea of the business value they provide. Community execs can recite chapter and verse on most “health” metrics, but they don’t tell you what the community is doing for your business. This report presents 10 of the most critical factors that affect ROI from customer communities. Understanding how these factors play out in your organization is the first step toward quantifying ROI and ensuring that your community’s success is measured not only by activity, but also by its impact of your company’s profitability.

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Online Community Platform Company and Product Update - 1H 2008

Matthew Lees — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It was a strong first half of 2008 for the 10 companies on our watch list: Awareness, HiveLive, Jive Software, Leverage Software, Lithium Technologies, LiveWorld, Mzinga, Small World Labs, Telligent, and Webcrossing. Each company saw growth in sales, customer accounts, and/or size. Most are on track to generate at least an incremental increase in revenue from 2007 to 2008, with some expecting to double or even triple revenue year over year. The companies raised over $51 million in investment, opened four new offices, and completed two corporate acquisitions. And all but one released new product versions with significant enhancements.

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HiveLive's LiveConnect Platform

Matthew Lees — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Launched in 2007, HiveLive’s LiveConnect is one of the most creatively designed and original community platforms we’ve seen. A hosted system with a building-block approach, it gives both users and administrators wide-ranging flexibility to create unique spaces for collaboration and communication inside and outside your organization. In essence, it lets you and your customers design the community together. LiveConnect’s building blocks, called “Hives,” can be configured to support conventional social applications (discussion boards, blogs, polls, etc.) as well as custom community applications, such as media archives, idea centers, file exchanges, software marketplaces, and more.

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They Said What?!

Matthew Lees — Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Companies launching online community and social media programs are concerned about the ramifications of opening up such conversations on the Internet. While there are valid concerns, they do not need to cause paralysis. Most of your customers simply want to engage with you and each other in comfortable and productive ways. To help you deal with the issues that do arise, we have identified nine types of inappropriate and difficult posts that can appear in online communities. Through careful planning and preparation, and prompt, professional action, you can minimize both the number and the impact of these discussions, even leveraging them to your advantage.

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How Should You Manage Customer Communities?

Matthew Lees — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

In today’s Web 2.0 world of ever-increasing social networking and customer engagement, forward-thinking companies are identifying new ways to connect with customers more deeply and in more ways. To deliver on this, companies must have an organizational structure that reflects the priorities and commitment to running a customer-centric business and fill the roles within this structure with the right people. In this report, we present our ideal customer community team, starting with the Vice President of Community, and discuss not only the various roles and responsibilities, but also the desirable skill sets and personality traits of team members.

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Building a Customer Community with Wetpaint

Matthew Lees — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Wikis are typically good at helping manage collective information, but not for enabling conversations, the lifeblood of online communities. Enter Wetpaint, both the company and its on-demand product. The Wetpaint wiki, which launched in 2006, combines the Web-page editability of a wiki with threaded discussion lists and other community and social-networking elements. While not ideal at supporting all types of communities—it is geared more toward affinity communities than ones based on peer-to-peer service and support—its ease of use, variety of pricing options, and integrated Wetpaint Network make it worth considering for supporting many small- to medium-sized communities.

Read a sample of this report.

Online Community Platform Evaluation Matrix

Matthew Lees — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Our Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms presents the criteria we believe to be important when evaluating technology systems to support and enable your customer community. Because each organization is different, you should focus on evaluating those features that are most important to your situation. To assist you in this, we present our evaluation criteria in matrix form with blank columns for the platforms under consideration. You can use this matrix to notate the capabilities of the short list of products you are currently investigating, and/or to evaluate the capabilities of your current purchased or home-grown solution.

Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms, Version 2

Matthew Lees — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Online community platforms are no longer newcomers to the software stage. Built initially with only basic forums, they have developed dramatically in scale and scope, providing arrays of features and capabilities for community members (your customers), moderators, administrators, and other key stakeholders. This updated framework reflects the technological advances and increased expectations for what community platforms should provide, such as support for advertising, graphical and interactive media (especially photos and video), and social networking. This report will help you evaluate today's online community platforms and identify the one that's best for you.

Read a sample of this report.

Puzzle #2

Matthew Lees — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There’s nothing that says sudoku puzzles have to use numbers. While sudokus are typically done with numbers, any nine distinct symbols will do. So here, we present six sudoku puzzles, each using nine different letters that cannot be repeated in any row, column, or 9x9 box. Why letters? Because it allows for the possibility of including/hiding words inside the sudoku grid! Each of the six sudokus contains a hidden nine-letter word that you can find after you’ve solved the puzzle. These hidden words relate to the Internet, technology, and/or the work we do at the Patricia Seybold Group.

Puzzle #2: Solutions

Matthew Lees — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There’s nothing that says sudoku puzzles have to use numbers. While sudokus are typically done with numbers, any nine distinct symbols will do. So here, we present the solutions to the six sudoku puzzles, each using nine different letters that cannot be repeated in any row, column, or 9x9 box. Why letters? Because it allows for the possibility of including/hiding words inside the sudoku grid! Each of the six sudokus contains a hidden nine-letter word that you can find after you’ve solved the puzzle. These hidden words relate to the Internet, technology, and/or the work we do at the Patricia Seybold Group.

Who Owns Community?

Matthew Lees — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Online communities and social networks are changing the ways organizations do business in this customer-empowered, Web 2.0 world. As companies develop and hone their customer community and social media strategies, a fundamental and paramount issue is deciding where these initiatives should live within the organization. In this report, we break ownership down into two parts: sponsorship (authority and accountability) and responsibility (management). Through this lens, we discuss six factors on which community ownership depends, as well as a seven-step approach to deciding how these factors relate to your organization.

Active Community Members: What Makes Them Tick?

Matthew Lees — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Typically 1 percent of registered members, active members create a great deal of content, answer a disproportionate number of questions, guide your customers though the real-world use of your products and services, relay customer concerns to your organization, and lead by example. Through interviews with four active members of leading technology-based communities, this report looks to answer such questions as “Why do active members devote so much time and effort to help others?” “What drives them to share their expertise and perspective?” “What’s in it for them?” And “How can the community’s business sponsor best identify and support them?”

Jive Software’s Clearspace X

Matthew Lees — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Jive Software made a name for itself with its Enterprise Forums. Its new Java-based Clearspace product line was developed with collaboration in mind. Clearspace (no “X”) enables internal collaboration within organizations; Clearspace X, built to support collaboration with external groups (think partners, developers, and customers), is the subject of this product review. Clearspace X’s most distinguishing feature is its seamless integration of communication and collaboration components including blogs, discussion lists, and documents (with workflow), all within a shared tagging scheme. If collaboration with and among your community members is important, Clearspace X is worth a close look.

Helping Customers Control Their User-Generated Content

Matthew Lees — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

User-generated content is a vital and inseparable part of online communities. Most communities enable members to create and share their content, with some basic amount of control. But users are looking for more. They want to manage how their stuff looks, who can access it, how it’s accessed, and what others can do with it. This report discusses the increasing expectations for user “self-control,” and the implications for community managers and sponsors. We also provide examples of sites that give varying degrees of control to members, as well as recommendations for enabling your users to have the control they want.

Leverage Software's CommunityConnect Platform

Matthew Lees — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

CommunityConnect, the flagship product from Leverage Software, is a hosted solution used by over 150 organizations to support their online communities. The platform requires minimal technical expertise to manage, and has a user-friendly interface that offers a broad feature set comprising of discussion groups, blogs, chat, private messaging, and scheduling. But its strength is in its matchmaking capability, which makes it easy to find and connect with others based on shared interests and experience. This report evaluates CommunityConnect version 5.7 from the perspective of your community’s key stakeholders: members, moderators, administrators, subject-matter experts, and business sponsors.

Best Practices in Moderating Online Communities

Matthew Lees — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Online community moderators are part customer service representative, part marketing professional, part teacher, and part psychologist. They reinforce community standards, taking every opportunity to educate members on good practices. They don’t censor comments (unless malicious, profane, etc.) or censure members for faux pas. They encourage participation and support problem solving. And they guide, rather than control, the exchange and flow of information and ideas. This report, based on research with numerous community moderators, administrators, and business sponsors, discusses the best practices in moderating online communities, with a focus on the moderation of customer-based communities.

Community Surfing

Matthew Lees — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Whether or not you have your own customer community, your customers are likely interacting with others in one or more external communities that span your industry or sector. “Community Surfing” is observing and learning from these communities that you don’t own. They contain a wealth of customer-created information that can be a source of insights and information, provide a glimpse into industry and market trends, and give you ideas you can use in your own customer community. And they can act as mirrors that show—warts and all—how customers view your company and use your products and services.

Foster Community

Matthew Lees — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

In this updated version of the eighth critical success factor presented in Customers.com, we discuss how fostering community can attract new customers, strengthen relationships with existing customers, and have a variety of other benefits for your business. As customers, especially those in younger generations, are expecting more and more that they’ll be able to connect with other customers, if you aren’t already working to build or foster a community, it should soon be part of your businesses planning.

Measuring the Success of Online Communities

Matthew Lees — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This report presents our customer-centric approach to measuring the success of online communities, based on the premise that a successful community is one in which members’ needs and objectives—their Customer Scenarios—are met. We provide example Customer, Operational, and Business Metrics that can define and measure success for specific Customer Scenarios. We also outline 7 key steps in building a business case, and identify common pitfalls to avoid.

Best Practices in Acquiring Customer Community Members

Matthew Lees — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Just about all online customer communities need to acquire new members on a regular basis. Most online communities seek growth, but there is also the inevitable churn, as well as the occasional need for new blood. This report, a companion piece to our “Best Practices in Engaging Customer Community Members,” looks at effective, proven ways of acquiring new members across a wide range of communities. Our approach starts by breaking down the process into three main components: Getting Customers to Your Community, Showing Off Your Community, and Making It Easy to Join.

Building Professional Peer Communities

Matthew Lees — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Professional Peer Communities (also known as Communities of Practice) are built around a specific topic, industry, or discipline. They share many characteristics with customer communities, but also have important differences. To explore professional peer communities, we spoke with Vanessa DiMauro, principal of Leader Networks. Vanessa has been a virtual community builder for more than 15 years, having worked with organizations such as EMC, DCI, and Cambridge Technology Partners. Her experience in interactive learning environments, knowledge management, and social networking gives her a unique perspective on what professional peer communities have to offer and how best to develop them.

Integrating Community into Customer Support

Matthew Lees — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 GMT

As the benefits of customer communities become more apparent, businesses are looking to provide this option as another self-service support channel. But it’s not an easy task to integrate an online customer community into your existing mix of service offerings, which may also include online knowledgebases, telephone, chat, and email support. Whether or not your organization is new to customer communities, there’s a lot to think about and plan for. This report discusses the ideal and actual relationships among online customer support channels, and discusses various challenges and ways to address them within your organization.

Puzzle #1: Crossword Puzzle

Matthew Lees — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Ever since the crossword puzzle was “invented” in 1913, it has been viewed as a scourge on civilization (due to their distractive effect on those with an addictive nature), a benign pastime, and an age-reversing device (by keeping the mind fit). Whatever your perspective, crossword puzzles have become one of the most popular games throughout the world. In our own effort toward promoting mental health—not to mention our appreciation for the occasional diversion—we present a Web 2.0-themed crossword puzzle as the first in a series of mental challenges.

A Social Networking Primer

Matthew Lees — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Online social networking sites are getting more and more attention, and not just from teenagers sharing homemade videos, or job seekers getting in touch with former colleagues; businesses are becoming intrigued as well. If you can cut through the clutter, there’s a lot to learn about societal and market trends, your industry, your company, and your customers. And you can leverage the networks to reach, engage, and empower your customers in new and exciting ways. This report covers the basics of online social networking, presenting background and context, and describing some of the most popular and successful social networking sites.

Lithium Technologies Online Community Platform

Matthew Lees — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Lithium Technologies’ online community platform, now in Version 8.0, is a comprehensive hosted solution for enabling online communities. It supports some of the largest customer communities around and provides environments for solving problems, strengthening relationships, extending brand reach, fostering innovation, and more. Built around its forums (a.k.a. message boards), Lithium offers numerous communication channels, customization capabilities, and administrative systems, including blogs, chat, private messaging, search, ratings, rankings, moderation management, content filtering, and group management. This report evaluates Lithium’s platform from the perspectives of your community’s key stakeholders: members (your customers), moderators, administrators, subject-matter experts, and business sponsors.

Framework for Evaluating Online Community Platforms

Matthew Lees — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Online community platforms are relative newcomers to the software stage. Built initially with only basic forums (a.k.a. message boards and threaded discussion lists), they have developed dramatically in scale and scope, providing arrays of features and capabilities for community members (your customers), moderators, administrators, and other key stakeholders. There is a growing acceptance that online communities offer many benefits, including strengthening the relationships between you and your customers. This happens through careful planning, assigning sufficient resources, and selecting the right tools. This framework will help you evaluate online community platforms and identify the one that’s best for you.

Best Practices in Engaging Customer Community Members

Matthew Lees — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Online customer communities change over time. Ideally, they grow in size and scope, with all participants developing deeper relationships to each other and to your company, its brand, and its products and services. Your role in this partnership is to engage customers, spurring them to interact with the community, search for information they need or have an interest in, find solutions to problems, apply their own experience and expertise to help others, be recognized for their efforts, and enjoy themselves along the way. Following best practices helps you to be successful in this role.

Enabling Customer Communities

Matthew Lees — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Online customer communities are growing in acceptance, functionality, and complexity. Customer expectations are high, but so is the value you can offer…and derive. Community-enabling tools can foster collaboration, enhance knowledge sharing, and improve problem solving. By aligning your business goals with those of the community, you can leverage these tools—forums, blogs, chat, messaging, and more—to increase loyalty and strengthen relationships. This report addresses key considerations to help you think about selecting the community platform that is right for your organization and your customers.