The Art of Community. Building the New Age of Participation

Citation

Muskat, B. (2013), "The Art of Community. Building the New Age of Participation", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 30 No. 4, pp. 383-384. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCM-01-2013-0404

The Art of Community is a book that describes and narrates the experience of author Jono Bacon, an online technology consultant. The publication includes a broad range of thoughts and multiple facets relating to managing online communities. Many examples concentrate on advice for establishing, maintaining, and making those communities more integrative and attractive to their members. Many examples are provided about how to manage online communities that share software and data among their members. Those online communities subscribe to the values of “Free Culture, Free Software, (…) and breaking down the digital divide” (p. 3) between those who share for free and those who do not.

The book starts with a foreword (by Chris Anderson) that may puzzle readers. It is a personal story of the value creation of sharing data online. Making sophisticated engineering data accessible to everyone worldwide is a provoking idea to many. This particular anecdote highlights that precious knowledge shared in the short term has the potential to be picked up by an expert and, when developed further, might lead to greater collaborative success for everyone involved. Aligned with this story is Jono Bacon's book license's agreement: it encourages readers to share the book with their community.

Lack of existing literature on this topic and Bacon's long‐time expertise motivated him to write this book. Bacon claims that there has been hardly any documentation about how to make online collaboration “inspiring, engaging, and enjoyable” (p. XV). Hence, he explores the idea and thus develops this comprehensive book, The Art of Community, with over 500 pages. This publication is the second edition and aims to document the most important skills needed to create a participative and collaborative online community.

The volume comprises 15 chapters, and this second edition has been fully revised. Bacon introduces 3 new chapters: on social media, measuring community, and a further chapter with 12 expert interviews and shared experiences. Chapter 1 is entitled “The Art of Community” and is the most theoretical chapter. It introduces the idea of a “collaborative‐driven ethos” in the context of social economy and social capital. Bacon explains that the achievement of a social economy is its members' feeling of belonging. Social interactions between those individual members of communities lead to the creation of social capital. The individual's belief in the success of collective achievement and mutual trust are two of the highlighted prerequisites for online community building.

Following this rather conceptual introduction, the practical chapters follow, where the author shares his personal information, stories, and experiences. Chapter 2 present ideas on how to set up online communities; Chapter 3 introduces aspects of communication. Bacon explains the design of the collaborative process, which starts with integration of community members into the discussion and proceeds with developing knowledge, determining contributions, and recognizing those contributions (Chapter 4). The book then offers additional details and tips to manage operational workflow in online collaborative groups, e.g. building electronic infrastructure (Chapter 5). The reader is then taken to the basics of social media. Readers learn how tools such as Facebook and Twitter can be used to create and stimulate online community collaboration (Chapter 7).

Chapter 8, “Measuring Community,” starts by unfolding ideas around community self‐reflection and foundations of feedback, and shares experiences about statistics and automated data interpretation. It also includes advice about tracking projects and visualizing data (Chapter 9). Chapter 10, “Governance,” starts with Bacon's personal reflections as the manager of his own online firm. It portrays his experiences and provides hands‐on tips on how to create an organizational structure for online communities. The author's own firm's online governance development serves as the primary example, and further experiences with expanding governance are shared. Next, Chapter 11 is dedicated to organizational behavioral aspects and managing issues pertaining to online community members. Examples on how to deal with conflict in an online environment include practical advice, i.e. to “ensure that feedback, opinions, and ideas are discussed, considered, and engaged with” (p. 378).

The next chapters capture ideas regarding event organizations and continue with advice on finding and selecting the right community manager (Chapters 12 and 13). Chapter 14 presents interview data from various online communities, e.g. Linux, Linkin Park, and Creative Commons. Leading CEOs and senior executives reflect on their experiences of what made them and their communities successful, particularly the spirit of sharing and “free culture”. The interview questions are designed according to the preceding chapters, and they provide interesting insights on perspectives of US‐based online leaders' thoughts. Finally, the last chapter is an invitation for readers to stay connected and to contribute by sharing their own experiences.

The topic of the book is very timely, and the chapters are enthusiastically written. However, I did find the reading challenging at times. There is an abundance of personal anecdotes, with sometimes very personal comments. Academic readers will quickly notice that there is little evidence to underpin the author's findings, which might guide interested readers toward other literature. Often, judgments are presented without the support of any evidence other than the author's own view expressed in very casual language. The author is a community management consultant and shares his expert knowledge, targeting community managers, relevant organizations, and professional groups, e.g. marketers and open source developers. It must be noted that the book does not claim to attract academics, and without approaching the topic academically, its value might be perceived as limited. Applied researchers might still find ideas about online community development and practices.

The book will especially have merit and good value for practitioners. It is an easy read with highlighted points and Web sites, practical tips, and most importantly, concrete examples of practices and applications of successful online community management.