Can't grow a garden without gardening
December 8 2008, 12:00 PM
Often people think building a community is the same as creating a wiki skeleton or posting a blog entry. Community building takes so much more but especially some passionate few to tend to them. One cannot grow a fruitful garden if nobody is caring for it. An interesting article related to this is Why Most Online Communities Fail.
I actually feel many vendors that are now rushing into "community offerings" are downplaying or altogether ignoring this need for commitment. For example, I recently learned about Oracle's new "Social CRM" offerings but I became disillusioned since they were hyping the tool capabilities and neglecting the critical need for community management as an ongoing need. Why make investments in technology if you cannot scrape together a handful of committed resources to nurture it.