Six and a half years ago, Kim England, global community director at multinational publishing and education company Pearson, led the company’s transition from a disjointed collection of more than 130 intranets, to an enterprise social network (ESN) powered by Jive.

Recently, she said that Facebook’s move into the ESN space “should act as a wake-up call to Jive that they need to put collaboration and conversation back at the heart of their product.” Kim joins the show to talk about the current state of ESNs and what’s missing. Plus:

• The recent $462 million dollar acquisition of Jive and what it means for customers like Pearson
• What will determine the “winners and losers” in the ESN space over the next few years
• How well-connected ESNs help companies make better decisions across cultures, globally

For transcripts, subscription options and more, please see http://www.communitysignal.com.

Community Signal

Facebook's Wake-Up Call for Jive and Enterprise Social Networks

It feels like the quality of discourse in the United States, and many other countries, gets worse every single day. Especially political discourse. But in online community settings, it is possible to identify the the threads to civil discourse and neutralize them.

The National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD) gives tools and tactics to elected officials, the media and the public, in an effort to help everyone engage in a more civil way. NICD director of social media Tracey Todd joins the show to discuss a series of common threats to civil discourse, and how we might approach them. Plus:

• The impact of Donald Trump on discourse
• Has civility become a buzzword used by those who aren’t actually civil?
• Where Tracey finds optimism in discourse right now

For transcripts, subscription options and more, please see http://www.communitysignal.com.

Threats to Civil Discourse Online

In May of 2001, I launched a martial arts community with a focus on respectful discussion and a generally family friendly atmosphere. The very next month, Bob Hubbard did the exact same thing. From an outward perspective, you might label us competitors and expect us to dislike each other.

But we developed a friendship based upon mutual respect, which allowed us to compare notes and share knowledge around common challenges. On this episode, we discuss the benefits of being friendly with those managing “competing” communities. Plus:

• Community “brigading,” or coordinated attacks meant to disrupt an online community
• The threats that we received running communities where, more often than not, the members have been taught a form of physical combat
• How Bob approached selling his forum

For transcripts, subscription options and more, please see http://www.communitysignal.com.

Why You Should Befriend Your Competitors

There has been a lot of talk in the community industry about the  Facebook Communities Summit, and how the company announced they had added the word “community” to their mission statement. I’ve seen a lot of “rah rah” from people saying how important this is for our work. Less than a week after that event,  ProPublica published leaked Facebook moderator training materials that, in no uncertain terms, said that the platform protects “white men,” but not “black children.” The deafening silence in the industry, as compared to the noise about Facebook adding a word to their mission statement, has been incredible. For a critical look at these issues, we changed the format of Community Signal for the first time ever, putting together a panel of previous guests, who are veterans of the industry: Scott Moore of Digital Promise Global and Venessa Paech of Australia Post. Among our topics:  What adding “community” to Facebook’s mission statement actually means How the announced Facebook Groups improvements impact their viability as a tool The glaring problems with Facebook’s leaked moderation training documents  Big Quotes We ended up recording this episode late in the week, behind our normal schedule, and that led to our transcript being unavailable at publishing time. We will add the transcript once it is ready, and this post will be updated with quotes at that time. Sorry for the delay. About Scott Moore Scott Moore has over 20 years experience establishing, growing and fostering large and small online communities, and the teams that support those communities, using a variety of community platforms including virtual worlds, live chat systems, forums and unconferences. He currently works at Digital Promise Global, developing networks and communities of educators around the world working together to empower students as empathetic, compassionate creators and changemakers. Scott has fostered and directed community at Answers.com, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Communities.com and Fujitsu and consulted with clients such as Healthsparq, Diabetes Hands Foundation, Edutopia and Autodesk. He seeks opportunities to use his experience in online communities to help people help each other to make a positive change in their own lives and those around them. Disclosure: Digital Promise Global is partnering with Facebook’s Oculus to inspire the next generation of virtual reality creators, starting with the 360 Filmmakers Challenge for high school students. About Venessa Paech Venessa Paech is the community manager for Australia Post. She has built and managed a large array of online communities for multi-national brands, startups, governments and non-profits, including travel publishers Lonely Planet and REA Group (who own and operate the $5 billion dollar ASX-listed realestate.com.au). In 2009, she founded the Australian Community Manager Roundtable and, in 2011, co-founded Swarm, Australia’s first and only community management conference. In 2015, she commissioned and released the first Australian Community Management career survey with Quiip and Dialogue Consulting. Venessa has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in musical theatre from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University and a Master of Arts degree in virtual ethnography from the University of Brighton. She is a published scholar on online communities and a speaker and consultant on communities and cultures. Related Links This list of links is not complete, and will be updated once our transcript is available.  Sponsor: Higher Logic, the community platform for community managers Mark Zuckerberg’s post about adding the word “community” to Facebook’s mission statement  “Our First Communities Summit and New Tools for Group Admins” by Kang-Xing Jin, covering Facebook’s announcement improvements to Facebook Groups Scott on Twitter Venessa’s website Digital Global Promise, where Scott is online community manager Digital Global Promise’s...

Facebook Doesn’t Protect Black Children, But They Did Add “Community” to Their Mission Statement, So…

Community Signal is a weekly podcast for community professionals. Social media is set of tools. Community is a strategy you apply to those tools. Marketing brings new customers. Community helps you keep them.