Comments on: Measuring community success

By: Sunir Shah

Sunir Shah — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:53:07 +0000

Hmm, so much for formatting that comment.

By: Sunir Shah

Sunir Shah — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:52:19 +0000

What about outcomes-based measurements? Are we building the community just to feel like we belong somewhere, or are we trying to change the city? I suspect the latter.

Of course, it’s a community, so amongst all of us we probably have many objectives. If I may, I’ll take a wild stab, though, and say over all we’re trying to build Toronto into a generator of world-class Internet culture, which includes business, art, media, academic work, civic change, etc., although I’d say we’ve focused more on business, media, and civic change.

So, perhaps we could ask (over a long term):

* how much economic activity have we generated as a group? (hard, diffuse)

* how many successful, sustainable companies have arisen from TorCamp? (better, easier)

* how many wealthy individuals have exited from TorCamp that have gone on to mentor/fund the next generation of startups? (I suspect this is the key concept that has led to other tech regions exploding in growth.)

* how much impact we’ve had on ‘discourse’ outside of the city? (feels like tracking PR)

* how many people come to Toronto to learn about new concepts for living on the Internet? (saying we built something like the Toronto International Film Festival, but for Internet culture).

That’s about as far as I’ve thought through this, which isn’t very far. I’m put the most thought on the business side, as you might tell.

Anyway, if we think about Big Change first, then community metrics like adoption rates, churn, bonds become more specific, focused, and interesting.

How many of the city’s leading bloggers, digital artists, tech companies are active participants?

How many jobs, grants, commissions have been created and sourced through the community?

How many thought leaders have emerged from within the community and propelled to world stages outside the city? (i.e. the more Torontonians behind podiums around the world, the more people around the world will come here to find out what’s happening.)

By: Links and posts I found on April 10

Links and posts I found on April 10 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:06:47 +0000

[...] Measuring community success | DavidCrow.ca [...]

By: Community lifecycle | DavidCrow.ca

Community lifecycle | DavidCrow.ca — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:55:42 +0000

[...] makes reference to the customer lifecycle to as a method for thinking about the participants in community activities. Bruce Clay and Janet [...]

By: davidcrow

davidcrow — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:26:47 +0000

Gordon,

Thanks the customer lifecycle is great. I wonder if we can break the tools and metrics into each of the categories. Next blog post

By: Michael Nielsen » Biweekly links for 04/11/2008

Michael Nielsen » Biweekly links for 04/11/2008 — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 10:53:18 +0000

[...] David Crow: Measuring community success [...]

By: Gordon

Gordon — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:47:52 +0000

Good post David. I think you can probably use the standard “customer lifecycle” big 4 categories espoused by web metrics guru Eric T. Peterson and others in terms of Reach, Acquisition, Conversion, and Retention when it comes to further classifying or focusing your metrics on what really matters. An initial scan of the metrics you’ve got listed shows representation in each of the 4 categories, with perhaps an increased importance placed on the acquisition side of things in terms of growing a community – an obvious metric when a community is young and growing… The maturity of a community matters in terms of what you measure as well — the longer it exists, the more conversion (call it engagement in this case? getting the desired behaviours from your community members is key) and retention become important. How long can we keep people engaged doing great things before people drift away or stop participating?

And like all metrics, it’s not about the number per se, it’s about the change of the number over time and what direction its heading. Good stuff.