The amount of control a community has over process and direction within a project has recently come up in a situation I've been involved with and I think it's a great topic for a post since it strikes at the heart of many company's trials and tribulations in creating vibrant communities.  The real question in these situations is not one of control but of trust.  Can you just be along for the ride and let someone else influence your project even if you don't agree with everything they do?

Many organizations and people find it difficult to let go and allow their communities to shape the overall direction and goals of their projects.  They fear that by allowing users to get involved at a deeper level chaos will ensue and they'll be mired in endless debate over what they perceive as insignificant issues.  However, the opposite of control is not chaos, the opposite of control is trust. Trust that you're not the only one who has good ideas.  Trust that even if it doesn't follow your established processes it might be okay.  Trust that, you don't know everything!

This lack of trust is one of the biggest reasons your community is not growing and it's not a lack of trust in your project (well maybe it is ;), it's that you don't trust your community!  This is especially common in enterprises that have well established processes or in any company that maintains a title of Senior Vice President of anything:). In larger organizations that have worked hard to develop processes for product development, marketing, and sales, it's hard to find someone in command willing to allow control to slip through their fingertips and into the community and shape their baby in some way they don't agree with or that their processes can't handle. But that's what it takes to grow your brand and community, hopping on and letting your community take you where it wants to go.

One of the best books I read in all of 2009 was Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth.  In it he details the making of many brands that allowed themselves to be hijacked by their communities to become successes: Dr Marten, PBS (Pabst Blue Ribbon not the broadcasting service:), Red Bull, and others.  All of these brands did something unique, instead of trying to define themselves in a traditional marketing sense, they let their fans influence and define the brand.  And that's what you need to do in order to grow your fan base... let go.

Don't confuse letting go with abandoning all your processes, my point is not to let your community suddenly start running everything without any leadership from you.  The point I'm trying to make is you need to stop trying to control EVERYTHING.  Pick your battles and arm yourself with good arguments.  Don't use coercion due to your position or ignore your communities input, use your communication channels to guide your community during those times when you see it straying from the path.  Having this blend of give and take will allow your community to feel a sense of ownership and ... start prospering.

Twitter is the first communication mechanism I've been a part of that actually helps me build new relationships without any preexisting knowledge (or trust) with the other party.   Much hoopla has been made about the microformat of Twitter and how it enables new forms of communication, but the amazing power of Twitter comes from it's ability to allow people to connect and develop new relationships seemingly out of nothing.

My Twitter relationships may lack the depth of trust that I have in the "Friend" model (in some cases :) of Facebook, LinkedIn, or email but they're still relationships that I've come to value and that provide me with a sense of community.

How this happened surprised me.  I had sporadically used Twitter for about a year but wasn't finding it very useful until I started using the search feature of Twitter to discover people that I shared a common interest with.  I've talked about this in the past but in a nutshell to get an action (or Twitter usage in my case) requires the following...

• Find people that share a common interest, motivation, or problem.  This commonality is the building blocks of relationships (aka community).
• When relationships form around a shared interest excitement is generated from the freshness of new ideas and finding people that share your passion.
• Excited users are users that take action and in my case that was Twitter usage.

In essence by discovering people that shared my common interest for open source, community, and collaboration I discovered pockets of  users that shared my passion, and by Following these people and interacting with them I developed new relationships that drove my adoption and usage of Twitter.

It then dawned on me that Twitter wasn't about micro communication it was about Macro Community and bringing people together around the things that matter most to them, in essence a ginormous community organizer.

I must admit, I'm excited at the opportunity for community that Twitter has created and if you're interested in joining in on the fun you can find me on Twitter as @emcconne

My how things have changed!  Just a few years ago companies and organizations could buy multi-million dollar television ads and make a mediocre product successful.  People trusted companies to produce great products and would rush out to buy the latest and greatest gizmo because they knew it was going to work as promised.  Unfortunately, most companies violated that trust by producing crappy products or products that didn't solve user needs.  Fortunately for us this is changing thanks to inventive companies that are taking advantage of social media and it's ability to let them talk directly to the customer.  Companies that talk directly to their user communities and produce products using more customer focused agile methodologies are finding success through LISTENING. What a novel concept, talk to your customer and incorporate their feedback in everything you do.

21st century marketing is about connecting people together around your product and creating Fans.  In this new era of connectedness companies that understand this are going to be successful... very successful.  It's not about making a company's products look good in some contrived tv or radio advertisement.  It's about making your customers look remarkable.  Customers that look remarkable become Fans and fans will carry your message into their networks, not because you've made a great product but because you've made them successful.  This should be everyone's goal in today's connected world.

Today companies and organizations of all types need to ask themselves a simple question...

"How can I make my customers look remarkable?"

The customer role can take many forms based on the type of organization you're in but the essence of the question is the same regardless.  What are you going to do today to help someone else be successful?  The only way to effectively answer this question is by opening up an ongoing dialog with your organization's users and constantly asking for input.  This is where organizations that understand community and  social media will have a HUGE advantage over even the largest of companies.  Now go find someone to talk to :)