Bill Johnston – Page 7 – Notes on Community, Collaborative Technologies, and Design

Opportunities for Brands in the Collaborative Economy

You’ve probably been hearing a lot about the Collaborative Economy lately. The key question many brands are asking: How do I get started? The good news? You may already have. Most organizations have an existing online customer community (or communties). Most are as simple as technical support forums, but many organizations have explored community engagement…

March 10, 2015
Brands & The Collaborative Economy Research Project: Call for Participation

Update 3/2/15: The survey (Wave 1) will remain open until Friday, March 6th. We’ve had great response from brands, startups and a handful of non-profits. If your organization would still like to participate, you have until EOD 3/6/2015 bitly.com/collabeconbrands. — Today I’m kicking off a qualitative research project exploring the level of understanding, interest in, and…

February 9, 2015
Announcing Structure3C – Strategies for the Collaborative Economy

Today I’m taking a big (and scary) step in my professional practice – I’m going out on my own to launch a new venture: Structure3C. It is becoming clear that a new wave of activity, the Collaborative Economy, is poised to have a large impact on global markets. Many organizations are not prepared for the coming shift,…

February 4, 2015
A New Kind of Community Management #CMAD 2015

Community Manager Appreciation Day, for me, is an opportunity to reflect on where we’ve been as a practice and as a formative industry, and where we are going. There are vibrant & global conversations happening today and that makes me very happy. As someone who has invested most of their career building online (and offline) communities, it…

January 26, 2015
It’s Time to Flip the Social Media & Community ROI Equation on its Head

It’s time to move to a more equitable participation and recognition model for Brand Online Communities.

January 13, 2015
The Collaborative Economy Honeycomb v2: 6 Industries Added

The latest version of the Collaborative Economy Honeycomb – visualizing the industries showing meaningful growth and / or activity – has been released on Jeremiah Owyang’s blog. The new version adds 6 new industries: Health & Wellness Logistics Corporate (Platforms) Utilities Municipal Learning You can get multiple versions of the Honeycomb file, a directory…

December 8, 2014
The Collaborative Economy – A Comprehensive Overview from the P2P Foundation

I stumbled on the following report from the P2P Foundation, and it was too good (and comprehensive) not to share. The main caveat with the doc is that it was published in 2012 and not 100% current with trends… but with that said, the content is generally helpful, and the editors / researchers were very…

August 15, 2014
Dr. Strangeshare or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the “Collaborative Economy”

I have a confession to make: I can become really obsessed with labels. Back in 2008, when I was producing events and conducting research focused on Online Communities for Forum One, the word “social media” hit broad adoption. I had countless debates with my colleagues about what we should title events and new research initiatives…

March 2, 2014
Culture, Change and Faith: Achtung Baby & Social Business Transformation

File under: slightly off topic but personally meaningful. Disclosure: I’m not a massive U2 fan. With that said, Achtung Baby is one of my all time favorite albums. It is a transformative recording from a band that had, to date, been cast as a folksy and righteous rock and roll band from Ireland. Achtung Baby is a…

October 31, 2013
Attributes of Thriving Online Communities

I got my start building online communities in 1999 with the launch of TechRepublic.com. We grew from a cold start of 0 to 2 Million members in less than 2 years before being acquired by Gartner – it was an insane ride. I was first asked the question of (more or less) “What makes a…

October 20, 2013