Grant Holliday

I came across this post by Simon Guest (the only guy able to logon as ‘guest’ at Microsoft) on Why Online Communities Fail.

He states three reasons for failure:

1. Purpose - “This online community will be for [audience] to [action] in order to reach [goal with incentive].”
2. Seeding - The initial “drop” of information that will attract people
3. Barrier of Entry - How hard is it to get involved?

So without even thinking about it, I covered all of these when I setup the OzTFS.com mailing list, which has now grown beyond what I could’ve imagined.

Purpose

The purpose of the list was very clear from the start: “a mailing list that brings Australian TFS knowledge and experience direct to your inbox”

Seeding

The list was seeded with a long thread of introductions from the initial members and some respected TFS thought leaders. This created a sense of community amongst the members and a culture of sharing.

Barrier of Entry

This was tackled in a few different ways and the delivery mechanism was crucial to the success.

1. It’s a mailing list. Instant and direct to your inbox. Send an email to the listserver & you’re connected.
2. The archives are available on the web. This helps bring in subscribers from the search engine results of previous threads
3. I also toyed with the idea of weekly news summaries, but the value wasn’t there.