After months of writing, editing, copy-editing, reviews and production, I am pleased to announce the general availability of The Art of Community!
The book is printed and on its way to bookstores - it may take a few
days for it to hit your local bookstore or regional online store.
This is a book that I have been working on since November, designed
to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling
pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. The book covers the
major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices
and experiences, illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.
While the book draws from my experience in Open Source and cites the experience of others in other communities, the book is not
explicitly designed for technical communities and the content is
applicable to any community of any size. This has been a deliberate
decision: I am really keen that anyone from a knitting group to a
neighbourhood watch group to a political activism group to a globally
distributed Open Source project can get some real value from the book.
Throughout the eleven chapters and 360+ pages the book covers the major elements of building strong community:
- Foreword by Leo Laporte - emmy award-winning
broadcaster and founder of the TWiT Network provides a thoughtful
foreword, complete with his expected wit and repartee. - Preface
- Chapter 1 - The Art of Community - We
begin the book with a bird’s-eye view of how communities function at a
social science level. We cover the underlying nuts and bolts of how
people form communities, what keeps them involved, and the basis and
opportunities behind these interactions. - Chapter 2 - Planning Your Community -
Next we carve out and document a blueprint and strategy for your
community and its future growth. Part of this strategy includes the
target objectives and goals and how the community can be structured to
achieve them. - Chapter 3 - Communicating Clearly - At
the heart of community is communication, and great communicators can
have a tremendously positive impact. Here we lay down the
communications backbone and the best practices associated with using it. - Chapter 4 - Processes: Simple Is Sustainable
- We then move on to focus on putting the facilities in place for your
community to do great things. In this chapter we build simple,
effective, and nonbureaucratic processes that enable your community to
conduct tasks, work together, and share their successes. - Chapter 5 - Supporting Workflow with Tools
- We continue our discussion of community facilities to build workflows
that are driven by accessible, sensible, and rock-solid tools that
enable your contributors to do great work quickly and easily. - Chapter 6 - Building Buzz - With a solid
foundation in place, we move on to build excitement and buzz around
your community and encourage and enthuse every man, woman, dog and pony
to get involved and participate. - Chapter 7 - Measuring Community -
Although many consider community hand-wavey and unmeasurable, this
chapter confronts the myth and guides you in tracking, monitoring, and
otherwise measuring the work going on the community so it can be
optimized and simplified. - Chapter 8 - Governance - Our next stop is
the wide-ranging and seemingly complex topic of governance. We explore
what options are available for a low-friction, capable, and
representative governance strategy for your community. - Chapter 9 - Handling Conflict - One of
the most sensitive topics in community leadership is handling conflict.
In this chapter we explore how to identify, handle, and prevent irksome
conflict; handle divisive personalities; and unblock problems. - Chapter 10 - Creating and Running Events
- Events offer an excellent opportunity for your community to bond, be
productive, and have fun, and this is where we cast our beady eye in
our penultimate chapter. - Chapter 11 - Hiring a Community Manager - Finally, we close The Art of Community
with some advice and guidance for organizations who want to hire a
community manager to conduct and implement the wide range of topics
that we have discussed throughout the book.
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