“What we have to do in an online community is the same as we would in a garden,” said Dave Neary at the OpenSource World Conference in Granada in 2012. “We have to create the circumstances for plants to grow healthy and strong.”
The concept of community gardener was introduced by Cristóbal Gracia at the start of the round table on “Communication strategy and community management in Collaborative Consumption companies“.
The event was held at Telefonica’s Mobile World Centre (Barcelona) and organized by the Spanish Association of Community and Social Media Professionals.
Núria Mañé from AERCO moderated a conversation that included Juanjo Rodríguez, founder and CEO of Knok.com, Nono Ruiz, co-founder of Chicfy.com, Alexandra Ramió, in charge of marketing and communication at Socialcar.com and Joel Serra, Spain Country Manager for Eatwith.com.
To watch the full video of the round table visit this ConsumoColaborativo article.
I see community gardeners as a team of people who take care of the offline interactions with the users. This is an additional task that complements what the community manager does online.
From my view, the “super users” of the platform, the ones who participate the most, tell about the idea to their friends, and really love to use it are the best ones to do this task of community gardening.
The collaborative platforms should be aware of this “super users” to take care of them through special benefits and deals and talk honestly with them about their amazing value are providing to the company.
Are we ready to create and manage a real collaborative community?
: )
I spoke about the gardening analogy at a conference in Atlanta earlier this month (1/2014) and then was encouraged to write about it – which I did on our blog. I am continuing to evolve this analogy as it seems to be the one that best explains how to think of the community in a way that is not abstract. Thanks for this post.
Thank you for the article I found your site today Tuesday, while sernchiag for information on how to grow vegetables type articles. I started a new website called howtoodle, it’s a how-to’ site dedicated to articles and videos on topics specific to the how-to niche, that help people better their lives. If you’d like to contribute, we’re providing you with full credit and link backs to your site. If you’re interested, come visit us when you have a free few minutes. Thanks for your time.