As promised, I wanted to share my thoughts on the AMA Executive Panel Conference Call we sponsored last week through the American Marketing Association.  We've successfully used AMA webcasts in the past to reach a large audience, but with this event we wanted to have a more social, community-like conversation with a targeted group of people. The AMA recommended this panel discussion format.  It was a bit of a throw-back to the 90s; it was a conference call, not a webcast.  The panelists -- John Kembel from HiveLive and Brad Bortner from Forrester -- chatted for roughly 20 minutes about the trends in market research and specifically about the potential of online communities in this space.  Then we opened up the call and took questions from the attendees.  The questions were queued up the old-fashioned way by an operator on the phone line.

The AMA posted the conversation as a podcast on their site.  I'd encourage you to give it a listen and let me know your thoughts.

By all my measures, the event was a success. Brad Bortner is an engaging speaker, and clearly knows his space well.  He and John had an easy time talking about using online communities for market research during the opening portion of the event, then we got interesting, relevant questions from the attendees.

There were a few discussion points from the conversation that I'll share.  First, Brad talked about how qualitative research has looked pretty similar for the last decade, but that online communities used for market research have the potential to really mix things up.  Rather than having to stick to a variable cost model where a brand pays for each research activity they do, online communities "take the lid off" the amount of research a company can do, all at a fixed cost.  He also mentioned that some of the most exciting insights he's seen come from online communities are from the unsolicited interactions -- get consumers to have a genuine conversation in adhoc discussion threads, and you never know what "exciting needs" you may uncover.  I also thought he did a good job of explaining the difference between some of the existing online technologies, e.g., online chat rooms or focus groups, and true online communities.  He offered that an online community serves more than one function -- a true community can do polls, focus groups, panels, forums, etc. -- and there's also much more potential for structure in a community.  We agree with both of those points, and feel that breadth of activity types and the ability to structure activities will translate into deeper insights for the market researcher.

Have a listen.  I'm interested in your thoughts on the format and on the discussion.

In yesterday's AMA webinar (Online Communities + Market Research), I briefly mentioned that General Mills was using community for market research and consumer insights.  Given the great questions during and after the webinar (some of which occurred on twitter), I figured I'd provide a little more detail here.

So far, General Mills has launched four HiveLive-powered insights communities running in parallel, for well-known brands such as Nature Valley and Yoplait.  Each of these brand communities engages about 50 select members and has its own set of community and research activities (like discussions, idea generation, concept testing, etc.).  Researchers, product owners, and participants are actively engaged in daily, continuous conversations.  Across the whole environment and in a very short time, there have been about 1,100 posts with nearly 15,000 responses/comments, and counting.

We've been fortunate to work with some fantastic and forward-thinking folks at General Mills on these community projects.  I've been amazed at how readily and capably they are rolling up their sleeves, jumping right in, and directly interacting with their brand communities.  In an industry where many brand-to-consumer interactions are through blind studies and based on researcher-subject relationships, it's refreshing to see this new face of market research.

When it comes to customer communities, we've always believed that the heart and the start of community is with insights.  It's been great to see, first hand, how the ongoing, on-demand, continuous nature of community applies to market research.  The potential for communities to impact how big brands engage and understand their customers, and ultimately innovate, is clearly exciting.

What a week so far!  On Monday, I had the opportunity to learn how a global brand is reinventing their models of marketing based on community and conversations.  This morning, I participated on a panel at the Inbound Marketing Summit with a host of great folks (@chrisbrogan, @marcusnelson, @joek, and @ross) where we discussed developing, nurturing, and growing communities.  And tomorrow, I'll have the opportunity to participate in a very different kind of conversation. 

I'm off to D.C. to participate in a working session to generate recommendations for the Administration's energy and climate security agenda. The meeting - Mapping U.S. Energy and Climate Security - is being hosted by Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and the Markle Foundation. 

A lot of exciting topics on the docket (innovation, energy diversification, conservation, infrastructure protection) and a lot of interesting attendees from the private sector, NGOs, and government agencies. I've been asked to bring the perspective of community for new models of collaboration and information sharing.

I would value any ideas or thoughts you may have.  How might communities and social media be applied in the context of energy and climate security?  DM me (@jkembel) or comment below.

And, I'll twitter/blog on how this goes.  Ok, plane is pushing back...

I'm at the Inbound Marketing Summit in SF today.  A fantastic lineup of folks are scheduled to participate.

Second on the schedule this morning (at 9:50a), I'll be on a panel with Chris Brogan, Mike Walsh, Marcus Nelson, and Ross Mayfield.  It should be an exciting conversation.  Here's the panel summary:

"Discovering the Power of Your Community - One of the benefits of social networking tools is the ability to discover and bring together groups of people around central topics. But, developing a community sounds so difficult. Learn how successful communities are planted, watered and then assisted in growing into powerful, dynamic networks. During this session moderated by Chris Brogan, you will hear from some of the leading community platform developers who are on the bleeding edge of community development, nurturing and growth."

In preparation for the panel, I've been reflecting on some of the most successful techniques our customers have used to help nurture and grow their communities.  Here is some of the best practices that came to mind... and what I'll likely refer to this morning:

1. Design the setting - think beyond just having conversations to also designing the setting in which those conversations will take place (open/closed, directed/undirected, structured/unstructured, etc...). I like to think in terms of activities and experiences rather than simply having conversations.
2. Selectively engage - grow the community organically.  Start by engaging a select audience, then energize them, extend your reach, and repeat.  One of the most active communities we power started with 20 people and is now over 7,000 members strong.
3. Start with understanding - listen and ask. Instead of thinking first about leads or loyalty, start by seeking insights.  Better understanding your customers is the best fuel for nurturing your community, and also for driving your business (regardless of whether you're looking to improve product innovation, marketing performance, and/or customer experience)
4. Actively relate - know your audience.  More likely than not, they're not exactly like you. One of our customers went as far as figuring out what TV shows and sports their members watched and engaged accordingly.  Actively connecting and relating promotes authentic interactions and the relationships that those interactions are based on.
5. Act and iterate - Not surprisingly the most successful strategy that we've seen for nurturing and growing community is an attitude of iteration.  Some things will work, others won't.  Failing early and often is the best way to succeed sooner.
6. Co-create the community (share ownership) - The more your community members own and shape the community (not just contribute to the conversation), the more participation and loyalty you'll get.  We have a customer who has seen this work amazingly well at global scale.
7. Promote organization crosstalk - One of our customers has regular cross-organizational stand-ups to keep communication open, strategy clear, and actions aligned.  Since community connects with most areas of their organization (marketing, product, sales, support, engineering) this has proven invaluable.

I look forward to sharing specific examples of companies/brands doing these things and more this morning.  Please comment or DM me (@jkembel) if you have any other ideas or thoughts of topics we could discuss this morning.

This year has started off as quite a sprint.  Right now, we're in the middle of helping a number of great companies roll out new communities.

Today, our congratulations goes to ThoughtWorks for launching their customer community: visit community.thoughtworks.com to sneak a peak (and see the announcement here).

In the community, ThoughtWorks customers and consultants can find company news, product information, best practices, training tools, and technical support.  Users of the ThoughtWorks products -- Mingle, Cruise, and Twist -- can interact with development teams and with each other to exchange their own product templates and extensions, contribute to the product roadmap and share best practices.

This is a great example of the new shape of customer engagement... using community to directly connect with customers, build loyalty, garner insights, and drive innovation. Their ultimate vision?  The community will become the place where customers tap into the expertise of the broader ThoughtWorks ecosystem.  Exciting.