And thanks for mentioning the tribalization study – seen it already, good read. Intend to blog about some findings and how they correlate to happenings in the international development sector.

If we limit ourselves to edge communities as a two-way communication channel for the organization, how would one go about defining the promise of those?

thanks for the thoughtful comment – many excellent points.

Would it be fair to say that scope is usually determined by the organization’s mission?

Thanks for the link to the BoA analysis. We also released a study which looks at how companies measure progress and success for their online communities (http://www.beelinelabs.com/tribalization)

The size of a successful group depends on its intended purpose. If collaboration or collective action is required then smaller groups work best. On the other hand, if putting pressure on an institution is the aim then numbers have strength, whether it’s a flash mob or a blogging campaign etc.

I would suggest there are major differences in the nature of communities numbering a few hundred and those in the tens of thousands in terms of form, function and effectivenes. If you want large numbers you have to make the promise a no brainer and the bargain as tolerable as possible (eg “you’ll meet good people and all you have to do is be nice to them”)…

Mark

I like these ideas. I particularly like your graph – it communicates very clearly.

I wonder if you’re forgetting an important dimension that affects overall size: scope of the domain. Organisation led communities (used in the loosest way possible) tend to be focussed around a particular interest (a working group, a CoP, a project team, a proffessional network etc). There are very few communities that are completely open and have no focus (Eldis communities is trying, I believe) . But I’m not sure that they would attract many people anyway.

You mention that number of members is the most common metric, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the common measure of success does it?

I think numbers matter for certain types of community but for most organisational communities and edge communities, I’d say that content, community building, participation, and quality of learning are metrics that could be more important.

Is it fair to compare larger social networking platforms to smaller mroe focused communities?

Thanks,

Simon