Online Community Breaks-Out into an Growing Industry of It’s Own

Participants at the sold out Online Community Unconference lead discussions around online community management, standards and best practices and concluded that online community has come into an industry of it’s own.

San Francisco, CA – July 21, 2008 – Forum One Networks, a strategy and research group specializing in online communities, hosted the largest gathering of Online Community professionals to date, on June 18th, in Mountain View, CA. The unconference was packed with energy and enthusiasm from the 250 attendees all eager to learn and share their experiences in the online community and social media industry.

The unconference featured over fifty break-out sessions with compelling topics including:
• Worst Case Scenarios – What to do when things go terribly wrong
• Building the Collaborative Ecosystem – All components for community building success
• Community Management 2.0 - Success & Failures

In addition to the break-out sessions, the “open space” format of the unconference allowed for the participants to speak and collaborate in between sessions. A conference attendee, Tom Diederich of Cadence Designs Systems says, “I am gearing up to launch my second enterprise user community…and found the access to industry leaders invaluable. In addition to the sessions, I was able to bounce some questions off them and get some advice on a one-on-one basis between sessions.”

This years event showed a maturity in the conversation and the topics, which indicates that Online Community is forming an industry of their own. With any new industry, standardized methods and practices must evolve. According to Bill Johnston, chief community officer at Forum One Networks, “The focus is shifting from islands of communities to the larger community ecosystem. A general lack of standards around nomenclature, job roles, metrics, data schemas, profile accessibility and community UX is starting to come up as a real issue more often. I think we are finally mature enough as an industry to have the discussions as a body of practice.”

About Forum One Networks
Forum One Networks is a division of Forum One Communications, a web strategy and development group based in Alexandria, Virginia, with offices in the California Bay Area. Forum One Networks produces events, conducts research, and provides networking and strategic consulting for online community and social media professionals.

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Heather Virga

Marketing Operations Manager

Forum One Networks

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