It's a wrap: June 25 Toronto Girl Geek Dinner

Yesterday, once again, I had my mind blown by the awesome energy of the Toronto Girl Geek Dinners. I didn't count noses, or take attendance (and between us we managed to forget to bring name tags), but we had a full house, some pub grub, and a few beverages and lots of great conversations.

Jayne Hoogenberk from eHarlequin gave a wonderful talk about community. I think everyone there would agree that Jayne gave us lots to think about while sharing insights gleaned over more than decade of community management. I scribbled down a few notes for those of you who couldn't make it. If I missed something you caught, please let us know in the comments.

• Community spaces unite the world in an amazing conversation
• Think about simple ways to reward constituents
• Essential to acknowledge people's contributions and that you've heard what they've said
• Establish a rewards and recognition program to encourage and incent active users
• To encourage more participation allow users to comment anywhere and everywhere
• Think about people in your organization who are passionate and get them involved with the community
• Foster a culture of empowerment
• Typical community - 90% of people read/are passive; 9% make some contribution; 1% get really active
• Harlequin community is highly engaged - 75% are back within 24 hours - huge commitment to participating
  
• Encourage positive behaviour and ignore the bad
• Everyone loves contest and games - they cultivate culture and egg on participants in terms of positive and healthy competition
• Showcase and highlight the best of your users. We're living in a cult of personality - highlight key contributions and contributors, make them feel important
• Jayne's best practice for moderation: As nice as you are in real life, be twice as nice online
• Moderate to guidelines, iterate on guidelines by documenting situations and responses as your encounter them
• Facilitate conversation and dialogue be open and transparent in the conversation. You are not a marketing brochure
• Don't warn your users publicly - take it offline
• Don't let negativity get to you - take a deep breath and congratulate yourself that someone is so passionate to get involved and say something. Go with the flow, open up the doors and listen.
• Be patient. Communities simmer a long time before they boil.
  

A special thanks to the Social Media Group for their sponsorship last night. Our sponsors keep Toronto Girl Geek Dinners open to everyone. If you're interested in becoming a sponsor, check out our wiki for details.

There's a bunch of questions and discussions on the Facebook Group, we're looking for feedback on the venue, food and beverage, and timeslot. Let us know what you think!

A bunch of us we're talking about a couple of Toronto Girl Geek summer projects. Rachel suggested a Girl Geek Job Board and I'd like to aggregate all the Toronto Girl Geek blogs into a single feed (also I've been looking for an excuse to learn Yahoo! Pipes). Watch this space.

Have a great summer everyone. We'll see you on September 10 for Sandi Jones from Rogers.