Drupal and the Keys to Successful Communities
Drupal has the strongest focus on community website building, in comparison to other readily available content management systems.
On-line communities like Facebook, Yandex, Myspace and Twitter have changed the world. Many smaller communities exist alongside such famous social networks, focused on business, language learning, dating and countless other aspects. That on-line communities have reached wide acceptance in societies worldwide is beyond doubt.
Such communities are strongly influencing how we organize our professional as well as our social lives. They also come increasingly into focus as a marketing instrument for companies, trying to reach customers who are no longer readily accessible through traditional forms of advertising.
Drupal provides an excellent and versatile tool to satisfy the demand to custom-build specialized on-line communities. The fundamental question becomes, "What makes some communities successful and what makes others fail?"
Drupal itself would not be what it is today without its own strong and dynamic community. Drupal is in this respect an example of successful community building.
This session will:
- focus on the key factors of successful communities through case studies
- show you why some of them failed.
- outline results of scientific research, including the Nobel Price winning work of Elinor Ostrom "Governing the Commons"
- take a look at what we can learn from Dee Hock, the founder of Visa International
I will show how these factors can intrinsically be built into Drupal community websites.
