When you are a trailblazer in a new industry (Social Communities) you generally find yourself dipping your toes outside of your comfort zone! “New” means "different" and for most of my fellow humans “different" is not fun”. Generally speaking we are creatures of habit. Same coffee shop, same soap and if you are like me you have different jackets for different weather. Then when you are taken out of your comfort zone you become grumpy and out of place! I will admit to becoming increasingly grumpy these days!
The other day I was asked by a client to make all blog, forums, and comments have an “anonymous” capability. Anonymous? Really? Anonymous and community are two words that seem counter productive, no? My initial reaction was heck no! This makes no sense, and certainly does not fall in line with the best practices we preach daily here at Mzinga! However, after reading about industry standards in the Pharmaceutical industry, as well as some Law blogs, it appears that “Anonymous” is going to be mandatory for communities to thrive within some business environments!
Self regulation standards will eventually give way to Social Communities! It is inevitable and the way of things! rules are meant to be broken or eventually fade away! However there will have to be some compromise from the community provider’s end. In some instances it is going to be mandatory for the Community Member to share anonymously. Whenever a person is put into a position of being held accountable for sharing a companies intellectual property, they are going to be less likely to share. But their knowledge is critical to the community and it's members, so being pro-community I choose to have them post then walk away! The solution? Give them the right to choose how they post. Username? Or anonymous? A simple one click selection that guarantees the member can share with peace of mind!
Content is king! In order to allow content to continue to flow freely, some industry standards are going to dictate how we as consultant think and act. It is horrifying, and makes me overly grumpy to go against what seems so fundamentally wrong. However, in order to stay on top of the game you need to the foresight and courage to say "uncle" and go with the flow! In order to service some area’s of business, mysterious community members will be the norm. In essence, everyone will have on a Batman mask in their community!
Like I said, horrifying! But realities that will be essential for the existence of “community” if some cross sections of business.