Originally published on Medium.
In this article, I present a tool that will allow you to model a concrete community strategy in a few minutes, implementable in your overall strategy.
This model is graphically inspired by the traditional "business model canvas" or "lean canvas" that you have probably already used. It is used in the same way by studying 9 interdependent components:
Community Model Canvas
To begin with, it is necessary to define the scope of one's community well in order to offer a personalized and adapted strategy. The scope encompasses all the typical actors of the targeted community, gathered around a theme that must be:
It's the same principle as a niche market, which allows you to optimize your short-term strategy on a segment but which, over time, allows you to broaden the field.
In some cases, you will interact with several communities. It is then important to create a model for each of them, as you may quickly confuse the scope and partners. For example, a public service could develop a community of citizens as well as a community of professionals on the same subject. However, professionals could themselves be partners in the citizen community model.
To create engagement, you must propose a vision that will be shared by the members of your community. A good vision must:
If you manage to define an innovative and ambitious vision that fully integrates your members, you will then be able to create lasting engagement and have a real impact in the scope you have chosen.
It will also be a way to distinguish yourself from communities similar to the one you are developing, as you will offer real added value to your members.
In the field of free software, we often find this notion of vision, capable of federating very close-knit communities that collectively create software with a real impact: Open Office, Tor, Linux, Arduino, etc.
As a strategic node, you must think about the connections you want to develop within the community and define objectives. In general, two major types of connections coexist: