A small obsession

You may have noticed, if you follow this blog at all, that we talk a lot about building online communities. In fact, were this not a digital medium, we might have wiped out a moderately-sized copse of trees with the pages and pages we’ve written on the topic.

(Please note that we would have replanted the hypothetical grove after we cleared it. We love the earth).

With our established interest in cultivating your online community, it probably won’t surprise you that we’re working to put together something a little special.

At long last

At this exact moment in time (unless it’s, y’know, nighttime or very early morning. Or snack time. Or if Firefly reruns are on), we are pulling together a comprehensive guide on growing/building/cultivating your online community (choose your metaphor at will).

We’re pretty excited about this resource and we think you will be, too. (If you’re not, don’t tell us. You’ll crush our little hearts).

A sneak peek (only not really)

So we won’t actually be showing you clips or screenshots of the guide  (tippy-top secret stuff, that), but here’s what we will be doing.

We’ll tell you about it. (Lucky you).

The Mack Web Solutions’ Truly Excellent and Fantastic Guide to Building Online Communities for All and Sundry (so, the title is a work in progress. For now, we mostly just call him Arthur), is going to be a complete guide on growing an online community from scratch.

All you need to get started is a few seed ideas and a basic concept of what you’d like to accomplish.

That’s not so very much, is it?

From that starting point, the guide will walk you through finding the right outlets, finding the right people, and starting the (we won’t lie) rather difficult work of reaching out to them.

But wait, there’s more…

You’ll notice that even in our absurdly descriptive working title, we never once call it a “beginner’s guide” to anything. That, friends, is deliberate.

Because even though the thing will work for beginners, it’s not just for them. Getting started is just, well, the beginning.

Our Awesomely Comprehensive and Objectively Beautiful Guide to Making Online Friends (yeah…maybe not that one either), will also:

• move into the intermediate steps of coaxing to full-bloom the little seedlings that have started to sprout, and
• the final stage in the cycle of keeping your community healthy and abundant once it’s established.

We will be embellishing all this lovely, practical information with case studies and real life examples and possibly the occasional overdrawn metaphor. And we’ll be doing all this with our unique and celebrated (frequently. with cookies) Mack Web flair.

You’re gonna love it.

Here’s what we need from you. Yes, you.

At the moment, we’re trying to gauge the level of interest the Handy-Dandy Guide to Not Being a Cyber Hermit.

Because we know that we’re pretty thrilled. (But then, we also find llamas oddly endearing, so…). We’re in touch with reality enough to know that not everyone shares our enthusiasms.

And, quite frankly, if no one cares about our project…well, we’ll be very sad. There were will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and probably rather a lot of ice cream.

And then we’ll move on. Life’s too short, y’know?

So here’s what you can do. We’re collecting a list of people who might find a use for it. So go to our Building Online Communities page (where on that glorious day the Currently Incomplete But Someday Absurdly Thorough Guide to Not Being a Meanie will live) and let us know.

And because we’re just that good, there’s also ways to share this exciting possibility with the world via social media.

Not so difficult, eh?

So, go. See. Sign up. Share. Then go out and enjoy the day. The sunshine’s on us.