When you write for a community, analyzing the social response to your words is as important as the words themselves. In the process of developing this skill, you spend 5 – 7 hours a day for around 5 years or more cataloging social responses in your mind until you develop an instinct you can take with you into the professional world. That instinct is what you use to facilitate the emotional bond. Social visions vary as much as human beings themselves. I want to show you four of them and take advantage of the fact that we have two visionaries in the room, Vanessa and me. I also want to talk about the importance of having a business plan to go with your vision and explore a little how business affects community.

Vanessa talks here about the social theory that inspired her to create CIN, and how the business plan Of CIN’s sale affected her work, and how she hopes this business plan at Computerworld will work and allow her vision to live.

Community is the emotional bond. You can throw the books away. Without that, you have nothing or you have something false. A false mask is not a product.

Let’s look at two decisions Vanessa made and how they safeguard the emotional design of Executive Suite. People with a financial interest in selling products or services or revealing members’ private information in a public forum would destroy the safety. Members wouldn’t talk. Computerworld has no product. It started out as a discussion, but EXS is a place where people get to talk about real career dilemmas with an expert. They need anonymity, so a discussion wouldn’t work. They want to send private email, anonymously through us, to the recruiter. So Vanessa made a page where they will fill out a form to be sent privately to Gordon. Then the question and answer will just be put on a page that members can click if they want to read about the topic. This was a decision of choosing the right environment to fit people’s emotions about career moves when they operate at a senior executive level. They feel safe this way, and they will continue to talk. This was emotional design, which is crucial to the health of a community-information product.

This is what the community writer does. They write the trigger that leads people to the goal of the emotional bond and beyond.