On Nuturing Communities

One of the things we've learned about the coordination of GIS tools and data at the state level is that it often involves building and maintaining communities of data producers and users. The challenge is to do that within the context of government and to maintain both openness and structure in the proper balance.

We might take a lesson or two from the experience of Matt Haughey, creator of the on-line community MetaFilter, a sprawling, international collection of web-surfers who share and comment on content from around the world.

Mr. Haughey has written an essay (Some Community Tips for 2007) that presents some of his thoughts on facilitating a diverse community.

If you're building a community you have to love what you're doing and be the best member of it. It takes great care and patience to create a space others will share and you have to nurture it and reward your best contributors. It's a decidedly human endeavor with few, if any, technical shortcuts.

The essay is written from the perspective of running a web-based community site, but some of the lessons also apply in the role of council facilitator and in a more general sense to the community leadership roles we fill.