OReilly The Art of Community -2nd Edition | PDF | 574 pages | Throughout this book we are going to delve into the wide range of topics that face those of us who want to build and inspire great communities. Page after page we are going to weave an intricate web of the concepts, skills, and approaches involved in energizing a vibrant community and helping the members of that community to energize themselves. This book is divided into 15 chapters, with each building on what went before. Let’s take a quick glance at the road ahead: Chapter 1, The Art of Community We begin the book with a bird’s-eye view of how communities function at a social science level. We cover the underlying nuts and bolts of how people form communities, what keeps them involved, and the basis and pportunities behind these interactions. Chapter 2, Planning Your Community Next we carve out and document a blueprint and strategy for your community and its future growth. Part of this strategy includes the target objectives and goals and how the community can be structured to achieve them. Chapter 3, Communicating Clearly At the heart of community is communication, and great communicators can have a tremendously positive impact. Here we lay down the communications backbone and the best practices associated with using it. Chapter 4, Processes: Simple Is Sustainable We then move on to focus on putting the facilities in place for your community to do great things. In this chapter we build simple, effective, and nonbureaucratic processes that enable your community to conduct tasks, work together, and share their successes. Chapter 5, Supporting Workflow with Tools and Data We continue our discussion of community facilities to build workflows that are driven by accessible, sensible, and rock-solid tools that enable your contributors to do great work quickly and easily. Chapter 6, Social Media We now take a look at social networking, what it is, how it can help us, how to avoid the hype, and how to harness it in our communities. Chapter 7, Building Buzz With a solid foundation in place, we move on to build excitement and buzz around your community and encourage and enthuse every man and his dog to get involved and participate. Chapter 8, Measuring Community Although many consider community touchy-feely and unmeasurable, this chapter confronts the myth and guides you in tracking, monitoring, and otherwise measuring the work going on in the community so that it can be optimized and simplified. Chapter 9, Managing and Tracking Work Continuing on from measuring our community, we now explore methods by which you can ensure that your community projects and participants stay on track and deliver great results. Chapter 10, Governance Our next stop is the wide-ranging and seemingly complex topic of governance. We explore what options are available for a low-friction, capable, and representative governance strategy for your community. Chapter 11, Handling Conflict and Relationships One of the most sensitive topics in community leadership is handling conflict. In this chapter we explore how to identify, handle, and prevent irksome conflict; handle divisive personalities; and unblock problems. Chapter 12, Creating and Running Events Events offer an excellent opportunity for your community to bond, be productive, and have fun, and this is where we cast our beady eye in this chapter.

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