Online Community Organizer
This post from Seth Godin caught my attention last week. It is a bit of job description for an “Online Community Organizer”…essentially someone to build an online community.
In the post Seth describes the attributes that he believes this person should have. Here are a couple:
- They would need to be able to write.
- They have to be able to balance huge amounts of inbound correspondence without making people feel left out, and they have to be able to walk the fine line between rejecting trolls and alienating the good guys.
- They would probably need to understand technology, at least well enough to know what it could do.
From my perspective, this is one of the most important new positions in the present and future Church. We have some people on staff who (though not carrying that title) serve in that capacity. But if you are a start-up church or a have difficulty affording another hire, I would still be looking for a volunteer to fill this role.
Are you looking for an Online Community Organizer?
Are you ready to apply or volunteer?
There is so much about online communities to continue to learn and discuss. Tomorrow I’ll start a blog series on Facebook.
Visit 
I look forward to hearing about Facebook. I’m very interested in seeing what the newly allowed third party development (facebook applications) will allow Facebook to grow into. There sure seems to be a lot of potential for some very cool stuff.
I think it would be a great role to do. I think it will be hard to find the people - often the people who are most comfortable in the online setting are exactly those that are most uncomfortable selling in the offline setting. Given that Seth Godin sets this out as one of the key characteristics I think this could be a challenge. I suspect if the role was co-ordinating online community (Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Youtube & other social networking sites as well as Second Life) but not having to promote that offline as well, or at least not verbally, you’d get a whole lot of people interested.
We’ve actually taken a slightly different route, encouraging each of the ministry streams to work these into their ministry. E.g. as college student ministry leader, I’ve spent a bit of time on our Facebook group from church, helping to buold this and drive conversation, as well as use it as a comms channel.
I love the idea of having a member of staff who was a web 2.0 specialist, but perhaps this should be ingrained in all we do?
iMuy interesante! :)
I just sent a Facebook video message to my friends which was pretty neat. It was terribly easy using my macbook with isight, and would be very powerful imo for responding to emails of a sensitive nature as the video captures the emotion and body language (everything). If any of you have tried to address a sensitive matter through email before, then you know how email can often be misunderstood.
Great heads up! I am in the midst of planting a church and have certainly been strategizing our online presence but hadn’t thought about an Online Community Organizer. Now I have to! This could be huge! And all I thought I needed to do was find someone to play the guitar and someone to run powerpoint…sheeesh!
in my opinion, this is certainly a critical role both now and in the future. and the cool thing is the position can be done really well with potentially someone who is off site/overseas. you dont have to have an office for them and could basically blow up all traditional employee parameters. Also this person in all practical terms could be some high schooler living with their parents. which is fantastic.
Duncan,
I think for most organizations…having an expert is the first step in getting it into the culture of the staff. I think most teams need a bit of a catalyst.
Ben,
Your OCO should be able to run powerpoint as well :)
Mike,
Great thoughts on the ability to leverage some non-traditional candidates. I just don’t know that I can afford high schoolers since they are the ones starting companies and making hundreds of millions of dollars.
When I first read this, I thought it was the idea to build a MySpace/Facebook from scratch. If we are not in the online communities of the world, then we go against the very idea of Matthew 5:13. We are indeed the salt of the earth and the Internet more so than any other community on earth.
It is a bit “out-of-body” (so to speak) when people speak of Online Community Managers as it is a job about to be created when I have managed online communities for at least 10 years going on. But it is all about perspective, I suppose.
Anyways, I always thought that I would have to be on pastoral staff (which I am working towards) and then say, “We should have a online presence and I am willing to volunteer.”
Oh wow.
I just had a realization. Several months ago, God placed the calling of ministry upon my heart. What if… something that come so easy to me could be used as a ministry?
Hmm…
*gone a prayin’
Joe,
While I don’t know what God specifically is calling you to do, I am confident that He will use your experiences and talents.
I find that many people with technology-related skills see a call to ministry as a career change…meaning, they feel they need to learn to preach, lead worship, etc. to be ministers. I think this stems from an “apparent” lack of need for highly technical skills in the Church.
if any of you are ever wondering…”Can my technology/web skills be used in the church?”…email me before you do anything else :)
Bobby, I am not sure if you knew you were aiming at something but you just hit the target. This is what I have been wrestling with for the last two months.
God works weird. Really weird. I just got fired from the best job I have ever worked in as a SysAdmin.
I would LOVE To email you on this but… I don’t have your email address.
Email me at joelouthan@gmail.com.
Even I were to be a pastor, I would only assume that I would have some influence over the IT needs in the church. Twelve years as a Systems Administrator with both Linux and Windows (more specifically in a Server/Client and Web Hosting Environments will be all for naught and I wouldn’t sit ignorant when a technology issue arises.
Didn’t mean to leave it of…bobby@lifechurch.tv
Bobby
In our C/U environment this online role seems critical. In the same way people just assume a church will have soft music and cheezy words, they assume we will not be present online.
Yet this is the way virtually all interaction is happening.
Dave
[...] on swerve, we’ve posted some of the many great ideas Seth has blogged about. Topics like Online Community Organizers, Learning from the Dabbawalla, Why We Started Blogging, and even our trip to NYC to glean some [...]