Amy Jo Kim wrote one of the classics on Web community design. AJ and Scott her puzzlemaster husband and their vivacious 7-year old son were in town for AJ’s consulting work, and the four of us had delicious breakfast at Scandic. I like AJ’s take on community. She has a background in psychology and it shows. These are her nine timeless design strategies:

1. Define and articulate your PURPOSE
2. Build flexible, extensible gathering PLACES
3. Create meaningful and evolving member PROFILES
4. Design for a range of ROLES
5. Develop a strong LEADERSHIP program
6. Encourage appropriate ETIQUETTE
7. Promote cyclic EVENTS
8. Integrate the RITUALS of community life
9. Facilitate member-run SUBGROUPS

More excerpts here.

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Kyle
August 6th, 2006 at 5:27 pm (#)

I’m not quite sure if there’s something wrong with Amazon or my computer or what, but Amazon is saying that the lowest available price for the book is $1258.00.
I don’t quite have that laying around, so I was wondering if I send you some bucks, you’ll lend me yours :-)

Jyri Engeström
August 7th, 2006 at 3:24 am (#)

Wow! That’s quite a valuation. I was using a library copy back in the day. The online excerpts are useful.