In 2003 I worked as a Concept Developer for Te Papa putting together exhibitions. One of my assignments was an exhibition on Maori Showbands of the 1950s and 1960s. Given that it was largely a photographic and text show I lobbied for it to become Te Papa’s first online exhibition – a radical idea at the time.

The online exhibition was developed – and was incredibly successful, particularly among the Maori Showbands community. Many of the community were elderly, frail, or simply unable to afford a trip to Te Papa in Wellington to relive their halcyon days as New Zealand’s most famous pop acts. And by putting their stories online they could access the exhibition from home, with their whanau or from the local library. We received many comments about the group, ‘feeling young again’.

Read more about the exhibition and see images here.*

Communities of people are diverse and increasingly online and communicating. In terms of professional communication it’s an area that shouldn’t be overlooked or underestimated but one that is often done badly, forced or done only through astro-turfing. I live in Featherston, Wairarapa, a town that is comprised of young families, beneficiaries and commuters who travel to Wellington each day for work. Since I don’t have kids that go to school, didn’t grow up there and don’t go to church (we have six for a town of 2,500 people) I didn’t really know anyone. I’d often come home to find that something great had happened the day before and I’d missed out.

So I set up a Facebook page. I thought if I was lucky a few people would sign up and people might occasionally add local events. Boy was I wrong! To date, 363 people are fans of Featherston, Wairarapa (that’s more than 10 percent of the population) and we’re a really active online community showcasing our events, sharing our photos and discussing a range of issues including: 

• When to send kids to Playcentre and where that is in Featherston,
• A caution about leaving cars out on the street,
• The new Thai Takeaway in town and how great it is,
• Trick or Treating for kids,
• Whether anyone has spare lemons, and
• The Featherston Gymnastics Club.

What’s the secret to our happy community? Here are some tips for all communicators:

1. Share the responsibility. Online communities are about democratising information, not about bossing people around or only having your point of view heard. The first thing I did after setting up our Featherston community page was to give five other people (ranging from the community coordinator to local councillors to people I’d seen on the train) administration rights. 
2. Be active yourself. I add events to our page and make sure a PDF copy of our local newsletter is available. I comment on other people’s discussions and ask questions. 
3. Be friendly, informal and open – it’s the community’s information, not yours alone. 
4. Update the fans occasionally. They’ll receive a notification and those that aren’t participating in the page will be reminded that it exists. 
5. Be encouraging and help the community generate more content. We’ve got a great photographer in Featherston so I asked them to add their photos to the photo gallery. When someone mentioned they were writing a story about Featherston on Facebook, people on the page added their experiences. And we even get talked about on Masterton’s More FM because one of the local DJs is a fan.

Here are a few other online communities as a starter for six:

The National Library of Flickr’s The Commons – the National Library of New Zealand lets the public to tell them about what’s in their collection

Community Central – a place for not for profit groups to work

The Big Idea – an arts community

*The copyright licenses on the Maori Showbands website have now lapsed and it has been decided that the exhibition won’t continue online.