online community | Social Signal

One of our favourite projects has been The Big Wild, a site where people who love Canada's wilderness can share stories, connect with each other and take action to protect our big wild spaces.

We worked with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and the Mountain Equipment Coop, the site's founders, to make it more engaging and easier to use, and for the past four months, our own Aaron Pettigrew has served as the site's animator - encouraging contributions, promoting the site and ramping up participation.

Now The Big Wild has reached the stage where it's ready to hire an animator on their own. And for a conservation-minded social media type - someone who feels just as at home wrangling blog posts and Flickr photos as they do sleeping under the stars a day's hike from the nearest human settlement - this just might be your dream job.

I like to think there are lessons to be had from even the oddest event.

Take today's "holy-crap!" story currently making the rounds of the digital watercoolers: that poor guy in Georgia whose house was torn down by mistake. Reports say the demolition crew went to the wrong location, reducing a half-century-old brick house to rubble.

You've spent tens of thousands of dollars creating an online community site. Your organization has a big vision for how this new community can engage your customers, members or the public. Your developers, communications team and fundraisers are all bleary-eyed from the effort and dollars it's taken to get you to launch day. Now what?

The web site's done. The launch date is set.

Now - before you open the site's doors to the world - you have the chance to take a few key steps that will play a bigger role in shaping the community you’re creating than any other measure you’re likely to take.

So take a deep breath, and think about the kind of community you’re about to host. Think about the tone you’re trying to foster, the culture you’d like to see take root. Think about what success looks like.

And then take a few critical steps to starting your community off on the right foot: