Is your community personal enough?

It is clear that online collaboration is different – and especially less personal – than working face-to-face. And although everyone is more and more accustomed to the increasing role of ICT tools in everyday life, remains the personal touch very important for most people. If you want to increase the success of your community it is advisable to add personal touches.

You can do this in several ways:

• Encourage participants to fill in their personal profile, including photos.
• Create opportunities for personal contact: organize face-to-face meetings regularly. During these meetings the participants get to know each other better and this will encourage them help each other in the future in a better context.
• Try to dress your community with some photos of meetings or outings.
• Create a visually appealing community with an informal atmosphere. For example combine text with pictures.
• Do not email to discuss, but use the opportunities for interaction in Viadesk. Place responses with contributions from others, ask each other questions and collaborate in wikis.