In a previous article, Avoiding remote software collaboration disasters, I shared my experiences of virtual software development and offered four golden rules I now use. Heres the sequel.

Anyone serious about developing community, virtual or otherwise, should have a look at the excellent free resources at the Foundation for Community Encouragement originally established by Dr Scott Peck to help groups of all types work through the universal stages of community building.

Growing a successful virtual community is like tending a delicate rose in your garden. Both the rose and the community need to be carefully nurtured and both are under constant threats to their continued health and existence. Despite all our hopes and intentions for them, they are both living systems and will never thrive and develop on demand – no matter how hard we push!

Active Network report that earlier this year (June) Microsoft launched a free programme to enable communities to engage on-line, share experiences and, of course, talk to Microsoft about technology. The Hive is open to anyone who owns or leads a consumer group, blog, or community focused website with at least 50 members. As for the name, they felt that ‘bees were a good analogy for the idea of leaders coming together and cross-pollinating ideas and sharing information’. Any feedback or user experiences on The Hive?

Anyone serious about developing community, virtual or otherwise, should have a look at the excellent free resources at the Foundation for Community Encouragement. FCE (currently inactive) was originally established by Dr Scott Peck to help groups of all types work through four universal stages of community forming: 1:PseudoCommunity, 2:Chaos, 3:Emptiness and 4:True Community as described in his classic book The Different Drum. However Peck's process is not for the faint-hearted or those looking for a quick fix. For some guidance on the practicalities of "virtual" community building check here.

Just over two years ago Nick Cater, writing for The Guardian Newspaper, Virtual communities can boost charities, suggested that Internet-based group tools offered charities and voluntary organisations an important new channel to re-energise the engagement with their staff, supporters and clients. He also noted that this could require significant investment in time and resources. It would be interesting to see how much, 2 years on, charities have exploited this opportunity?

Community development as active waiting

Growing a successful virtual community is a lot like tending a delicate rose in your garden.
Both the rose and the community need to be carefully nurtured, fed and encouraged to grow. Both are under constant threats to their continued health and existence. Both will wither and eventually die if not carefully looked after. This is because, despite all our hopes and intentions for them, a rose and a virtual community are both living systems in their own right and will not just thrive and develop on demand – no matter how hard we push! So can you help such a creature grow and develop?

I came across an interesting paper, Management and Virtual Decentralised Networks: The Linux Project, published in First Monday in October 2001 by George Dafermos as part of his Masters Programme in Management at Durham Business School in the UK.

The most amazing things are happening in our rural communities enabled by broadband and digital technologies. Yesterday’s story was about the exodus of young workers having to move to the towns and cities to find work. Today’s story is about the influx of workers leaving the cities and relocating in rural areas as full-time and part-time digital teleworkers.

What can we learn from conflict resolution that can help us build strong virtual communities, networks and teams?