Community Lessons Learned

It's time to commend previous the whipping boys of the blogosphere.  Two companies that grew a bit too fast, made mistakes and seem to have learned from them.

Six Apart is working with their community.  You might remember the MT Pricing fiasco as a lesson for how not to work with a community that contributes so much to your value.  They suddenly changed the game on their community and they fought back.  This time, when managing performance problems, they shared the process.  Their lessons learned are good for everyone:

• Read what your customers have to say
• Ignore the tone of nasty complaints, but pay attention to the underlying messages
• Understand that the people giving feedback represent many who remain silent
• Don’t spend too much energy on distractions
• Don't be afraid to communicate
• Trust your customers

Technorati is fast again.  They shared the process throughout, kept at it and I think are winning people back.

The common theme is that good communication and sharing the process provides a way for your community to be included in the outcome.