Ooooh, I love that piece. You are so right in stating that there's no use in trying to change a zebra's stripes. A zebra will remain a zebra, right and a lurker a lurker?

One thing that I will say is that this is much easier said than done though, especially for new community builders. I have encountered the same thing in so many of the online communities that I've been a part of and after a point just accepted and embraced what you mentioned in this post. Awesome, thanks for telling it like it is.

Ooooh, I love that piece. You are so right in stating that there's no use in trying to change a zebra's stripes. A zebra will remain a zebra, right and a lurker a lurker?

One thing that I will say is that this is much easier said than done though, especially for new community builders. I have encountered the same thing in so many of the online communities that I've been a part of and after a point just accepted and embraced what you mentioned in this post. Awesome, thanks for telling it like it is.

I completely agree with this post. I've seen through my own network that people love to look at pictures. Twitter is great, but I know far more people who just love chilling on facebook and seeing their friends pictures. It really does say a thousand words. I say more "show me don't tell me" will always improve any social network.

People in general are either a.) very busy or b.) very lazy. Other social networks play a big role in driving new voices to your blog. Do they comment? Sometimes. You have to leave it open ended, like you said. 250 words with holes that ask a lot of questions - probably will drive more conversation that someone who is preaching for 700 words. I get bored after 300. If you want to hold my attention? It better be damn good.

I think these are all great ideas - and you really have to evaluate from time to time on what your readers want. How they react. How you react. It's a cycle.

Agreed. But I'm intrigued with the idea of simply increasing the absolute numbers in the 1%. If that were the goal, would your recommendations change or grow at all?

It's one that has been perplexing me. I'd say the easier conversion would definitely be 9% into 1%...

90 into 9? Maybe. But it's going to be an uphill battle for sure.

Interesting: your thesis assumes it's even possible to convert someone from one category to another. But is it? And should we be putting our effort there? Or would our efforts not be better spent trying to grow our enthusiasts--by leveraging our current 1% to get more folks into that category overall?

While I think you may have a fighting chance of converting someone from the 9% to the 1% (and your ideas are great ways of doing this), what moves someone from the 90% to the 9% (if that's possible at all), is a shift that takes place on the part of the individual, and is beyond the realm of the average blogger.

In other words, if the proportions can't shift, perhaps the scale can.

From a tech adoption standpoint? Absolutely. From a minimal effort standpoint? I'd say tweeting...

Tough to find those on Flickr's Creative Commons... :)

Intriguing you think more people would tweet than add a comment. I'd argue the reverse, for it takes a blog reader to have a Twitter account in most cases.

Tough to find those on Flickr's Creative Commons... :)

Tough to find those on Flickr's Creative Commons... :)

Tough to find those on Flickr's Creative Commons... :)

nice post - some useful info. re photo - what, you couldn't find a dude in a trenchcoat? : )

I'm awful about scaling my content. Mainly, because I assume everyone to have a much higher baseline then they actually have in real life.

Open ended posts save my life...and my brain.

These are great ideas, Stuart - I especially needed to hear the tip about scaling one's content. I could post more frequently if I didn't put so much pressure on myself to make every post the alpha and omega of a given topic. I'm resolving to have more open ended posts in 2010 -- here's to a terrific new year ahead!