<img src="/images/64360-56413/rachel_ray2.jpg”>

Chris Carfi blogs at Social Customer Manifesto, which is another good resource of insight into communities and enterprise adoption. He has a very interesting link:

“Enterprise Web 2.0 Efforts: How To Get To Critical

Here is something that caught my eye:
“As such, growing an online community takes time and dedication; there’s no “just add water” silver bullet.”

I would agree in principle, but I cannot help but think before Rachel Ray came along there were hundreds of well intentioned cooks who suggested “Making everything from scratch” – How quaint?

Lets assume you have the dedication, but What if you dont have the time? Does that mean there’s no hope?

Here are some of the just add water tips that we have used to get a community up and running quicker.

1. Speed Dating: Making offline introductions to participants by “pre screening” interests of users so they can have a smaller clique to start with and feel part of the community quicker.

2. Its okay at times to bet on the one thing and have only one backup: For an internal community of sales reps whose eyes glazed everytime we said “Sales training” we completely advocated removal of a central event and replaced it with “all eggs in one basket” Breeze based 5 minute update sessions. Worked like a charm. Realize that some of these will work, some wont, but its worth a try.

3. Offer incentives (not things like money, or starbucks cards, etc.) that truly meet the underlying needs of the community. E.g. Appeal to their “leaving a legacy” like UOP or “no more boring 3 hour PowerPoints” for sales personnel.

What do you think? Where can you find that Rachel Ray in your company to help making good quality but without the start from scratch?