Building An Ecosystem: The Role Of The Platform Manager

In our interconnected business environment, creating and sustaining innovation means building and strengthening interdependent links - in other words, building an ecosystem.

Creating and managing a business ecosystem requires an open environment that empowers collaboration and cooperation, making resources and participants accessible to each other.

In a technical and organizational context within a collaborative platform, the members can interact to achieve a specific purpose, share expertise and work more effectively.

However, the way each online platform evolves into an ecosystem is unique and the Platform Manager role is critical.

The platform manager develops and manages ecosystems in order to support the generation and delivery of innovation to each member of the network and to empower engagement.  

How?

When the culture, expectations and ways of engagement within the platform are set, managers need to first identify specific goals and objectives that help with the generation of quality engagement.

Setting specific objectives is followed by determining common goals that can be measured.

If the objective of the platform is to create a knowledge sharing culture and a community, the manager has to be able to set and measure common goals such as the number of questions answered or participation in discussions.

If the objective of the platform is to build social capital, managers have to look into the the number of active members and measure the engagements per day, week, and month. 

The network of suppliers, distributors, outsourcing firms, technology providers, and keystone organizations affect and are affected by business ecosystems, and managers have to provide reviews or reports on the activity and engagements of the members.

Even with setting specific goals and objectives, many ideas will come in the process of actually setting up and starting to use the platform, even with a small number of people.

What are some common community development tasks a manager does? - Why is it relevant and helpful.

• Content research and management to keep the members up-to date with the latest news and  developments
• Question and Answers curation and management making sure the questions are answered and approved
• Create, manage and develop Groups and Communities (for Networks only)
• Platform maintenance, taxonomy management and weekly or monthly reporting
• Write Blogs (recruit bloggers), start discussions,  featuring appropriate content and members
• Member support task and feedback
• New member outreach & social media marketing
• Event management

There are also some basic activities that are not to be forgotten or pushed in the corner, as they are vital to making your platform loveable.

●     New member onboarding

Sending new members a personal welcome message the first week after they register, and ongoing insights and tips

●     Content and Theme updates

Sending regular emails informing group members of specific information, blogs, or events with links to the information on the Platform

●     Offline Communications

Informal individual communications with members offline to get continuous feedback

For the platform to deliver real value to each member, it needs to generate ideas and deploy them, align education with industry needs, link knowledge creation and venture creation and connect members across sectors.

The key element in delivering real value is promoting and providing high level of activity.

The fact that different factors influence on the platform development, such as industry, average age,  profession, having different types of activities relevant to virtual knowledge network is critical.