Private Communities

In my experience, private communities, while sounding exclusionary - like private gated communities in Florida, are really just purposeful communities - pulling together people for a reason - one that helps and/or rewards all participants.

So they are different from those communtiy efforts seeking to cast the widest net - and the most eyeballs.

A good example might be an M&A group evaluating a company's books, a project team organizing a project or a product management comittee. In terms of customer-focused private communities, - "10 Tips For Building Successful Online Customer Communities" - from Communispace - offers a reasonable starting list. Finding the social glue (#3 on their list) may be the most important - providing sustainability and engagement - and also requires real well-intentioned effort.