Bill Johnston – Notes on Community, Collaborative Technologies, and Design

Will Generative AI Make Popular Culture’s Self-Referential Tendencies Exponentially Worse?

“All of pop culture — be it movies, music or TV — is now engaged in a delicious orgy of self-consumption.” Peter McKnight — “Is pop culture eating itself to death?”The Globe and Mail, July 31, 2000 The promise of artificial intelligence(1) is that it will usher in a technological revolution that will transform industries,…

May 3, 2023
Community Ecosystems – Slides from the 1/23/23 #CMAD Event in Silicon Valley

It was great to be back in person at the #CMAD Meetup in Silicon Valley. You can check out the slides from my presentation here:

January 24, 2023
Community Strategy Design

I was first introduced to the concept of a design process in my sophomore year of college. I was taking a sculpture class and we were preparing to start on our self-portrait busts. Our professor had us read “The Universal Traveler” by Koberg & Bagnell, follow the process they describe in the book, and keep…

October 24, 2022
Metaverse: Season 3 of the Cohere Podcast

During Season 2 of the Cohere podcast, Dr. Lauren Vargas and I examined the role networks play in our lives – from the obvious to the subtle. In Season 3, Lauren and I are exploring the topic dominating the discussion of our collective digital future: the Metaverse. Our intention is to have a discussion will…

March 30, 2022
Promoting & Sustaining the Value of Community Across the Organization (Community Value Part 4)

Note: this is the fourth and final post in a series about community value. If you missed “A Perspective on Community Value“, “Understanding the Community Opportunity“, or “Developing Community Strategy, Goals & Measurements“ I’d recommend starting there. In many organizations, community’s territory is often limited to an ill-defined middle ground between support and marketing functions. This…

March 9, 2022
Developing Community Strategy, Goals & Measurements (Community Value Part 3)

Note: this is the third in a series of posts about community value. If you missed “A Perspective on Community Value“ or “Understanding the Community Opportunity“, I’d recommend starting there. Co-Author: Brian Pagels This post (part 3 of a 4 part series) builds on the concepts outlined in “A Perspective on Community Value“ and “Understanding the…

February 11, 2022
METAVERSE METAVERSE METAVERSE (plus a great cyberpunk reading list)

We’ve been hearing a lot about the “Metaverse” in the last few months, and the conversation has reached somewhat of a fever pitch this week with Facebook announcing an upcoming rebrand to position the company as a “metaverse company”. The concept of a fully-immersive digital reality isn’t new. This has been a staple of speculative…

October 21, 2021
Understanding the Community Opportunity (Community Value Part 2)

Note: this is the second in a series of posts about community value. If you missed “A Perspective on Community Value“, I’d recommend starting there. In the last decade, many companies have come to understand how valuable (and critical) their direct relationships with customers are. The most strategic organizations understand that these relationships are part…

October 15, 2021
Resources from “Adventures in Collaboration” Hybrid @ MURAL Session

HELLO! This is a follow up post for those that participated in the Adventures in Collaboration session for MURAL’s Hybrid series. First off – thanks for attending! Secondly – the screen resolution shared through Zoom isn’t as good as having access to the actual material, so I’ve included screenshots and the MURALs below for both…

September 16, 2021
A Perspective on Community Value (Part 1 of a Series)

This is the first of a four-part series on the topic of community value. The series is based in large part, on the output of a series of small-group working sessions and primary research that began in 2018, as well as learnings and observations from my career. A Personal Perspective I’ve worked with some form…

August 27, 2021