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Helping People Help Others Helps You

I believe that most people generally (generally!) want to be helpful to others. I’m not going to try getting into the whys of this — it could be moral indoctrination, brain hardwiring that predisposes us to charity and fairness, or the desire to co-opt other people by helping them so they’ll look on you more favorably.

Or maybe it’s simply brain chemistry, where the act of being helpful to others *dings* our dopamine receptors, causing us to bliss out a bit and feel connected to the larger human community.

In the physical world, altruism could mean anything from changing a tire, foiling a purse snatcher, or rescuing a kitten stuck in a tree (to cover a standard trio of altruism cliches). However, online altruism, especially in distributed online communities, is largely sharing knowledge and effort. Which is why it’s so powerful — harnessed properly, you can find a way where anyone can be helpful. (I’ll leave the monetary donations bit out of it, as I think it takes us more into the transactional / business context.)

So how can we exploit altruism online?
Or, to put it less cynically, how can we facilitate helpful behavior online, extend it, and leverage it for a wider audience?

Companies and organizations are perpetually surprised to rediscover that their customers and users, when left to their own devices, typically form communities of self-help, which, with a little nurturing, can help provide helpful answers that would otherwise hit the customer service front lines.

Of course, altruism doesn’t mean we aren’t also selfish, or self-interested. We are still imperfect beings. And no one likes being a sucker, as defined by other people profiting from your efforts.

So here I will reiterate a few things you can do to help people help others, which helps you:

* Appeal to enlightened self-interest: They say true charity is anonymous, but I know I’m rarely that selfless. Helping others is very often an opportunity for users to show how smart and dedicated they are. Sometimes this can be encouraged by superficial trappings like badges and custom avatars, but often it’s measured by peer user ratings, high post counts, or even a low user ID nubmer (which shows you’ve been around for a while.) But very often, it’s simply internal recognition that you are a go-to person for particular topics.

* Give official acknowledgment and credit where credit is due: Recognize quality user contributions and highlight them from official, canonical places. Here’s an example where you might not expect — in radio traffic reports, you’ll often hear,”Cell caller Jimbo reports rubbernecking delays on 495 westbound.”

In this case, a first name isn’t personally-identifying information (except to the person who called in the tip), but it lends credibility, and shows that you’re actually using user-submitted reports, which encourages others to participate.

Official recognition is even more valuable in the online context, where you can also link to a user’s profile or a body of work, and where admins, developers, or other official representatives can interact with users.

* Join people to the larger community: Remember, helpful community behaviors don’t just happen on your site. In fact, depending on how far along your corporate or government communities are, chances are the thriving member self-help communities are taking place far off your site. Use search and monitoring tools to find out where these other communities are, find out their norms and cultures, and participate where they are (without necessarily trying to get them to come play in your space.

I’m not blazing new trails in this blog post, but if I’ve left any relevant tips on how to mobilize users’ altruistic impulses for the benefit of all involved, please leave a comment.

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