with Ben Huh of "I Can Has Cheezburger"

Workshop Outline

Community is an elusive and ever changing beast. It can be used to empower amazing start ups or it can be a tool of destruction and obsession.

This workshop will help you understand how to use the community as a tool and what is required to sustain a growing community. A vibrant community is a living thing that requires nurturing. By the end of this workshop, you should be able to define your community, how to encourage interaction and understand the life-cycle of a community member.

If you believe that having a community is CRITICAL to the success of your enterprise, this is where you should be. Also, be forewarned: Your instructor will probably make fun of you in front of others. Be a good sport.

Who should attend?

Web marketers, web site owners, web site community managers, web start-up founders and anyone interested in building a strong, vibrant and effective community around their web site and company.

What Will You Learn?

Registration & Coffee: 8:15 - 9:00am

Community: What it is and what it ain't

• What is a community, exactly?
• How does having a community benefit your site?
• Can my community do my homework?

Coffee Break: 10:30 - 10:45

How to garden a community

• What drives a growing community?
• Fertilizing a community: how do I mix place, users and topics to make the best use of a user's time?
• What is critical mass and where can I get some?
• Why should a community churn? (Unrelated to butter)

Lunch is provided: 12:30 - 14:00

The problem with other people

• What should keep you up at night? What should you ignore?
• My cat licks his privates obsessively. Can you help me?
• What's the difference between my power users and casual users?
• Troll hunting? WTF?
• Why it hurts so much when your community dumps you
• "Hi, I have a site with users who won't listen to what I tell them. Where can I get a mind control device?"

Coffee Break: 15:30 - 15:45

Show and do tell (Group sessions)

• Hypothetical company and how best to build a community
• You will be teamed with other workshop attendees people and be assigned a topic and discuss ways in which you could help grow a community
• Feedback to the group and discussion

Q & A: 17:00 - 17:30

Social: 18:00 - till late

What You'll Walk Away With

The Legendary Carson Workshops Survival Kit

Each attendee will receive this amazing kit, which is chock full of useful tips and resources. We'll also be placing valuable tools on the disc as well!

Best Practice Advice

There will also be a section covering best practice plus a full set of presentation slides from the day

Practical Knowledge

We're not going to bore you with theory. You will receive practical training that focuses on information that you can immediately incorporate into your web site.

Who's Presenting?

Ben Huh is the Chief Cheezburger (A.K.A. CEO) of the lolcat phenomenon I Can Has Cheezburger?.

Since purchasing ICHC with a group of investors, Ben has turned the blog into a financially viable network of sites -- generating 2 million page views a day -- all driven by community contributions. The I Can Has Cheezburger? Network includes failblog.org, ihasahotdog.com, graphjam.com and punditkitchen.com. ICHC plans on continuing to grow its network of sites.

The Venue - RIBA London

Carson Workshops take place home of the Royal Institute of British Architects located at 66 Portland Place London. Centrally located it's only a ten minute walk from Oxford Circus or Great Portland Street Underground stations and is considered an Art Deco landmark in the heart of the West End, offers every kind of venue in a single, spectacular building. Workshops take place in the Wren Room located on the sixth floor which offers amazing panoramic views across central London and beyond.

Find out more about RIBA: http://www.architecture.com/RIBAVenues/RIBAVenues.aspx