Even Michael Skoler who leads Public Radio International’s interactive activities was surprised by the huge turnout for Ira Glass’ live version of his popular radio show, This American Life.

Wrote Gigaom’s Mathew Ingram, “More than 30,000 watched the first digital show at hundreds of theaters across the U.S. and Canada in the spring of 2008. The next year, 47,000 turned out. They came to be with other fans, experiencing something they all loved together.”

Hint: Host a road tour or gatherings where your online community members can meet face-to-face and collectively hear from their stars, their most valued members.  Unlike associations and civic clubs, many online communities haven’t provided an opportunity for in-person conversations and celebrations.

Conversely many of the traditional clubs aren’t maximizing their opportunity for members to socialize and to learn from members in other chapters – both online and in-person. As sister chapters and organizations get networked via the opportunity to see meet online and in-person, diverse ties deepen. Serendipitous friendships, breakthroughs and collaboration are more likely to happen.

What if, for example, Rotary International invited its members to create short video stories about their inspiring, first-hand experience in civic projects in their community and in other parts of the world? Next, what if Rotary, asked members to vote for their favorite video stories?

Then Rotary could host its own multi-city, simultaneous “film festival.” Invite members and their family and friends to gather locally in public auditoriums, homes and theatres to see and talk about those favorites.

Right afterwards it might host an online, vote-this-hour, People’s Choice contest so that worldwide audience could choose their Top Ten.

With Rotary’s squeaky clean, altruistic image, I’m thinking that many major companies would leap at the chance to underwrite the costs and/or provide the technical support to make this community-building dream come true.

Consider how instructive, heart-warming and member and media attracting that could be for a member-based organization with chapters.

Of course other diverse organizations with avid members, stories to tell and a strong sense of community could emulate their version of this approach.

Off the top of my head, those organizations  include the Westminister Kennel Club’s dog show, college and corporate alumnae organizations, Student Youth Tour Association in partnership with high schools, and the Cyclists’ Touring Club in the UK.

One of the smartest moves a company could make would be to launch and host an online community that becomes the most popular place for its kinds of customers to join, exchange ideas, co-create and otherwise collaborate.

To strengthen ties, understanding and value between members and between the company and members, that firm would, of course, host in-person events in formats that most serve that kind of community’s interests.  Those formats can be as varied as talent contests, mutual mentoring sessions, speed consulting, Pecha Kucha, Ignite or collectively viewing and voting on their favorite, member-created videos on the topics that brought them together.

A company-hosted online community that includes in-person events could be competition for some associations, accustomed to controlling the programs for their members, inviting “vendors” to pay to play yet often not giving them much of a say on how to participate for the greater good of members and vendors.

Have you heard of inventive ways that members of online communities are meeting in-person?

Do you belong to a club, association or other organization?  How could it bring members closer by enabling them to enjoy meeting both online and in face-to-face gatherings?

Whether you’re on a project team, party-planning or seeking customers’ input to improve your product you have more chance of success with the right collaborative tools.

Often, the trouble is finding the best methods or tools when you need them. Here’s a shareable list to which you can add your favorites. It’s exciting and overwhelming to see the flood of inventive software, apps and more that pop up every day to help us.

Here are some of the tools and ways they can be used to accomplish more with others:

• Brainstorm and plan together, drawing your ideas on the wall. Turn any smooth surface into a “dry erase” place using IdeaPaint.

• Your team can stay on task and be accountable to each other using AtTask.

• Start a learning community where peers, fellow enthusiasts, employees, customers or fans teach each other, using Bloomfire.

• Enable all club or association members or business employees to participate in suggesting innovations and growing great ideas from fuzzy inceptions to solid, actionable projects, with Brainbank.

• Teammates can quickly and dynamically create and refine charts, allowing other users to be invited in to review, comment on, and update a diagram in a matter of minutes without having to go through the process of saving a copy of a file, attempting to email it, making sure the recipient has the same program, and waiting for a reply, using Creately.

• Find out what your employees really know about your business and thus crowdsource innovation, tapping the “wisdom of crowds” to improve what you sell and how you sell it, using Crowdcast.

• For crowdsourcing funding for creative projects try Kickstarter.

• Just as Cisco, with its popular I-Prize, involved BrightIdea and Spigit in crowdsourcing innovative ideas you can use a crowdsourcing tool to tap the wisdom of the crowd. That way you can efficiently filter out best ideas and recognize and reward those who submit them as Ireland did. Jive offers another robust approach to crowdsourcing.

• For your group, start a Wordpress blog-like social network that enables everyone in your company, school, sports team or niche community to contribute ideas, using BuddyPress.

• Co-create maps for that you can share via your mobile phones, using CloudMade.

• In real-time, meet with colleagues around the world, using dimdim to participate in real-time meetings. You can collaborate by sharing their desktops, slides, and other materials with each other. Meeting participants can also chat and speak to each other, as well as broadcast themselves via webcams. Or up to ten people can meet for free online, and share screens and co-draw items using Mikogo.

• Spot a pothole or graffiti when out doing errands? Use CitySourced on your cell phone to report them to city hall for quick resolution. This is an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern, using CitySourced.

• Effortlessly group text your committee, team or group of close friends with GroupMe. It works on every phone.

• If several of you are planning an event, trip or project and want to easily share and track expenses, use WePay.

What other tools have helped you in collaborating?

Please add them to this list of 97 tools.

Then you might want to peruse this list of collaboration-related books and sites – and add your own favorites, of course, in the spirit of sharing and collaboration.

There’s a simple, satisfying way to attract those who share your interests or seek your kind of product.  It enables you to demonstrate your expertise and it doesn’t take much time nor cost anything.

Sharing helpful tips with those who want them is more appreciated – and credibility-building – than self-promotion. In a time-starved world, the best way for people read your tips may be in a list they find online or via their smart phone. It helps people find you – and it’s a quick read.

The more specific the list the greater your chance of attracting the people you most want to reach.

Hint: Top Dog Breeds for People with Allergies. (I have yet to take my own advice here).

Your list can be a “best of” something such as books and sites on a topic or a David Letterman-style Top Ten countdown of relevant advice, or…?

For example, four of my interests are collaboration, connective conversation, human behavior and, as a paid speaker, conferences so I created a Twitter list of favorite people and organizations for each interest.

The bottom line is your list should catch the interest of the people you seek to reach.  They may be your peers, possible customers, or individuals who share your hobby, medical condition, belief, profession, industry or other interest.

Your list enables others to quickly:

•  Get ideas on a subject that interests them.

•  Know who you respect.

•  Understand a bit about your perspective and priorities.

•  Identify possible sweet spots of mutual interest.

•  Find you.

Once you’ve created your list you can share and update it online at several popular places where friends, kindred spirits and strangers are likely to find it:

• Your blog and/or web site.

• Twitter List – create several for the different parts of your life and find others who share your interests.

• Listiki – where you can invite others to add to your list.

• List of Bests – Make a list in one of three categories, personal, definitive or award.

• Posterous – where you can share your list without creating a blog.

• Facebook group page – see examples, Shareable and my Etsy where you can link to your list, first explaining why it is relevant to them.

• Linkedin group of people who have something in common – you can join or start a group, linking to your list as you would for your Facebook group.

• Ta-da – create and share “to do” lists for everything from organizations you respect to meeting agendas or famous quotes you don’t want to forget.

Job hunting is dispiriting – often lonely and isolating. 

That’s why it was so comforting for job seekers to be in a room full of knowledgeable people who were ready to meet with them, one-on-one, to answer their specific questions. 

From job hunt web sites to career counseling coaches could personalize their advice to each person’s need. Hundreds of unemployed people flocked to this free speed-coaching event in New York. My colleague, transitionist coach Terrence Seamon was one of many coaches who volunteered to sit in “twenty minute sessions, to review their job search campaign strategies as well as their resumes, making sure that they are accomplishments-focused.” The event was the co-created service of The New York Library, Vault and volunteer coaches. 

In this bad economy what top-of-mind topic most concerns your kind of client? 

Recruit a cadre of non-competing and credible experts to coach them in a fast-paced, speed coaching event where participants get hundreds of dollars worth of the specific advice they most seek – and coaches demonstrate their expertise to “pull” prospects towards hiring them.  More than a free for all, “here’s my card” networking event people actually get to meet the individuals they’d most like to know at that time.

You, too, could leverage your value with a custom speed coaching event that serves a hot need or avid interest felt by your kind of clients. Here’s a quick checklist of jumpstart your first popular, speed coaching event:

• What other credible, complementary (non-competing) experts and organizations serve your “mutual market?”

• What preoccupies your clients?  

• When would it be easiest for them to meet?

• What is a convenient and attractive meeting location for them?

• What if you created a helpful meeting momento – an eBook of three tips from each coach plus their bio and s brief description of all partnering organizations, with links to all resources cited in the eBook?

• How long should your event be?  Some are as short as two hours and as long as a day.  One-on-one coaching sessions in different events range from five-minutes to 20-minutes. Collectively choose the length that works best for your kind of attendee and speed coaching theme.

• Consider combining 20-minutes “expert roundtable” sessions for five to eight attendees to ask an expert questions – concurrent with the one-on-one speed coaching sessions. 

Put the coaching sessions on one side of a ballroom or other large meeting place and the roundtables on the other.

• Place large signs behind each coach with their name and/or topic and on roundtables with the table topic.

The more partnering coaches and organizations you involve the lower the per-partner cost and the higher the benefit to them for participating – and the higher the number of people you can reach and serve.

Here is one kind of speed coaching event I co-designed with the astute head of the S.F. chapter of Savor the Success, Ayesha Mathews-Wadhwa. 

Help Others Earn Extra Cash

Launch a business or adapt yours to enable others to squeeze money out of idle resources – especially ones they did not know could generate income.  As the economy continues to wobble you’ll see more businesses that serve this growing need.

Just today one such business got modest funding – for that reason. Got some spare space? Then why not find someone who’ll pay you to keep their stuff? Homstie helps make that happen, albeit with an awkward business name. It offers a person-to-person marketplace for storage space.

Homstie co-founders, Mario Feghali and Chuck Gordon got $20,000 from Austin business incubator Capital Factory – a pittance by many standards but sufficient to grow this start-up. 

Why? Because the incubator operates with a Me2We mindset.

Create the Team That Makes Your Talents More Valuable 

Here’s how. 

The incubator’s partners provide an integrated web of supportive services – making them an adept support team. The partners free services include office space,  PR help from Porter Novelli, law advice from Wilson, Sonsini Goodrich & Rosatti and accounting from vCFO and The Accounting Group. 

These partners leveraged their capacity to accelerate the growth of these start-ups because the individuals in them have:

• Gotten to know and respect each other

• Become accustomed to working together as a team on this project

Hint: Can you make your business appear safer (or more fun, convenient to use, or other benefit) more by involving a partner? Homstie prominently touts a partnership with a firm that provides “rental screening solutions.” Next they need to partner with PayPal to facilitate payments.

Jump on This Profitable Trend

Become more valuable and generate more money by:

• Starting or changing your business to enable others to get more money out of what they already have.

• Recruiting a team that can help other businesses grow more profitable, in exchange for:

- A part of the business, and/or

- A cut of the profits, and/or

- Reduced pricing when buying from that business, and/or

- Other benefit(s) that most help your situation

How many ways do you tempt people to try your service?

While on their site, notice the many ways Homstie tempts you to see how easy it its to use their service and to sign up for it.  Don’t inadvertently put up walls between you and prospective customers.  Multiple the ways they can find out more and reduce the number of motions it takes to buy from you.

BTW, their blog has fascinating insights on how other peer-to-peer services are popping up to do business in ways that reduce energy usege and waste and more.

Choose where to live by asking locals about their neighborhood. Listen in on their conversations or jump in and ask their advice – from wherever you are.  That’s what Eric Wu promises renters with his online site that combines the online sharing and conversational powers of a wiki and Twitter. RentWiki. Get a feel of the neighborhood beyond what you see driving by.  How family-friendly is it, for example, if you have kids? Who else is moving in?  Why? What’s there to do nearby? Asking people who already live there enables you to get a better feel of the area. 

That is, if current residents feel motivated to spend time sharing their views and recommendations.  That’s the part of Wu’s business I don’t understand. Yet the site is user-friendly – and more power to him for being the first to try. Perhaps tie-ins with Yelp, outside.in and other local-based sites and services would draw more people who aren’t looking for a place to rent.

Clearly, such Twitter verticals are growing wildly popular. Why not start one to boost sales in a low-cost way? Or, more daringly, start a Twitter-based business? Here’s more stories to whet your appetite for the idea:

• WallHogs uses it to attract customers and turn their uploaded images

 into prints - over-sized vinyl wall hangings actually. Dell uses Twitter as a fast and low-cost way to sell discounted products. (Could you as well?)

• You could use it to create an instant, real-time straw poll or to research stocks at Stocktwits which “aggregates tweets from a group of Twitter users who are involved in trading and investment topics.” 

• Even golf club owners are haltingly tip toeing into social media by Twittering the media with press releases. (How did owners manage to abbreviate their releases to 140 characters?) Remarkably, Scott Beale used Twitter and other social media tools to fund his start-up.

• British baker Poke is tweeting customers to alert them when a fresh batch is out of the oven.

• Chris Savage trolls on Twitter to find people who need his private video sharing software.

As with all Wisdom of the Crowd-based ventures the value and profits you generate are dependent on the smarts and diversity of the participants.   Twitterers who figure out how to reward people for smart, active participation in their Twitter-based service represent the cream that will rise to the top of our attention.  Posterous has similar possibilities as a tool for entrepreneurs and for existing businesses and groups.  Watch it grow over the next six months.

Rent a spare room or a couch to frugal travelers.  A backyard can become a mini-camp ground in Sweden.  To preserve cash in this bad economy many of us will rent.  That’s why peer2peer renting is getting popular. From lawn edgers to bands you can now Hire Things in New Zealand or, in Britain and U.S., from Zilok. What do you need temporarily? What have you got to rent? There are more upsides to renting for us. Like the successful private parking  and coworking places, literally getting closer can cut your carbon footprint, and lead to unexpected friendships or business partners. 

Instead of staying in a hotel, rent a room from a local. Travel cheap.  Discover more.  Try the “temporary bed and breakfast” peer-to-peer sites, AirBed & Breakfast or Roomorama where a night’s stay can range from $45 to $100 or so.   Anyone with a bed, airbed or couch can rent it out for the night.   Reserve your night online, paying with a credit card or via PayPal. AB & B charges guests a 5 to 12 percent service fee and Roomorama charges 8.   Live in a hotly-contested state for the upcoming presidential election?  Then AirBed & Breakfast suggests you host at your home a visiting, get-out-the vote volunteer.

Want to sidestep the service fee oh brave one? See house swaps or vacation rentals at the venerable Craigslist. Braver still?  Get a free room through couchsurfing. While you’re laughing at this approach know that it has nearly 470,000 users.

Going upscale a bit, reserve a private room in a hostel. Marin Headlands, near me, has priceless views.  Want a more posh and private place to stay where you can still benefit from a local’s recommendations?  Then join Home Exchange.  Enjoy encampment in a villa or a vacation home.  There’s always that reliable place where Tom Bodett promises, “We’ll leave the light on for you.”

You’re strolling down a boutique-lined street. A restaurant catches your eye. You whip out your phone, scan the bar code on the window then go online to peak at reviews. It got raves so why not go in? After all, you’ll get a ring on your phone if your parking meter runs low whilst you’re dining. Then you can pay for more time – by phone. These are just two of the mobile phone location-based scenarios that have launched here in San Francisco. More to come.

We’ve come a long way since Howard Rheingold first wrote about Smart Mobs. The U.S. still lags behind some countries in the proliferation of uses for cell phones. Soon we’ll see a flood of location-based services (and ads?!) for those out shopping or exploring, according to Geographical Sciences professor, Paul Torrens, who is studying crowd behavior.

“Crowds of shoppers, endowed with smart chip credit cards and RFID tagged merchandise are trailed by long-lasting data shadows that follow them ubiquitously. Embedded in urban infrastructure and in the very products we consume, new technologies are emerging to enable cities to think about—and process—the people that pulse through them, with a burgeoning code-space being developed to capture the actions and interactions of individuals within large dynamic crowds.”

Recall soccer fans’ post-match riots? Notice the apparent increase of teen and tweens’ cyber bullying and other tragically belittling behavior via computer, texting and Twittering? Now staging flash mobs from a distance and anonymously, using technology, can create havoc and/or change opinions almost as quickly as inciting a riot at a stadium.

And one can attract larger crowds. People don’t even have to know each other to gather. They can literally take their rage and revenge to the streets faster, armed with the right location-based technology. They can swarm to surround a victim with less forethought and more speed.

In short the stakes are higher, for good and bad location-based crowd behavior now. The flip side of this sometimes lethal, tech-supported action is the ability to swarm to a location to play, protest or even surround people who in danger – a human ring of protection. For buying products, collaborating, sharing opinions – and so much more – the trend toward technology-supported, location-based services will probably touch your mobile life.

That’s why I wanted to interview the far-sighted, thoughtful Howard Rheingold.

Like to bring more joy to your marriage? Want to increase your income by training others to lead groups, based on your expertise? Learn how  from someone who’s successful at both.

In this interview hear how Susan Page is training therapists and marriage educators to lead “Spiritual Partnership Support Groups”  - an approach she advocates in her newest book, Why Talking is Not Enough: Eight Loving Actions That Will Transform Your Marriage. To attract more trainers she spoke at the Smart Marriages conference. (Hint: as an author, you get more invitations to speak where you’ll meet more of your ideal customers.)

People who wish to lead the groups can get an extensive training manual. In leading the groups (or coaching), they becomes more informed, loyal fans of Susan and her book.  What a profitable, life-affirming way to work with others, eh? Page is a natural at partnering with groups to build a constituency for her books in ways that enable the groups to better serve its members. 

For example, to spur sales of her first book, If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single, this former minister launched her own book tour. She collaborated with churches around the U.S. to offer an evening seminar for their singles, packaging the book as part of the offering.  Participating churches gained a fresh way to attract new members and serve current ones.  Page created what all authors desire – a channel for quantity sales of her book while building a loyal community of readers for her subsequent titles.

Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren attracts mega book sales and a large, active constituency with a cellular and a B2B approach (business to business), providing his peer pastors with sample sermons and church programs. Page, too, recognized the power of B2B . With her books “relationship expert” Page “sells” to the church staff, providing a benefit they can offer two niche “end users” – congregants who are singles and couples.

Each time you offer your constituency fresh value through partnerships you spiral up in ability to attract more credible partners.  That’s why Bono approached Warren, for example, to join the “ONE campaign” to end poverty. And Warren’s church is hosting a rare program in which he’ll interview both presidential candidates. 

You, too, could reach out to the club, civic group or other member-based organization that serves your kind of readers and/or clients. With each new value-building partnership it becomes easier for you to recruit other organizations to cross-refer, co-create or otherwise collaborate on services, events and products that benefit all partners – and the people served by them.

As Page did, you can start with a first constituency-building partnership. For example, I introduced a store designer to a ghostwriter who’s writing a book for him on how to create the storefront that pulls more people in off the streets. When the book comes out at the end of 2009, he is partnering with local chambers of commerce and business journals to present a seminar to members and readers in their communities. 

To promote these seminars-as-book events, the store designer will provide his local partners with customizable promotional templates for print and online invitations. The partners cover his travel costs and profit from the seminar fees they charge.

And they buy the books in bulk from the publisher. You could adapt this approach to your kind of expertise to increase your credibility and in your profession or industry, perhaps becoming the favorite subject matter expert to your key media. Contact me if you’d like an ebook on SmartPartnering.

Start now to grow your constituency. In this interview hear Susan’s proven relationship-building insights for your life and your work. As Fred Small said, “”Susan Page is like the Buddha channeled by Ann Landers!” .