Lessons Learned

General

1. Scripts (and the involved role-playing) shows the importance of "soft skills" to be efficient BPXs.
2. Participation has shown that "Geek/Suit Gap" does indeed exist and has provided solutions (Communication, graphical, etc.) to deal with this problem.
3. "Practice makes perfect": Experience from Community Project helps better structure BPX-related interactions with other individuals in actual projects.
4. Can't expect people to participate when collaboration conflicts with their real-world jobs. Thus, small bite-sized collaborations are more efficient.
5. Collaboration with other Community members is what makes Community Project interesting
6. Community needs active members to stay fresh
7. Some false starts along the way
8. You need a good balance of structure and freedom to get people to participate
9. Unless you are a writer by trade, scripts can be "hard" to write alone
10. IM has helped to make the process more interactive
11. Holidays can have an impact on real and virtual projects
12. The WIKI is a UI just like any other UI. If the UI is boring or confusing, users aren't going to use irregardless of the technology used.... If users are forced to use the WIKI (for example in a project setting) , then a confusing WIKI with a poor structure won't improve team morale.

For Technicians

1. Participation takes time to provide quality content.
2. The use of social computing tools is useful in some but not in all situations. In the optimal environment, these tools are more effective than other means for creating content. WIKIs, etc. should be used to complement existing tools.
3. Ease of use is critical. WIKIs are great but not if you end up having to use WIKI Markup language.
4. Purely textual content isn't enough to represent all project work - graphical elements (Gliffy Plug-In) are critical.

For Managers

1. Social computing doesn't replace traditional marketing and PR channels.  Existence of WIKI page doesn't mean that the desired audience will see it.
2. Replacement of existing tools in existing project settings with new social networking tools is not enough to assure success. WIKI ? WinWord. Other changes in project structure, involved roles and methodology are also necessary.
3. Active and participative collaboration in these environments is opening-up enterprises to conversations and co-innovation across their ecosystems of employees, partners, customers, suppliers, and independents.