Design to Thrive

5. Create leveling up ceremonies

It's surprising how many networks and communities have levels of membership in them or different ranks for members to achieve, yet they don't have any recognition rituals or celebrations attached to them. As a community architect, you miss a tremendous opportunity if you don't create some ritual or ceremony that publicly recognizes your members’ achievements. In professional communities such as a department of colleagues or in professional development communities, these ceremonies are particularly useful because they help members understand what the profession values and what goals they need to set for themselves.

One simple technique for recognizing achievement in e-mail-based communities is, of course, to ...