In the Dreamforce session “How to Build Online Community” there was some fantastic Q&A. Since most people don’t have time to watch the hour long video I thought I’d highlight a few of the responses.

Original Question from the Audience

We want to build an online community, and make it open and easy for customers, but there is some fear that it’s also out there for competitors to see.

Michael Sippey (VP of Products at TypePad) 24 min 40 sec

You kind of have to make a choice. You’re going to air your dirty laundry and have everyone giving you feedback and leaving ideas and sometimes telling you how much your product or service sucks and how you can make it better, but if you’re not hosting that conversation that conversation might end up starting elsewhere where you have less control and less ability for your marketing managers, product managers, brand managers, to step into that conversation to explain where you’re going, or work arounds, or partners solutions.

Kingsley Joseph (Successforce.com Product Manager) 25 min 30 sec

I think the fear is also a little overblown. We’ve been doing this publicly for some time and we’ve been doing it for some time. Dell has been doing this publicly for some time. And I’ve heard of people being fired for blogging, but I’ve never heard of a competitor take a good idea away from you because you blogged it. It just doesn’t seem to have happened so far. And I think that’s partially because the companies which are blogging are moving faster because of the feedback look they are getting from their customers, but it might also be that it’s just so new that it hasn’t happened yet, so maybe a little caution, but don’t be too afraid.

Jamie Grenney (Director of Salesforce Ideas) 26 min 15 sec

And one more small thing to add. We’ve seen a huge benefit by getting them out in the open so our partners can take advantage of them. This week Invisible CRM released a press release highlighting how they’ve been using the Salesforce IdeasExchange for their product. For us that was a good thing. They were finding out from Salesforce customers was there an unmet need they that could set in and address.