Mike Masnick, CEO of Floor64.com, started the blog TechDirt in 1997, which is now rated #75 on Technorati and #53 on BlogPulse. Mike is also the author of Approaching Infinity, about the rise of new abundances:  abundant access to ideas and people, with people abundantly willing to join communities, abundantly willing to share, in ways that weren't even possible a few years ago.

Despite the title of his AMA MRC presentation, Mike said, "Don't say that you are building communities, but that you are enabling communities." Thanks to the Internet, communities easily assemble to discuss diverse and oftentimes narrow topics. 

Mike contends that what is different for market researchers about online communities is that researchers must engage the audience. Listening and watching in a community is called lurking, which is a bad word in the community world, because it means that you are not participating. Instead, through engagement, you can find out what people really want, not just what they say they want.  To truly understand a community, you have to really engage that community. Think of the added level of understanding you have of a friend compared to an acquaintance: engaging a community offers that greater level of detail over simply observing a community.

Engagement builds trust and respect and opens up opportunities for creative dialog.