I started 2009 curious about community, by September I was being quoted about it in articles, but I left 2009 almost entirely convinced that “community” is a waste of time.
Not the people but the term itself. It has become a phantom banner that people wave to try and rally a cause – don’t we all care about the community? Don’t we want to make it better?
Being in a community doesn’t inherently include a common goal or strong bond. It most cases it is simply “a group of people with a common interest”, like a a hobby, a belief, or an idea. People who live in Phoenix may be in a community, but it’s their personal interactions that really connect them, not their geography. With everyone having a different perspective about the people and places around them, you get different forms of participation and the inevitable grumbling that there isn’t just enough community spirit/involvement/awareness. Some people want more parks, some people want more childrens’ programs, and some people just want to be left alone.
Community also doesn’t include motivation. In an artistic community, for example, some people may want to pursue technical perfection while others seek abstract expressions. It’s an amiable community until you try to set a direction for that whole group. Then people will start pushing the agenda towards their own views, and be shocked to find others pushing in a different direction. The connecting theme of the community has been exceeded.
Human nature complicates things further by assuming people who think like us in a few areas think like us in all areas. I ran into this with Ignite Phoenix when it got some wide local press. I was accused by some of betraying the community, when I was only looking to bring in new people and ideas. Attending Ignite Phoenix was the community theme, and I exceeded that limit and discovered there were a lot of wildly different opinions about what Ignite was and should be.
I’ve decided in my own local work to focus less on the “community” and more on simply doing things I’m excited about with people I respect. That will draw in people who want to participate, and save a whole lot of hopping about regarding what any group does or doesn’t want.
Community is an abstraction, and you really can’t grow, direct, or build an abstraction. “Community” is still great shorthand for a group of people, like “family”, but it isn’t an end into itself. Chase it too closely and you’ll lose the very people that make it up. You need to focus on the people and their actions. Connect with them as individuals, not as abstractions, and realize no matter how hard you try there are some things they are just never going to do or be.
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Perhaps we just aren’t ready for the next step.
.-= Tyler Hurst´s last blog ..How business is like running a half marathon =-.
I wondered for a while if it was about readiness or “maturing the community”, but I don’t think so. I just think you can’t succeed trying to do things for a the benefit of a group – you need to do them for the individuals.
Take CenPhoCamp – I know “Central Phoenix” is widely viewed as a “community”, but I see it as benefiting specific business and people. Not everyone in that geography will attend, or get the ideas behind it even if they did. Focusing on the people who are interested in learning, sharing, and trying new things is where the value sits. Those people will work in new ways and change will ripple forward.
So we give up on those that either aren’t willing to put in the work or just don’t care enough to even show up and focus on those that do?
Yep.
.-= Tyler Hurst´s last blog ..Half Marathon =-.
That’s somewhat my take. I just want to work with people who work on the same things, and see what happens. Those who don’t want to help, or want to do something else, are welcome to go their own way.
the beauty of “community” is all the differences, goals and ideas brought to the table by each individual. community can be successful if there is mutual respect and excitement and give and take. i agree that human nature can prove to be a challenge, but true community should push past that and continue to work toward the common goal of a greater good.
as i see it, anyway.
😉
The differences in a given group of people is what I delight in! That keeps me challenged, learning, and growing.
I hadn’t thought about this until now, but I think “community” can even work against that trait – homogenizing groups towards those who have similar opinions. It depends a lot on how tolerant the group is, but I feel sad for any group that prizes conformity over diversity.
agreed! diversity should be the lifeblood of every community.
Diversity should be the lifeblood of the community? Why? We’re not drawn together by how different we are, we’re drawn together by common traits.
You can’t please everyone, that’s a certainty. I think your approach to pursuing what you’re most interested in with the people you respect is a smart direction to take.
.-= Wes Novack´s last blog ..Sony introduces network media player =-.
Thanks for the comment, Wes! I’m hoping just pursuing my passion connects me with like-minded people sharing a similar drive. Which I think is what the idea behind community is intended to be in the first place.
I think that as individuals become stronger in their motives, more focused on personal goals, the concept of “community” has to become more general. But I do think there will always be room for community, something that everyone can get behind. Not being on fire? Community-backed!
But like you said, actual community is an ideal more than anything. It comes down to finding those people that you can work with and respect, and that in itself is a community. If you worked with the same amount of people in a smaller town, would the community be bigger? I think it’s just something that we as humans need to conceptualize the fact that we live in close quarters with millions of people that we don’t know, and we certainly like to think that we have something in common.
Good blog!
Good comment, Russ – and I think you’re spot on that part of “community” comes from our need to conceptualize, and to find common ground. Nothing wrong with that at all until things flip and the community becomes the end-goal and the people inside it become expendable. Connect with people and the “community” will form itself.
I don’t know. I kinda see what you’re getting at here, but I think you’re oversimplifying the concept of “community” to the point where it only reflects this rather negative view. The fact is, depending on what the COMMON FACTOR is, the very nature of the community itself will be dramatically different.
For example, the “central Phoenix” community…that’s a community where the only common factor is physical location. Thus, one needs to interact with a community like that in terms of that SINGULAR COMMON FACTOR. In other words, if you wanted to build a landfill in the middle of Phoenix, the “central Phoenix” community would surely be interested and it would be easy to get them talking about it as a group. However, if you want to put a new coworking space there, they may or may not be interested, because it doesn’t OBVIOUSLY relate to all of them in a universal way.
There are communities that are very small and niche. There are huge communities that are focused on narrow topics. For example, there is the Open Source Community. That community will care if there’s a new law in the USA that affects software copyright, because that’s pretty universal to them. They might not care if Ukraine starts a new Open Source Conference, because even though it relates to them, it isn’t universal.
I believe this is the core of your loss of faith. It’s not a problem with the notion of community. It’s simply a problem in your expectations of how communities must be interacted with.
.-= Brandon Franklin´s last blog ..Java Programming Tip: Building Your Own Event Bus =-.
I’m definitely trying to simplify the concept of “community” because I think it lost value in becoming an entity unto itself. I agree with your comments about large and niche communities, but let me use the OSS community as an example:
I went to OSCON a few years ago, and was excited to connect with people there. In one talk, a rep from Microsoft came to speak about their thoughts on OSS. He was doing everything he could to have an open discussion – he even wore a Firefox tshirt – yet some people booed, hissed, and screamed at this guy without hearing a thing he said! Not booing the name Microsoft, but this poor dude who was trying to make an effort. I thought “Man, the OSS community are a bunch of assholes,” but then realized no… it was just those individuals who were the assholes. I couldn’t extrapolate the behavior of a few people to a group whose shared thread was something else entirely.
Maybe the flaw has been in my expectations, but the more I noodle on it the more the core connection with people and their interests feels like the right path. I’m not “anti-community”, I just think they are something that will form if I pursue that path, and I should no longer try to treat them as living things. They’re a destination, not an approach.
Awesome comment – thank you!
You know, that Microsoft story is interesting. I wonder about that.
I think, in a way, those guys weren’t really necessarily individually assholes, but were representing a certain voice of the OSS Community AS A WHOLE as a result of Microsoft’s actions toward the OSS Community AS A WHOLE. Remember Bill Gates referring to open source software as “a cancer”? That, in a way, was an affront to the ENTIRE Open Source Community. I don’t think you get to send your avatar in wearing a t-shirt and just expect everybody to forgive-and-forget.
I’ll bet if that guy put his hands up at the booing and hissing, and said, “You know what, Microsoft and its representatives have said some horrible things about Open Source in the past. Things that were wrong, misinformed, and frankly just represented business strategy goals. We’re sorry for that. We were wrong. I will proudly stand up here and say to you that we apologize, and we’re changing our approach to Open Source so that it no longer reflects those kind of hateful attitudes and attempts to distort the public perception of Open Source,” that the crowd’s reaction would have INSTANTLY stopped including booing and hissing. It would have changed to support. (I think.)
This might be getting off topic for what you were talking about so I’ll stop. 🙂 But the dynamics of inter-community interaction are interesting things to me.
.-= Brandon Franklin´s last blog ..Java Programming Tip: Building Your Own Event Bus =-.
Okay yeah that comment was pretty rambly. But what I was getting at is that there are different types of communities, communities WITHIN communities, broad-and-shallow communities, narrow-and-deep communities, etc. and they are all very different in what they care about and what kind of “brain” they have. In some cases, they DO include things like common goals, strong bonds, and motivation.
.-= Brandon Franklin´s last blog ..Java Programming Tip: Building Your Own Event Bus =-.
Yep.
I’ve been having the same feeling for awhile now.
http://twitter.com/turbo2ltr/status/5610251106
Community is a word that is largely bandied about as a rallying flag for niche groups and cliques. That is just a misunderstanding of what the word actually means. Hopefully this discussion will cause the concept of real community to be more widely understood.
Cheers.
Honest question: How do you define “real community” as you used it above?
You’re in good company.
Sociologists and anthropologists still debate how to consistently operationalize a concept that is one of the central concerns of their respective disciplines. The definition of community can depend on the theoretical perspective chosen and on the research question at hand in order to have a shared foundation for academic discussion of human behavior.
I think it makes perfect sense, then, to look critically at how the term is used when applied to aspects of social media or even whether it makes sense to approach a social media effort from a perspective informed by a popular definition of the term. (In this case, your decision to choose to connect with people as individuals, not as abstractions or a representation of a community.)
You took this even deeper than I intended, but I’m still inclined to agree. The behavioral side of what I’ve learned about people from working on and attending local events over the past year sometimes makes me think I should write a book.
People are nuts, but that’s half the fun.
I think the problem here in AZ is that there’s too much “what’s in it for me?” in communities and not enough “what can I do to help?” There’s a lot of entitlement going around, especially at events where people pay nothing or next to nothing…
.-= Stace´s last blog ..Tips for political candidate websites =-.
When people tell me I should do X or Y with Ignite Phoenix, my standard reply now is to tell them how to get involved, and what they can expect to be part of the team if they want to help make their suggestion a reality.
The majority of the people I never hear from again, but the ones who followed-up and got involved are amazing. Some people just like to complain, and some people are just honestly waiting for an invitation to join.
Good approach. My parents discovered a similar thing with groups– everyone has great ideas for OTHER people to tackle, but “don’t have time” to tackle them themselves. A little bit of a “get involved or get lost” mentality can bring great sanity to an overextended leader.
Regarding the definition of community, I think a big doozy is groupthink: pack mentalities are present as well as individual agendas inside a single group, however large or small. People can both rally around a central idea and work to undermine it in the same sentence. One of the more effective ways I’ve seen of dealing with this conflict is by defining the group such that the groupthink is self-controlled, and the biggest conflicts are excluded and minor conflicts are absorbed. For example I’ve heard that Gangplank is simply a space and that involvement equals attending that space regularly. Sad for people like me who wish they could be involved with that group of people while sitting in my office from 9-5, but convenient for Gangplank’s leadership who has no obligation to cater to my specific needs. People who attend but wish Gangplank were a daycare service are excluded, while people who attend but code in FORTRAN instead of Ruby on Rails are absorbed, all by the group’s definition as a space, not an X.
Maybe Ignite could be a “cool ideas time NOT a project pitch time” and Improv can be a “secret participation performance NOT a tourist attraction” — kinda like Gangplank is doing with their “Unlike competition, Gangplank does x:” http://gangplankhq.com/2010/01/what-exactly-is-gangplank — you need examples and differentiation in order for your group to get an accurate public image.
Anyway, rant too long, thanks for everything you’re doing Jeff. I seriously respect anyone who even attempts to be a leader and you’ve done a great job to boot.
.-= Will Bradley´s last blog ..Right-Hand Navigation in Website Design =-.
Thanks, Will – I appreciate that. I’ve never tried to be a leader, but do like to think I’ve helped do some cool stuff.
I think one of my big misses and education in the past year has been sharing my OWN view on all this. I let my blogging drift to zero, so I can’t rightly be much surprised when I suddenly find people didn’t know how I viewed my own groups, projects, and communities. The Gangplank reference is a good example of that. I tried to do something similar though not that concise with recent posts about Ignite. I still owe one on how to make it better, which I need to get to…