We're Going to Need a Bigger Boat

[#1]

At the recent Defrag conference, there were a few words that were tossed around a lot beyond the usual flavors of "2.0" terms. 'Cloud' was one. 'Flow' was another. But I think the term I heard floated most in this sea of semantics was 'Community'.

I heard someone describe the communities inherent in email threads, attended a session about influencing communities within the social network of friends, and heard a comment lauding the communities around events such as the one we were attending. There were buzz communities, community campaigns, communities of interest and community networks. At points it seemed that 'communities' were being found everywhere and in everything.

While it's great that communities are getting so much notice these days, it seems to me that the word is being used so much that the meaning has become diluted. And this is hardly a new problem: according to wikipedia, "one can find 94 discrete definitions of the term even as early as mid-1950s." Though there's no citation given for that number, it seems pretty consistent with what I've seen - I think we may have even added a few more since that notation was made.

And perhaps there are that many different types of communities out there, depending on how you define them. But I tend to be a practical person, and all these different community definitions only make it more difficult to choose the right kinds of 'community' that will help me address my organizational needs.

So I plan to discuss my own definitions of what makes up a community in the coming days, but first I thought I'd put the question to you:

• What is a community?
• How can you tell when you have one?
• What makes a community different from a network or other kinds of groups?
• And lastly, are these distinctions important?

Let me know what you think in the comments.

Message Edited by ScottD on 11-10-2008 12:38 PM

[#2]

Hi Scott,

At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, the first thing any community needs is a reason to be a community in the first place.  For example, the Lithosphere Community Site's raison-d'etre is to provide a "peer-to-peer support channel for people cultivating enterprise communities on the Lithium platform."  The more the organizing principle is embedded into its practices, the more focused the community.  Again, from the Lithosphere Community Site's TOS, community members may not make "off-topic comments not related to enterprise communities or the Lithium platform."

Next, you need rules about community membership: criteria for who can join, guidelines for participation, and a set of expectations for what various people's role in that community is. Taking the Lithosphere Community Site as an example again, its TOS clearly states who should join: Lithium customers and users.  The rest of the TOS spell out the guidelines for participation.  What I didn't find in the TOS, and didn't expect to, is the expectations for various roles in the LCS.  I'm guessing that there the focus of each sub-community helps to define that.

An interesting variation on this theme are communities based on job networking.  These groups have a rotating membership but a permanent presence, both in the physical world and online. Two job networking communities that come to mind for me are the CPC Job Connections and C-Six, both in the Bay Area.  In fact, CPC JC has just expanded from its roots as a Y! group to a LinkedIn Group, where the LI discussion groups give a greater chance to explore ideas. 

I think a third principle of community is mutual support.  Communities are about coming together for a purpose.  The support will probably be a little chaotic at first, since even online communities go through the classic organizational stages:

   .Forming

   .Storming

   .Norming

   .Performing

I'd argue that this characteristic is key to determining if a group is a functioning community.  

Fourth, I think that a community has continuity over time.  For example, I've formed highly emotionally charged, but very temporary bonds with people I've met at self-development workshops.  That's not community.  But members of 12-step groups, even though their interest in each other is very focused, can sustain that interest through mutual support towards a common goal over a long time.  They form a genuine community.

I've gone on long enough for this post.  I'd be interested in feedback on these ideas.

[#3]

One final thought:  If a group lacks the third or fourth features, I think it should be called a special/professional interest group, rather than a community.

[#4]

Thanks for the comments axchon, I  like where you are going with these thoughts!

Purpose, rules, mutual support and continuity are all useful ways to think about what makes a community and what doesn't. And I definitely agree it takes more than one factor to be present for community to be formed. For instance, a toy drive for a single holiday has a specifc purpose, but those who participate are unlikely to consider themselves part of a toy-drive community. They may, though, be part of a larger cultural or geographic community that exists before and after the event.

I particularly like the contrasting example you provided between workshops and 12-step groups, though I wonder if we could say a bit more about what makes continuity possible in the latter but not the former? Does it go back to expectation setting? Or was there more involved in the 12-step program becoming a community in the first place?

[#5]

Hi Scott, 

I think the contrast can be summed up by two of the community criteria I listed: purpose and continuity over time.

Members of 12-step groups have a compelling, lifelong reason to continue their association: recovering from their common, life-threating addiction.  In addition, 12-step meetings usually cohere over time, giving participants the chance (the requirement, actually) to interact repeatedly. In addition, the programs have a requirement to reach out to others in the program in between meetings.  Self-development workshop participants have a myriad of reasons for going into the workshop, and usually no clear reason to cohere as a group afterwords, and no organizational structure to provide continuity over time for the majority of participants.  

I think that if we want further characteristics of what makes a healthy virtual community, we could probably search the sociology literature about what makes RL communities function well.  The OL world comprises flesh-and-blood members who have fundamental human needs that have been well documented.   Virtual communities add new layers on top of the RL analogs, but I have hunch the foundations are remarkably similar.

[#6]

Hi Scott,

One additional thought:  since human beings are fundamentally non-rational, I suspect that a true community must offer mutual support on that basis, as well as a rational one.  To take an extreme example, the US temporarily stopped its cultural infighting in the period immediately following the 9/11 attacks, because most of us felt an emotional need to rally against an outside threat.  You can find lots of commentary during that brief period about the whole country coming together, i.e., showing mutual support, to deal with the trauma.

[#7]

Hi Scott,

There's an illuminating case study summary on David Meerman's online marketing blog about BitDefender building what I think Lithium would call an enterprise community.  According to the criteria I've laid out, though, this would qualify only as a forum for a professional interest group rather than a full-fledged community.

[#8]

Wonderful comments here axcohn, thank you!

Do you think "continuity over time" is more an effect rather than a cause? It seems to me that this is the type of criteria that you can only apply after the fact. What leads to this continuity? Or do you mean the potential for continuity, such as a common gathering place or regularly scheduled meet-ups? I think I've heard this referred to as a 'persistent place' in the past, which sets the expectation that the group interaction is meant to continue.

Where do you think the BitDefender community referenced the case study you mentioned falls down on the criteria of purpose, rules, mutual support and continuity? Is it too soon to tell? Or is it a matter of degree?

[#9]

Hi Scott,

Good point about continuity over time being an effect rather than a cause; "persistent place" is a memorable, if anachronistic way, to express the expectation that the group interaction is meant to continue. But intention is one thing; execution is another.  I still contend that unless the intention succeeds, you don't have a community.

I'm not sure that the BitDefender forum fails the test of community — it just doesn't fit the criteria I've laid out.  In one of my posts, I asserted that a true community must offer mutual support on a non-rational basis, as well as a rational one. Take, for example, the earliest online community, the WELL.  If you read their archives, or excerpts from them, you'll see flame wars followed by apologies and reconciliation, people consoling each other in times of need, and even a marriage between members, one of whom was diagnosed with terminal cancer.  This became a group whose members could rely on each other.  This supportiveness, which catered to non-rational  needs, became part of the reason the WELL continued to exist.  For another example, in RL, church groups are a focal point of many people's lives because they satisfy non-rational spiritual and social needs. I thought it natural to extend that need into cyberspace. 

The BitDefender site, in its commercial purpose and narrow focus, doesn't include this type of support in its mission.  It's focused strictly on BitDefender's business, and any emotional support that participants in the forum derive is strictly incidental to the goal of promoting BitDefender as a thought leader in its market space. 

My assertion might be irrelevant to Lithium's business, too.  It's perfectly possible that you can have a viable community without the intention of providing non-rational support.  I think that such communities, though, are going to be fairly transient and lack the loyalty and centrality to participants' lives that communities that offer that non-rational support would enjoy.