How to talk about community

🎓 Community Curriculum
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We hosted a How to talk about community workshop last week.

We tackled 4 questions:

  • What is community?
  • Why should people consider community?
  • What is community to members?
  • What is community to stakeholders?

Notes on the session

Our first goal is to create a write up based on our ideas around ‘How to talk about community’.

We didn’t record the session, rather we focused on discussions and note taking.

For now, the notes are below, which will then get edited into an article/guide. We will also shortly add names of everyone who has contributed too.

The current notes may not entirely make sense right now, hopefully over time it will. This is a wiki post, so anyone can edit and add to this post. :blush:

What is community?

Feeling a bit stuck? Here’s a bit of inspiration.

Add your answers here:

  • Our context defines our answer, eg if everyone in the room is middle aged and white
  • Online => diverse, across the world (not just “western world”), seeking universality
  • Depending on the purpose it may be easy to be diverse (or not)
  • Venia’s socio-cultural definition (what I use to build my curriculum):
    • A community is a well-defined unit of culture:
      • The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, experiences, practices and artefacts that characterise a defined group of people of any specific size.
  • BW: Scope of community, defined by first members, not always consciently, and set the purpose. group of people coming together to … give , based on generosity. sense of belonging as an outcome of the community, purpose is not enoughto create a community, even written down, “organizational” defintion sneaking in (think sport teams, stadium, fans, ), reasons can be brader than initial goals and purposes
  • cf anthropology (sociology too?) have definition for community, new belonging, old belonging, new one
  • Community: groups of people coming together to give
  • “A community is a group of people who connect through commonalities, like interests or identities, and share a sense of belonging, safety, and trust.”
  • Shared goals: there can be overall goals and individual goals?
  • It’s about having empathy or affinity with the community goals
  • Video: outrospection (not just introspection), listening for other opinions, an empathy mindset (RSA ANIMATE: The Power of Outrospection - YouTube
  • Clear boundaries - who’s out and who’s in (Priya Parker; the Art of Gathering)
  • Marta Gonzalez: “A successful Community is one where resonance and dissonance both work in reciprocity.”
  • Is boundary setting gatekeeper? Should we be concerned about?
  • There is an organic way to be together, how we appear and disappear
  • There are rules….but rules can be broken?
  • We are here to break the rules and create diversity?
  • Exclusivity breeds inclusivity (for creating psychological safety)
  • Venia on scope and compartments with rules and boundaries as a mean to protect diversity, wth some porosity to allow people to move around
  • Boundaries need to be porous enough for people to enter communities
  • Parallel being made between communities and societies

Why should people consider community?

Add your answers here:

  • How can we sell community?
  • Covid pushed us to create a decade’s worth of community stuff
  • BW: people pay with their time more than anything else
  • Fingers in all in all the pies
  • How do we show it’s valid for businesses?
  • What’s an awesome pitch of community?
  • We don’t really know the cost?
  • It’s a lifecycle: 1- it starts, 2- growth/renewing the foundation
  • We need to recognise the lifecycle, not expect everything at once
  • Can we create a lifecycle/journey and then highlight pros/cons/benefits?
  • Thinking about community beyond business goals. I’ve managed peer-led communities and the purpose has often been to amplify other voices (and remove the control of the leaders similar to what Bruno mentioned)
  • Community needs a specific mindset / team
  • Thinking about the bigger picture
  • People need to trust the community and the results it brings
  • Thinking about community beyond business goals. I’ve managed peer-led communities and the purpose has often been to amplify other voices (and remove the control of the leaders similar to what Bruno mentioned)
  • Another consideration: safe spaces for specific causes and groups. Touching on what Venia said about Covid. Want to add that people should consider community to ensure that knowledge and awareness is being shared without censorship. Thinking about Black Lives Matters and other human rights movements. (Chanutell)
  • Another consideration: safe spaces for specific causes and groups. Touching on what Venia said about Covid. Want to add that people should consider community to ensure that knowledge and awareness is being shared without censorship. Thinking about Black Lives Matters and other human rights movements. (Venia)
  • The sense of belonging, the base of why should people should consider it.
  • The local community is a good example of a community, you can bump into a variety of people at any time
  • Within a small community there are multiple identities, multiple needs, so many needs
  • Find identifiers of people in the community, as a way to build stronger community.
  • Are we using the right word? Is community it? Is it group, network, team…?
  • Does it set up companies for failure? It’s very unique, there’s a very high standard to set.
  • Imagine the results you’ll get long term. Imagine the possibilities of the connections, relationships and how they turn into real results.
  • Should it be ecosystem?
  • Networks?
  • Tina Roth Eisenberg is not just an amazing community builder but also has been great at building her companies with that mindset
  • Sometimes community is built in a bubble and it’s not always healthy

What is community to members?

Add your answers here:

  • A place where I feel safe
  • safe space, learning space, development space , goal sharing , vulnerable, atteignable, more balanced, speak your language (mind?)
  • I can be more open and honest
  • Where we identify with others
  • A place to be more honest, because we feel safe
  • Where we can speak our language
  • A place for connection
  • People get you for who you are
  • A place where acronyms are understood without being explained
  • You just want to be heard
  • A place where you’re understood
  • People have your back
  • Don’t have to do the heavy work of explaining, again and again
  • A place for learning about nuances (gaining insight about different experiences)
  • It’s tiring to have to explain
  • We need depth
  • a community assumed shared language, values, assumptions, “jargon”, experience, practices (in the sense of ongoing practice)
  • You can be in a community and not be vocal and still get value (the observers)
  • What if you’re a lurker / observer / passive member? - How is the community different for you versus someone who always speaks up?
  • How to reach out in human ways? (re-engagement tactics)
  • Community care package (and best practices) – safeguarding measures
  • DMs to show interest
  • people should take care of each others (solidarity? bring attentionate), q: are humans altruists, are they more altruists to other community members?
  • The community is the community, they have take an active part in it
  • Welcoming :slight_smile:
  • maintain porosity between members (ping venia)
  • take care of others => sustainable community
  • Empower others

What is community to stakeholders?

Add your answers here:

  • stakeholders= those who have like economic responsibility to the community, money, time, sponsors, enablers??
  • Free marketing
  • A way to make more business strategy more customer friendly
  • Community is not marketing
  • Stakeholders have an extractive mindset
    • What kind of stakeholders think this?
    • Stakeholders that don’t understand community
  • How can we get stakeholders to see that it is about giving?
  • Gather around principles rather than products
  • When a community is built to help businesses achieve their objectives, they are usually designed to help the businesses earn, save, or grow.
  • Strategic goals, not just marketing goals
  • We should have all departments of a business involved and caring
  • Marketing peeps rarely know the product really well = > opportunity for cross-functional collaboration
  • Then community can connect the dots between everyone/everything
  • Marketing has so much waste
  • There’s a natural flow of conversations, it can be instant/rapid/effective
  • Community members are always interviewing, caring and understanding
  • When a community is built to help businesses achieve their objectives, they are usually designed to help the businesses earn, save, or grow.
  • Community can drive tangible organizational value in ways like brand awareness, user acquisition, higher lifetime value, activation and loyalty.
  • Need to be weary that some stakeholders will have a wildly different view of what a community is from what a community manager thinks it is
  • Essential!
  • Don’t use the word community. What words do we use instead?
    • Use the language the stakeholders use
  • Community doesn’t look like community at the beginning, at least
  • Tina Roth Eisenberg is not just an amazing community builder but also has been great at building her companies with that mindset
  • It’s a buzzword and it’s a problem, too much is lumped under community
  • Is community the right word for what we’re doing? Especially in organizations?
  • Marketing teams shouldn’t put the need of connection under the banner of community
  • Ecosystem could be an alternative word we could use which would also help collaborate with others and reach out, and not build communities in a vacuum.
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I asked a popular AI tool to provide a summary by 1) offering it a link to this topic page and 2) pasting all the text into it. Combining both responses here’s my summary.

The workshop highlighted the importance of being intentional and inclusive when using the word “community”. It suggests using specific language to describe different types of communities, being aware of power dynamics and privilege, and prioritizing the needs and perspectives of marginalized groups. The workshop also emphasised the value of active listening, respectful communication, the importance of empathy and affinity, clear boundaries, and the need for trust in a community and recognizing the diversity within and between communities. It suggests that other terms such as “networks” or “ecosystems” could be used instead of “community”.