Guest Post | Community Binary: The 1s and 0s of Community Development
Guest Author: Caleb Love
This is a guest post written by Caleb Love originally posted on LinkedIn on January 15, 2019.
I am kind of a SciFi junky so this will most likely not be my last movie reference. In the Matrix, there are some amazing fight scenes with guns that never seem to run out of bullets, and heroes narrowly dodging them as they cut through the air in waves, but things get really interesting when the protagonist, Neo’s eyes are opened and he sees and understands the 1s and 0s that make up the core of the matrix (the virtual world where he finds himself in). At this realization his world changes for him. He no longer even tries to dodge the bullets shot at him. Having been involved in every aspect of communities from strategy, design, building, managing, and growing them I have come to have a few thoughts about what the binary is behind a successful community.
I believe, there are a few fundamental things businesses get wrong about communities. The greatest being that they are asking the wrong questions focusing on the “bullets” rather than what is actually happening, or better yet, that they don’t understand what questions they SHOULD be asking.
When you step back from all the conversations about what features and functionality a community should have, which platform is the best, or what kind of content you want to post and drill down to the root of what happens in a community you can begin to see them differently. The community is no longer a bunch of people talking together. Instead, it is an ecosystem of individuals and audiences forming connections to exchange value. Everyone is both providing and seeking value from the community. Truly strategic communities form at the connecting crossroads where all parties involved can receive the greatest benefit, with the caveat that value is also determined differently for each party involved.
So I reframed the question who cares? Everyone should. When the conversation changes to focus on value and the audiences exchanging it, the impact and role communities play becomes much more powerful. The community becomes a facilitator for value exchange and everyone involved becomes equal partners in sharing what value they can provide, in exchange for the greatest benefit. Even the role your business plays changes. Your business, internal teams, and stakeholders, external 3rd parties, customers, and potential customers, all become equal players in conversations revolving around value.
You begin to ask the right questions….
