Community Building Series #1: Nicole Nguyen, the Professional of Community Building in Southeast Asia
# Why Klaytn focuses on building a community.
Dear Klaytn readers,
Building blockchain communities is one of the key elements in making the blockchain business successful. There are three reasons why blockchain companies must consider building and growing blockchain communities. Unlike other technologies, a “community” is what develops “blockchain” as a core partner. For example, developers from different communities can also participate in blockchain ‘platform’ projects indirectly by creating relevant blockchain tools. And developers who belong to the ‘platform’ community contribute codes directly to this open-sourced project, which is public on GitHub. Therefore, having a community is very important in developing blockchain projects in technical aspects as well as scaling the project to a realistic size so that mass adoption can be achieved. Not only the individual developers, but the communities themselves can also contribute to the project. Community members could be willing to join bounty programs and provide their feedback on a platform or service to improve the project, or spread news about the projects to the public and get rewarded through airdrop. That feedback could help the blockchain project to meet users from the public. In addition, communities participate in ICO and IEO of the project by buying the tokens, the blockchain company to develop their business, and thereby the participants’ loyalty goes up. It means that the community is an important nutrient for the growth of the blockchain project.
In the blockchain industry, a community is a partner in development, a contributor to the project, and a supporter of the project. Klaytn helps communities to grow healthy, and this growth of communities is one of the most important assets in the development of the platform. Klatyn strives to build a community, considering it as the key element. In this new series of articles ‘Community Building Series’, interesting ideas and thoughts on meanings of community buildings are shared to rethink why we need them. We talk with blockchain community experts who work in the Southeast Asia region and cover their experiences and thoughts as well as discuss the current status of formation of a blockchain community. Additionally, they share how they work and what they have experienced while building a better blockchain community in each country or a company.
In the first article, we share an interview with Nicole Nguyen who is the Head of APAC at Asia Blockchain Review (ABR). ABR, the largest initiative of a blockchain media company, connects all blockchain enthusiasts through a range of group discussions, technical workshops, conferences, and consulting programs.
#1. Becoming Blockchain Local Expert
KJ: You are one of few female blockchain enthusiasts in this Southeast Asia blockchain scene. I think that you’ve been a pioneer in evolving the blockchain ecosystem, fostering the industry by connecting the major blockchain players in the crypto space.
Nicole: Thank you for your compliment. I have been involved in the space for over 3 years now. At ABR, my role is spearheading the regional initiative to become the top of mind news, media and community platform for players interested in Southeast Asia.
KJ: To get to know more about you, we would like to ask you how and why you entered the blockchain industry.
Nicole: “Three years ago, I have had the privilege to be the first marketer in Infinity Blockchain Labs — the sister company to Asia Blockchain Review. Since then, it has been a crazy joyful rollercoaster ride for me in this blockchain world. To be able to experiment with new initiatives and meet new inspiring people every day keeps me moving forward. Knowing that I can continuously learn new things from other people, stay fearless of the unknown and inspire more people to join the ride with us is wakes me up every day.
Interestingly, my previous professional career had no involvement in tech or emerging tech at all. I used to work for Unilever and a couple of other multinational organizations plus set up a fashion startup on my own before experimenting with this novel technology called blockchain. “I had to start from scratch. I was learning new things every day, talking to absolute strangers and building my network in a totally new domain — Very challenging yet rewarding at the same time.”
Brian: So you seem to be enjoying your dynamic journey in the blockchain scene. Let’s talk more about what you have been doing specifically as a community builder.
Nicole: “I have started observing more about what other people do and learn from them directly. It may sound different from what a traditional community builder does, but I believe despite how much social media are changing the way we communicate or interact, humans prefer real connections. And mutual interest between people make people more interested in others and this helps your personal growth as well.
For media platform, I produce contents that feature blockchain projects and entrepreneurs to grow our network and partnership. Besides the media platform, we organize our Unblock event series regularly in 3 key cities: Ho Chi Minh City, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. We also helped with organizing the ‘Klaytn Hackathon Meetup’ in Ho Chi Minh City and Manila. We love bridging people with all these useful events and grow the community as a whole. But the best part about my job is still bugging my colleagues, acquaintances, and friends to teach me, who is a technology illiterate, what the latest issues in blockchain space have been. I think they will miss it if I stop doing so one day.”
#2. Thoughts about Community Building from Nicole
Brian: Many blockchain companies emphasize the importance of the community because they believe that a better blockchain platform/service can be built with developers contributing to the open sourced project. Could you share your thought on what the blockchain community is?
Nicole: I believe that blockchain sets itself apart from other technology because of the impact communities can have to blockchain technology. In the blockchain space, the community includes everything from your prospective investors, evangelists, contributors, first hand users as well as everything in between that keep your product up and running. It is almost impossible for you to live in the blockchain space without having a community.
KJ: You regard a community as not just a representation of a single role, but also as prospective investors, evangelists, contributors, and first-hand users. Then what do you think of how the communities will evolve in the future? Is there any implication to other blockchain companies?
Nicole: “The community would get more diverse now that more players from mainstream industries are joining the game. Also, I think the community will get even more focused on a specific type of audience, instead of trying to befriend everyone. We now have more niche communities targeting specific trend or business or interest. For example, in trading, we now have communities for traders, family offices, IEO, STO, margin traders, etc. By targeting specific needs, these communities will play more important roles in the landscape. This, consequently, requires blockchain companies to put more efforts in coming up with a relevant community strategy since they need to be really specific and single-minded who they should speak to and what setting or languages they should use.”
Brian: It is very interesting that communities will be broken down by the interests and it is actually trending in the communities of ABR. So in this flow, how will you promote the growth of the community and go along with them? What is your community’s development plan and how will you proceed?
Nicole: “I always believe that sharing knowledge is the most powerful element of connecting people and building a community. You will grow the community and at the same type grow as an individual as well, without even knowing it. Then, the community building will be embedded in your DNA. This way, you will also be able to provide value to the people in your community. At ABR, we encourage our team to share knowledge, connections, and support to our members and our community and we have been able to receive generous rewards for such initiatives. We hope to connect with like-minded people and together we will be able to spread the blockchain spirit further!”
#National Community Building & Government Position of The Blockchain
Brian: So let’s move on to a more realistic example. In your country, what difficulties have you encountered when building a community? And what are some good points?
Nicole: “I have been working on a regional scale rather than within one single country. For now, Thailand is our main focus and this represents lots of excitement as well as challenges. You can never run out of the fun in Thailand and the market has just started to get exciting. However, local partnership and connections are extremely important in Thailand and it is relatively challenging for a new international player to be able to tap in the ecosystem here within a short run. Still, challenges amass such as a huge gap between the expat and local communities in Thailand, low blockchain awareness and sporadic education schemes which demand collective efforts from not only ABR but other players. Community growth in Thailand requires significant persistence and efforts. However, I believe that the growth comes with commensurate benefits now that Thailand has prominently positioned itself in the regional map. Thanks to forward-thinking regulations and initiatives from the government.”
KJ: It is impressive that Thailand’s blockchain regulation is pioneering and the government is also cooperative with the blockchain related industry. Can you tell us more specifically about this, especially given the current situation in which many countries are regulating blockchain technology?
Nicole: “I would like to share my opinion on both countries — my home country Vietnam and my second home, Thailand. It is interesting to see how different governments in the region are shaping their strategy around blockchain. Vietnam has exceptionally strong in tech talents, operation cost and entrepreneurship. However, the infrastructure in the country is not ready for mass adoption and the government is taking a more skeptical stance towards cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. On the other hand, Thailand started more slowly yet with its stable financial infrastructure, higher financial literacy and especially the appetite for innovation, Thailand now stands a better chance of getting ahead in the race. The regulators such as SEC, Bank of Thailand, etc. are showing positive moves towards accommodating blockchain, not only from the perspective of the regulator, but also as an adopter. All these exciting movements help shed the spotlight on the blockchain landscape in Southeast Asia, making this region the go-to destination for quality and long term blockchain projects and entrepreneurs.”
# Collaboration Possibility
KJ: We know that you are a blockchain enthusiast building blockchain communities in Southeast Asia and beyond. Please give us your thoughts and share your experiences that helped us to gain more indirect experience with the community building. Lastly, you mentioned that it is very important for various blockchain companies to create communities and collaborate together to make the better ecosystem of blockchain. Could you give your opinion with that?
Nicole: The nature of Asia Blockchain Review is connecting projects outside Asia with the Asian ecosystem. So we are definitely open to any partnerships both with local or international projects. We are aiming to onboard 300–500 top projects in Asia on our platform within 2019 and thereby create one of the largest and most important gateways for blockchain.
At the end of the day, blockchain technology can only prove its value through real life applications. Thanks to collective efforts from connecting platforms such as ABR or GroundX, we will be able to connect like-minded people to address the diverse needs of stakeholders. This will allow us to validate how blockchain can really make the difference and ultimately lead to mass adoption.
The following will be an interview with Infinito Solutions community representative. Please keep us interested.
