Tag: community

Why I keep building communities

I didn’t start in tech. I spent eleven years in healthcare, talking with patients and their families, working alongside doctors and nurses, and learning something that has shaped everything I’ve done since: people need to feel heard before they can move forward.

That sounds simple, but it’s the kind of simple that can easily be forgotten.

In healthcare I learned to meet people where they were. A patient’s family wants to feel cared about, a surgeon doesn’t need to understand computer file systems, they need to know how to save lives. I have always seen my job as figuring out what people need and help them get it. The setting may have changed, but the work didn’t.

When I moved into tech and started building communities, I found a lot of communities were being built backwards. People were building for themselves, making decisions based on what they wanted rather than focusing on serving their users. Simple things like getting too clever with naming, calling forums “conversations”and blogs “stories” and then wondering why nobody could find anything.

A community isn’t a marketing channel. It’s not a funnel. It’s not an engagement metric on a dashboard. A community is an enablement resource. It exists to help people do their best work and live their best lives. When the goal shifts from helping people to extracting value from them, the community stops being a community. I don’t even call it lurking when people visit my community and don’t post. I call it gleaning. They came, they found what they needed, and they left. That’s a win. Not everyone needs to raise their hand. Some people get value by reading a knowledge base article at 2 AM, others get value by finding how others solve problems similar to theirs. Everyone has their own reasons to be part of a community, and they are all valid..

I think the reason this matters so much to me is personal. I’m the father of special needs children, and I have ADHD. I’ve worked in a variety of places and industries, from being elbow-deep in dish soap at a remote fishing lodge in Alaska to removing viruses from a grandmas computer so she could see the pictures of her grandkids again. Every one of my experiences taught me the same thing: we do better when we’re not alone. Not for someone to tell us what to do, but because we all need someone to be there for us. Listening. Sharing a bit of themselves, and offering a hand without assuming we need to be pulled.

There’s a metaphor I keep coming back to. Rope. A single strand of string is useful, and can completely fulfill a multitude of functions, but multiple strands together become stronger than the sum of its parts. That’s what a community does. It takes individual people, each with their own experiences and perspectives and skills, and weaves them into something stronger.

That’s why I keep building them. Not because I have all the answers, but because I’ve seen what happens when people have a place to show up, be heard, and help each other.

That’s a community. It’s worth the effort, every time.

Building a community that people want to come back to.

What makes people come back to an online community?

I’ve been building and managing communities for a while now, and the biggest mistake I see is people building a community that works for them, not for the people who will actually use it. They name things cleverly instead of clearly. They optimize for engagement metrics instead of asking whether anyone is actually getting value.

So here are a few foundational principles I keep coming back to.

Listen before you build. The fastest way to build something nobody wants is to skip the part where you find out what people need. Ask questions. Sit with the answers. Resist the urge to assume your experience is universal.

Call things what they are. If it’s a forum, call it a forum. If it’s a blog, call it a blog. Clever naming might feel creative, but it puts a barrier between your members and the thing they came to find. Communication is a two way street, and that starts with making sure people know where to go.

Community is enablement, not marketing. A community exists to enable people to do their best work, not to funnel them into a pipeline. When the goal shifts from “how do we help people” to “how do we extract value from people,” the community stops being a community.

Respect every type of participation. Not everyone is going to post. Some people read a knowledge base article and leave. Others get help with a problem and move on. I don’t call that lurking, I call it gleaning. They got what they needed, and that’s a win.

Measure what matters. The metric I care about most is whether people come back. If they do, they’re finding value. If they don’t, it doesn’t matter how many registered users you have on paper.

Building a community is a lot like braiding rope. Individual strands are useful on their own, but woven together they’re stronger than the sum of their parts. The goal isn’t to get people in a room. It’s to give them a reason to stay, and a reason to return.

What kind of communities have you built, and how did you build them? I’d love to hear what principles you’ve found to be foundational. I would also love to hear about communities you have been a part of, and what worked for you and what didn’t in those communities.

The importance of Communities.

Communities give us something AI never can.

AI is popping up in more and more places these days. Like a toddler not sure how to function in the world, it’s wandering around and bumping into things. Like children, we are equally likely to feel fear and concern or pin hopes and dreams on AIs future.

No matter how you feel about it, the fact remains that we are in the toddler stage, and AI is far from graceful and mature. Talking with AI often feels impersonal and cold, or doesn’t make sense at all. AI “art” lacks the spark that gives human art its voice, the cry of a soul seeking to understand or be understood. For all the data AI has, it lacks perspective. A way of seeing the world filtered through experiences and personality. AI has no unique story to tell.

The real benefit of an online Community is not the text on the screen, it’s the stories that are created by the human interactions within it.

It is recognizing the names of other members and being excited to see what they have to say.
It is being at a conference and meeting the people behind the screen-name, and already having a common-ground and a relationship to build on.
It is shaking the hand of the person who has helped you so many times and being able to say “Thank you”. Or maybe you were the one answering questions, and you’re meeting people you have seen learn and grow and succeed.

Communities are a place to talk, share, learn and grow with others. Like rope braided together is stronger than the sum of the individual strands, we become better, stronger, faster, and capable of greater things.

That is Community, and it’s something that computers can never replace.

We will make it through this. It’s up to us what we look like on the other side.

Most of my job involves talking with Doctors and Nurses across the country. I talk to practices big and small, general medicine and specialists. I frequently ask them about COVID-19, out of curiosity and a desire to increase my own understanding. This is what I hear universally.

This is not just a simple virus. Yes, it’s a virus, but it’s very different from what we have seen before. The symptoms and contagiousness are dramatically worse than the Flu.

The regular flu already costs the US between $1-5 Billion annually in economic damage, not to mention the loss of life. I can’t imagine the economic and health impact Coronavirus would have on the economy if we just let it run rampant. Hospitals were already short staffed and overworked just dealing with the usual health issues we face. What happens when the demand for services outstrips the supply by an order of magnitude? Then the people providing the services start getting sick and dying, lower the availability and quality of care? Hospitals all over the country and world are at or near capacity, even with the dramatic reduction in non-COVID sicknesses and procedures. Opening up too soon would just make it worse.

I know it’s hard. I know businesses are struggling. I know people are struggling, I’m one of them. I see my family struggling also. I want this to be over SO BADLY. Just wishing for it to be over won’t make it so. We all have to do our part to keep this thing in check.

I hate COVID. I hate what it’s done to our society, our economy, our friendships, our children, and our mental health. I want it to be over. I’m struggling, I see my kids, my friends, my acquaintances, my country and my world, all struggling.

Remember, I’m not basing this on media talking heads or political grandstanding. This is what I hear from the mouths of Doctors and Nurses all over the country. The threat is real. I wish to God it wasn’t.

I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with this. I think people who are going to listen have already, and those who won’t listen aren’t going to start now. But maybe, just maybe, I can be part of keeping the conversation going in a respectful and loving way.

Let’s hold on for just a little while longer. Hold onto your family, friends, and community. We will get through this, but only by loving and respecting each other will we come out better for it.