Community Cycles and What's Different (and the same) This Time
Apr 13, 2022
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In this episode, the hosts discuss the cyclical nature of online community investment and their personal experiences. They delve into the challenges faced by community professionals, lack of innovation in community platforms, and the importance of authentic engagement. They also explore patterns and processes for community building and emphasize the need for diverse strategies. Despite recurring challenges, they remain optimistic about the future of online communities.
Reflecting on the cyclical nature of online community investment and the need to avoid collective amnesia.
Highlighting the importance of integrating community into an organization's goals and objectives and avoiding hero leadership mentalities.
Deep dives
The cyclical nature of community development
The podcast discusses how community development experiences cycles of growth and decline. It highlights the shift from social platforms to smaller, more intimate community-based experiences. The hosts reflect on the patterns and challenges that keep resurfacing in the community space, despite previous attempts to address them. They explore the importance of learning from past experiences and avoiding collective amnesia.
The struggle for integration between community and organizations
The podcast examines the disconnect between community and the larger digital ecosystem of organizations. It emphasizes the need for community to be an integral part of an organization's goals and objectives, rather than a separate function. The hosts discuss the importance of integrating community into customer-facing functions and the challenges of hero leadership or community savior mentalities.
Issues with community platforms and their impact
The podcast raises concerns about some community platforms that prioritize marketing and sales over innovation and technical debt. It points out the limitations of homogenized community experiences resulting from dominant platforms. The hosts encourage exploration of different interaction models and services that can better support community growth and authenticity.
The call for patterns, context, and standards
The podcast advocates for recognizing patterns, contexts, and standards in community practice. It suggests the need for a gathering of the community factions to establish common definitions, terminologies, and methodologies. The hosts emphasize the importance of learning from previous knowledge and engaging in critical thinking to advance the profession and challenge existing practices.
This week Lauren and I take a side trip from our Season 3 theme of Metaverse to talk about the cyclical (at least to date) nature of online community investment. In this unfiltered episode, we share how this cycle has helped shape our careers and explore questions that seem to come up in every cycle: With each subsequent era, why do we have to relearn and re-invent basics? Why do most organizations still struggle with community? Why haven’t standards emerged? Why is the enterprise community platform space so static? Why do personalities and institutions almost immediately emerge during an upcycle that want to dominate vs develop
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