Community - A Noob’s Guide
Last week I attended the Community Conference and it got me thinking on what communities are and where they add value. The conferences had some interesting ideas, inspired me, sparked some interesting conversations and made me reflect on my own experiences.
Here is an illustrated list of things I have learnt -
As human’s we are community builders - we constantly seek people who we can connect with over something.
We are all a part of many communities that collectively form our identity - some more than others.
There are some communities that are incidental (E.g. Our family, the city we grow up in, the language we speak) and there are some communities that we choose to be apart of (E.g. Our religious beliefs, our dietary preferences among others)
Audience is unidirectional, communities are bi-directional. In a community you give something and you get something - not necessarily in a transactional way
A community has variance. While people are bonded by this sense of collective belonging, their degree of involvement & hence the role they play varies drastically
A community needs both speakers AND listeners
The same community can mean different things for different people.
I’m very much a noob in this space, so holler at me if you want to chat more!