Despite a very kind email from the author, Rich Millington, I’ve been a bit remiss in not posting about his Online Community Building Manifesto (link to the PDF). (As a bonus, he’s also on Twitter).
It’s a call to change the way we think about online communities, and one that’s shared by a few people, myself included, but Rich has expressed it with a nice clarity.
We know about technology and we love the internet, but we (in general) don’t know half as much about the people forming communities and about ways to get a better understanding of what they’re doing and what their needs are.
He also raises good points about balancing what we learn about technology with other disciplines including psychology and sociology (with some helpful links to some interesting sources) – I won’t say any more in an effort to encourage you to go read it and leave him some comments.
He’s not alone in his thinking, but the benefit of the manifesto will come if it helps to join some of the minds in this space. I’d include people like Dave Cushman, Mark Earls, Neil Perkin, and others who regularly appear in my RSS feeds but whose names have deserted me for the moment…which I shall rectify with a bit of an overhaul of my link lists shortly. It’s something that has been implemented in Seth Godin’s private Triiibes group (somewhere I need to spend more time if I can).
And there’s a real tangible personal benefit to social media/community/tribes people – technology is constantly shifting, and being an expert in Facebook or Twitter will start as an asset, become normal and then be old-fashioned and replaced by something new – but the lessons learnt about people will transfer to every network and device. They’ll evolve, but the changes with each evolution will work across platforms and devices and won’t rely on php, flash or javascript!
That’s why I posted on ‘Why Belief Matters‘ back in November, and used football and motorsport as examples. It’s the ‘why’ and the ‘what for’ of any community, and it comes from the people, not from the technology!