Communities and its value for companies and society

The formation of communities has provided mankind with major virtues throughout history. People shared their resources and intellect, allowing them to experience further growth and advancements. Communities were formed to protect each other from rival tribes, to gather food, and ultimately to ensure survival.

Nowadays, communities are not needed anymore for ensuring survival. But the benefits of communities still prevail, although they might manifest themselves differently. Joining a community gives us a sense of belonging and security. It brings us joy and allows us to experience activities together. But it also fosters collaboration, new idea generation, learning, and growth – elements which are especially important for companies. Tapping into communities allow companies to go beyond the walls of their organizations and enable engagement and interaction with a high number of people outside of their organization. Some companies are completely built upon the concept of communities. Take TED as an example. All over the world people are hosting TED events spreading great ideas. The great success of TED would not be possible without the community behind it. Extend the concept of communities with crowds and you are left with potentially hundreds of thousands of people who support you, share your purpose, bring in and validate new ideas, and sometimes even finance new ventures. Although leveraging crowds have seen huge popularity via crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo, tapping into an existing or building your own community is still not a widespread practice in the business world. 

Retrieved from: the Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it). 2014.

I strongly believe that the formation of communities in business contexts can bring huge benefits for the business, the people involved, and society. If used correctly, communities can bring along a movement that generates a vast impact on the world. It allows us to learn from each other, grow together, and bring forward positive changes faster.

So why are still only a few organizations building communities, tapping into existing communities or leveraging crowds? In my opinion, it is because it takes time and does not give you quick results. Companies also might lack the knowledge where to start and most importantly a cultural change is required. Building and leveraging communities requires companies to open up to the outside. Move away from a thinking of closed innovation and in-house expertise to opening the eyes to the benefits the people outside can bring to the company to reach their massive transformative purpose and achieve positive change. Github is a perfect example of this. The social coding platform brings together people from all over the world to build the best possible software. This entails working together on projects, discovering and sharing new ideas and codes, and validation of each other's work. According to Wikipedia, they have 40 million members as of August 2019 – that’s quite an impressive number. The good thing is, that not only software engineer companies can benefit from communities and crowds. The same applies to manufacturing, universities, wholesales, consultancies, etc.

How to start to build and leverage communities

So how can you as a company connect with and build new communities? It is imperative to have a clear massive transformative purpose (MTP). Sharing your MTP with the world allows you to attract early members and engage with them. It inspires others to join your cause to achieve a positive impact on the world. It also enables you to tap in already existing communities who share your purpose. As Simon Simeks says, people resonate with the Why, not so much with the What and How. Communicate your Why and others will join you.

Nurture the community

There is a big difference between leveraging communities or solely having partnerships. Leveraging communities requires companies to actively engage with their community; to involve them in activities that are relevant for achieving their purpose. The members of the community have to feel that their participation generates impact. If they are just left on the sidetrack, the chances are high that they soon will leave. Being a member of a football club can be a great analogy for this. If you have to sit the entire year on the bank, just watching the match without having the chance to play, will you be satisfied and stay a member of the club for years to come?

Foster peer-to-peer-engagement

A key element of communities is the ability to share thoughts and collaborate. Take GitHub as an example. The platform allows all members to share code, validate their code, bring in new ideas, and thus, enabling them to build the best software solutions. Without the peer-to-peer engagement, GitHub would not be able to leverage the collective minds of thousands of people. If you want to grow your community, it is important to set up a platform that allows people to engage with each other

Are you using your MTP to inspire others and attract members to your cause? Are you actively nurturing your community and allow them to participate? Do you have a platform in place that allows them to engage with each other, share ideas and thoughts, and give feedback to you? Let me know your thoughts and feel free to contact me if you have any further questions.

If you do not know the concept of an MTP and how to come up with one check out my last article on LinkedIn.

This article is based on the following sources:

The article is partly based on the Exponential Transformation and Exponential Organizations books. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4 

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/identity-and-community/what-community 

https://www.brepolsonline.net/doi/pdf/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.3.3745