Internal Work Series 02 | Applying Minimalism Principles to Successful Community Building

Hi everyone, this is the 2nd article of the Series “Internal Work”. In this article, I will be discussing what is minimalism in community building and how to apply its principles to a successful operation. You can also subscribe to my newsletter here: https://cbl.beehiiv.com/subscribe

About This Series

This is the first series of Community Building Lab newsletter in 2024, which is titled "Internal Work". This phrase accurately describes the purpose of my upcoming articles, which is about how to apply the principles of minimalism and long-termism with patience to embark on a sustainable community-building journey in China, focusing on and fostering the inside instead of external factors.

Part 1/4 80% of success is just showing up

In the last article, the concept of a "partially commercialized community" was proposed, which many community builders encounter but face resource constraints (time, financial resources, manpower) in the process of sustainable operation of such a community.

So what should be done to achieve sustainable operation? Here, I will share a key idea that is the underlying idea of the entire series: existing is a victory. Kevin Kelly in his book "Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier" mentioned that 99% of success is just being present.

The famous director Woody Allen observed this phenomenon in the entertainment industry, and he once said: "80% of success is just showing up." That is to say, regarding a task you would like to complete if you can consistently show up, your probability of success is 80%.

Once, I came across a philosophical treatise book entitled "The Finite and Infinite Games, a Philosopher's Perspective on Competitive World," which introduced the world's two types of games: Finite games and Infinite games. A finite game, its goal is to win; an infinite game, on the other hand, is intended to keep the game going indefinitely. A finite game has a definite beginning and end, possessing a specific winner, with the rules ensuring the game's conclusion. An infinite game has no definite beginning or end, nor does it have a winner. Its objective is to involve more people in the game itself and thus perpetuate the game.

I have combined these thoughts into my theory of minimalism in community building. If you can treat building a community as an infinite game, putting in consistent effort, and keeping showing up, then your chance of success should be over average, and maybe even much better than ones without these underpinning ideas.

Part 2/4 Chicago’s Epiphany: A Conversation that Changed My Community Operations Thinking

These guiding thoughts became my central strategies. Successful operation is not very flashy but only required me to strip off the skin or superficial layers and focus on the bones or the essential core, which is "minimalism."

In community building, due to initial resource shortages, I was compelled to consider how to streamline operations and identify what were the crucial aspects and which were the insignificant or ignorable ones for the community members.

I gathered inspiration from my previous experience as a tech reporter in Chicago. During that time, I would participate in some entrepreneurship-themed events, covering them in my reports. On one occasion, I registered for the Startup Grind Chicago's interview session, with a ticket price of 10 dollars. On arriving at the venue, I found no door scanners and disheveled tables laid out with pizza and beer. However, as the event began, the hosts engaged deeply in conversation with the guest, Jason Fried, the founder of Basecamp (37signals). Everyone listened carefully to his startup experiences and I came out of the door full of inspiration and rumination.

It was then that it became clear to me that the core of a community is people, and the core of people is honest and meaningful communication. The goal of community work is to create an arena for such exchanges.

From these initial ideas, I determined my community-building strategy and, after 10 years of practice and implementation, built up my own community management principles and methodologies in south China.

In this series, I want to first give people a brief story of my community-building journey. Using my practice of applying minimalism to community building V1 and V2 as examples, I will help people get to know my community-building background and some personal journeys. Then, I will extract the core elements from these applications. Next, I will elaborate on specific strategies based on these core elements, and share some successful solutions and observed patterns. Finally, I will share my ultimate vision as a community builder.

In the next article, I will discuss my community enlightenment in Chicago: the entrepreneurial spirit, collaborative creation, and life; reflecting at my experience as a tech reporter in Chicago before I returned to my home country in 2013. I look back and see the seeds of community building that were planted along the way.

About Community Building Lab CBL

Community Building Lab (CBL) is a brand dedicated to exploring the meaning and value of community building, promoting community's role in innovation ecosystems and good living, sharing sustainable community development methods, and nurturing the next generation of community builders.

CBL aims to reach out to potential beneficiaries such as commercial and non-commercial brand institutions, public sectors, individual interest groups, and novice community managers who may have limited resources (time, manpower, finance, and experience) but are interested in enhancing their community building skills.

The brand seeks to apply the principles of social enterprises in its institutional development, and embraces an open and symbiotic attitude in exploring community building, technology innovation, talent growth, and city living in a wholesome and sustainable manner.

I regularly share my posts in Mandarin Chinese on the WeChat Public Platform (ID: hicommunity) and Linkedin. My WeChat handle is yueyegeng and you can also reach me by email at [email protected]