This week in community building — Issue 76

Building community and Rosieland in public

By Rosie Sherry

This week I announced my leaving Indie Hackers. Honestly, leaving a community comes with all kinds of grief, so it's been a real tough decision to make. I will write something about this soon. ??

As part of this I'm doubling down even further into the world of community building. Part of this is Rosieland, which is now a very beta community with a focus on being a community digital garden. I'm building up my confidence in being as open as I can about the things I'm working on.

Another part is the community building course we are starting later this month. We've had 60 people sign up so far, which I'm pretty pleased about tbh!

There are other things I'm planning, which I'll soon reveal. It's most definitely one step and day at a time right now! ??

Technical Community Builder is the Hottest New Job in Tech

By swyx

There's a big shift going on in how developer tools companies approach their userbase. In the past week alone, I've had 3 chats with startups that all concluded with some version of:

"By the way, we're really looking to ramp up our community effort right now. If you can think of anyone who can help us build a developer community, can you send them my way?"

One week, three pings. If this isn't a big trend already, it's at least worth writing about (per my Three Strikes rule). Who builds developer communities, why are companies investing in them, and why now?

How to Build a Community: Starting with "why?"

By Claire Carroll

Often folks end up in my inbox because their CEO has heard that community building is the latest hotness, and they’re scrambling to figure out what that means, and how they should do this.

My first question is always “why do you want to build a community?”.

Why Executives Should Care About Internet Communities

By Ian Vanagas

Communities are opportunities for executives to better understand their people and industry, as well as to educate and share messages. Key people pay attention to and are influenced by them. Executives who do the same create a better knowledge of what their employees, customers, and other stakeholders actually care about. In the long run, it helps protect their company’s reputation and build better offerings.

?? This week in articles

• Re-emergence & Community (and a new series of cohere open sessions) — Bill Johnston
• The unbundling of events — Brian Morrissey
• NFTs and A Thousand True Fans — C Dixon
• Product & Community — Alexandra, Program Manager @ Google
• Issue #48: Belonging and Trauma — Future of Belonging
• ?? #8 Community Manager DNA? — Francisco Fonseca
• Creatively encouraging community identity — Carmen Taubman
• Are NFTs a perfect tool for community building? — James Bohrman
• "Schitt's Creek" & Local Economic Power — Strong Towns
• Publishers Are Beginning to Think About Post-Covid Events — A Media Operator
• Don’t call it a community — Alison James
• Community design as an approach: 4 main project areas — Marta Mainieri
• We Increased Our Community Engagement By 400% In 6 Months — Indie Media Club
• Pay Community Managers More — Ted Bauer

?? News

• TikTok calls in outside help with content moderation in Europe — TechCrunch
• Community marketing faces challenges as isolation amplifies consumer frustrations — Marketing Dive
• The Pandemic Nearly Shuttered My Church. Technology Saved It — Wired
• Investing in Hopin — a16z ....what a year for them, Hopin have raised $400m! ??
• Tesla has closed its forums to launch a social platform and fans are not happy — TechCrunch

?? Podcasts 

• Go Charlie ?? Building and Growing a Side Hustle to $1.8k MRR with Charlie Ward — Growth Today
• Having a paid community can lead to better outcome & member experience, Emily & Tom from Propel — Uncommunity
• Paid Communities - what members are happy to pay for? — The Post-Facebook Communities
• #193 – How to Earn 100 True Fans and Your Financial Independence with Jay Clouse — Indie Hackers ?? 29: Post, vote, comment, ask a question, answer a question, or attend a user group — In Before the Lock
• Episode 049 - Community Moderation, Content Quality and Community as a Support Pillar — Peers Over Beers
• EP84: Empowering Your Community Post-Acquisition w/ Marketo — The Community Corner
• How Nextdoor Scaled Community to 268,000 Neighborhoods with Sarah Leary — Masters of Community

?? Tools & Resources

• Creating a Compelling Community Value Narrative — Structure3c
• Conversation Menus — School of LIfe
• Dots — Improve your community's engagement