communities

I have been saying for a very, very long time (back in 2001 I wrote a research note for Gartner, and in 2003 Michael Maoz and I spoke about this already at the conferences… and, oh yeah – in the late 1980s when I was moderating Compuserve forums I gave an interview for PCWeek about them – and I am sure there’s more, but you are bored of hearing me say how awesome I am — even though I am) that communities are the end goal for business.

(part I here)

People have aggregated into communities because of shared purposes since time began. A shared cave to avoid getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers. Walled medieval villages to make silk or conduct trade. Suburbs to avoid cities, and cities to avoid the country. Every community in the real world got together, and stayed together (or not) because its residents needed one another to accomplish something(s).

I speak at conferences and company events, and one of my lines always gets a lot of knowing chuckles: “Nobody wakes up in the morning wishing they had a closer relationship with their toothpaste.”

So why are so many brands working so hard (and spending so much money) trying to do just that?

I loved this short film that asked one simple question: "What Does 'Community' Mean To You?". As Maria points out there are some (perhaps expected) universal needs that seem to emerge including proximity and convenience, face to face interaction but the over-riding need seems to be for a sense of belonging.

I'm a few weeks into playing Blizzard Entertainment's "Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty," which is a real-time strategy video game, or "RTS." This is a different genre from role-playing games, or "RPGs," or first-person shooters, which I don't believe need an acronym to label their purpose.

"My biggest asset is not cash — it's a large, growing, devout fanbase," Imogen Heap was quoted as saying recently. She has nigh-on 1.5 million followers of her Twitter feed at the time of writing, and is often held as an example of how engaging with your audience can keep them interested and, as a happy by-product, keep them buying (though as the article makes clear times are tough even for her).

Over the last 18 months, I have had the great honor of serving as a Commissioner on the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities. Today, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we have released our report:

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

What if one of the futures coming after our miracle of the Internet and the madness of our economics is a model of living and investing we last saw about a hundred years ago?

Just change the names, technologies du jour, and consider:

by: John Caddell