{"id":469,"date":"2013-04-10T07:49:02","date_gmt":"2013-04-10T11:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gutcheckamerica.com\/?p=469"},"modified":"2013-04-10T07:49:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-10T11:49:02","slug":"its-community-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gutcheckamerica.com\/?p=469","title":{"rendered":"It’s Community, Stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don’t care if you’re building the next Ottoman Empire<\/a>, the next killer app or the next killer leveraged buyout, you are doomed to failure if you neglect the concept of building a community.\u00a0 And sometimes, it will be a slow, torturous, decades-before-it-happens failure.<\/p>\n

Steve Case<\/a> knew the value of building community (and he still knows it [link to case foundation]) when he started America Online.\u00a0 Every social media<\/a> platform alive today owes its existence in some way to the precedents set to by AoL<\/a> and other early pioneers–The Source, CompuServe<\/a> and Lotus 1-2-3<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"English:<\/a>

Mitch Kapor (Photo credit: Wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

Say what? Lotus 1-2-3?\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 What Mitch Kapor<\/a>, inventor of Lotus 1-2-3 came to understand early on is that software could generate community.\u00a0 The wonderfully brilliant part of Lotus 1-2-3 was it’s adaptability; it’s ability to become things not yet seen or dreamed of.\u00a0 The way people started using Lotus 1-2-3 in Africa was totally different from how they used it on Wall St.<\/a> And from there a community, natch, a global community<\/a>, rose up around the trading of various spreadsheets for innovative projects that were worlds away from calculating ROI and EBITA<\/a>.\u00a0 (And we all owe Mitch a much bigger collective “thanks” for the part he played in developing communities around software than he’s generally given due.)<\/p>\n

My own CyberWire Dispatch<\/span><\/a><\/span>–the godfather of the blogging movement–was successful because of the community that grew up around it.\u00a0 (And I am forever in the debt of all those CWD readers… bless you a 1,000 times over my friends… )<\/p>\n

Here is a brilliant, pithy, take on what community means<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> from the equally brilliant and pithy Brian Solis, that I’ve snatched from his blog post, “The Five Pillars of New Media Strategy”:<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t just think about social media as an editorial or marketing program. That\u2019s just table stakes.\u00a0 In fact, don\u2019t just limit this to social media at all. This is a chance to rethink the entire engagement strategy and the customer journey. Ultimately, you\u2019re setting the stage for something more meaningful and substantive\u2026the experience<\/a><\/em>. Community isn\u2019t defined by Likes or followers. Those are essentially \u201cin the moment\u201d actions. We\u2019re talking about human beings. Community is much more than belonging to something; it\u2019s about doing something together that makes belonging matter.<\/span> Participate in the communities that you host and also the communities that host the conversations that are important to your business. That\u2019s the secret to earning a lasting affinity the contributes to you becoming a trusted resource.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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