Networking. Whatever, everyone does it. Community – great buzzword, but what does it mean? I started talking about it not long ago, but like with geography I’m not sure I really covered it well.
With the Facebook IPO the meaning of community is back on the forefront. Is a community a list of your “friends”? Maybe it’s Facebook or Google+? Is it only something that is technology enabled? Do you have to blog or tweet or podcast to build one? No, it’s about something more. It’s about participation. It’s about disruption.
We call the neighborhoods where we live communities. At the end of the day a community is the place where we spend time and is filled with people we know and work or hang out with on some level. We don’t always get along with our neighbors but we’re probably friendly – maybe there are some we like better than others. Essentially, a community is those people that we actively choose to spend time with because we want to. It’s not something that’s forced on us or we do because it’s our job. Community is that place we go to that IS us. It could be enabled by Facebook or Twitter or the local bar or even a video game group.
If your job is your life and you don’t hang with a community how are you going to build something stronger than just a network?