I bumped into this old community framework recently: the pool, hub, web framework.
What's the difference between these three types of communities?
Some communities are pools. Pool communities consist of members that share something in common but don’t connect too deeply. Each member floats around, casually bumping off of other members lazy river-style. For some reason, the Facebook group where people pretend to be ants comes to mind as a pool community. Or Lollapalooza might be a pool community (the 90s ones not the 00s ones).
The problem with pools is you don’t always need them. You can jump in and out with little friction. You don’t get too deep with other members, bonds are there but not super strong. But a good pool serves a purpose.
And some communities are hubs, where members have connections to a central figure or figures. The connection to these central figure(s) is stronger than with one another. I imagine this is what every influencer community looks like, that I think with the right strategy they could become web communities? I also see Clubhouse going down this road, where the people often on the stage get to form stronger bonds and the audience observes.
A web community happens when each member has strong one-to-one relationships with multiple members with similar values, experiences, interests. As a community member forms more and more bonds, the entire network grows in strength. This is my ideal community, I consider this the strongest model. But not all communities need to be web communities.
Are you building a pool, web, or hub community?
