🗓️ RSVP: Exploring Community Flywheels
This week:
1️⃣ Upcoming community events
2️⃣ Building a Community Tracker in Slack
3️⃣ A community tech stack of four years
4️⃣ Freedom to exit
5️⃣ Building internal alignment
6️⃣ Connection vs. Belonging
7️⃣ How to increase your feelings of belonging in a third place
8️⃣ The community flywheel: Superwave's approach to building communities
9️⃣ Kickstarting Community at: Substack
First up, thanks to our sponsors:
1️⃣ Upcoming community events
- Exploring community flywheels - February 13th - with Rosie Sherry
- Community Onboarding Essentials: Best practices for community onboarding success - February 28th with Gareth Wilson
- Unconference for Discourse Communities - by Jordan Violet / Mia Moore
2️⃣ Building a Community Tracker in Slack
Last week I went down a rabbit hole explaining how I was setting up certain data to be fed into Slack to help us understand our community better. This could support or partly replaces some of your needs for 'community analytics'.
3️⃣ A community tech stack of four years
Hope Kelly shared a screenshot of what a community tech looks like after four years, be sure to show this to anyone who thinks community is easy!
It also seemed like a perfect opportunity for a meme. 😃
4️⃣ Freedom to exit
I'm not sure how well it would work in practice, but I love the idea of 'Freedom to exit'.
Imagine that the communities your participated in meant you could also take your contributions with you.
Imagine if your community contributions could automatically be built up on your own profile or website. So that both the community and yourself benefits?
This is such a big problem with social platforms, we willing post and build up relationships there and then lose out when they make changes that don't align with our needs.
Do you own your data? Here’s an easy test: can you leave and take your data with you?
If you can take your data out, if you can move it from one piece of software to another, then you own your data. If you cannot, if the software can tell you no, then you don’t own your data. Let’s call this quality “freedom to exit”.
Freedom to exit: you can take your data and leave, and no one can tell you no.
5️⃣ Building internal alignment
In this talk from DevRelCon London 2023, Ben discusses the importance of building internal alignment with other teams in order to achieve success. He highlights the challenges faced by DevRel teams in aligning their goals and metrics with those of product, marketing, sales, and engineering teams. Ben emphasizes the need for DevRel teams to understand the company’s objectives and align their efforts accordingly.
6️⃣ Connection vs. Belonging
I love this take on connection vs belonging, plus the podcast version is a fun listen!
7️⃣ How to increase your feelings of belonging in a third place
This piece on third places is great because it puts emphasis on the person to give something back. In a world of community advice where the pressure is often on us as "community leaders" to make things work, it's great to read something that reminds the people (members) that they need to put in the work too.
If you want a coffee shop or pub or library or maker space to feel like a third place TO YOU…. It’s not just about what that places offers you, and what the vibe is when you come in. It’s also about what YOU offer to that place and the people in it.
8️⃣ The community flywheel: Superwave's approach to building communities
I always love geeking out on community flywheels, here's Superwave's take. ❤️
9️⃣ Kickstarting Community at: Substack
One of the best ways to learn about building community is learning through experiences and stories of others. Here's a great deep dive on the Substack community story.
