🌅 Here's a little reminder that the world is beautiful.
This issue is sponsored by...
Community is not marketing, revisited
Of course I take any opportunity to re-iterate that community is not marketing. This one is inspired from Seth Godin. 😅
🌶️ Maybe part of the problem of people thinking community is marketing is because marketing can't decide who they want to be?
On creating a community glossary
🌈 In Rosieland I've been doing some work and idea evolving around the concept of glossaries in communities.
I'll admit, it felt a bit boring when I first started on it, but the more I dove in, the more meaning evolved.
Community people as seekers of knowledge
Harold Jarche says knowledge flows at the speed of trust, does that then mean that as community people we need to think about this flow of knowledge and that this likely a huge part of our work?
Is it a community? A forum? Both? Neither?
The discussion (on the Discourse Forum) that keeps happening and never comes with a clear answer. Though I did like the surfacing of this quote from Clay Shirky:
We cannot separate the technological aspects from the social aspects of running a virtual world.
The Radicality of Kindness
I've always tried my best to have a kindness philosophy, Li Kengten dives into it at a point in my life where I've been questioning everything I do...
Recent research shows that kind acts promote well-being for both the giver and the receiver. The same study found that people often underestimate the impact of their acts of kindness on others. This finding is vital to remember because we can feel helpless in the face of suffering in the world, feeling we should be doing more but not knowing what that is.
Communiversities are the missing “third place” of public education
❤️ I just love the concept of communiversities...and of course this is applies not just for adults, but for children too. Especially for those that opt out of traditional schooling.
What is education for and what kind of education do we need? Our answer: We need education-for-community, in-community, and about-community. We need “communiversities”— non-hierarchical, inclusive, public centers of education for the enrichment and advancement of community life. We need wider education as much as, if not more than, we need higher education.
A simple way to empower yourself when you’re power-under
Powering up and coming to face with manipulation is not something we talk about enough in community. This is especially relevant to minorities where we are often over powered by others, finding positive strategies to deal with can help us bring change.
Thanks to Marta Brzosko for putting pen to paper on the topic.
Manipulative questions are sneaky ways to exploit your boundaries. They aren’t always obvious; sometimes, the manipulator takes their time to establish trust first and only then fires uncomfortable questions.
At the same time, this is a clear instance when we can take our power back. As soon as you feel yourself collapsing and uncomfortable with a question, remember that there are more choices at your disposal than simply answering it.
