We are not building "good enough".
I know it sounds harsh saying 'not good enough', but we can also look at it as, omg, there is so much untapped potential. This is how I feel. It's not that we haven't tried, it's more that we could and deserve to do so much better.
Having this mindset has helped me care less about the social and community tools out there and double down on what it means to build brick by brick. It has really helped spark my community imagination.
I read something from danah boyd recently.
The idea of acceptance stuck with me.
I have come to accept that the tools of the present are not what many of us hoped they would be, but I continue to struggle with the terms we are using to label these platforms. I think that it’s time that we deprecate the label “social media” and begin to recognize that we are dealing with an era of “parasocial media.” I’m not looking to mourn the loss of online sociality (although I do feel the feels of elder nostalgia). Instead, I want the field to contend with how and why our conversations around governance, inequality, and sociality must evolve to deal with how social media has evolved into an entirely new category. Simply put, this genre of social media is not the same as what prompted the label in the first place. And our tools of analysis need to evolve as a result. — danah boyd
Generally speaking, people are not accepting that social media and community tools in general are not working for us. Partly it's a lack of imagination of what is possible, but imagination is also hard when things feel hard, and you're not in the weeds to see potential solutions.
In some sense, people know it all sucks. They accept it. Which is fair enough, we don't all have the energy to fight battles.
But it made me think about how I ain't accepting it, and the work we've been doing to build better. It was my own acceptance of not being satisfied with what we had that led me to the confidence to build something better.
A couple of years ago I had this holy shit this is not good enough and do I even want this? realisation. This was not only related to what we were building, but also to the way everyone was doing stuff. Honestly, it was close to breaking me, but that's another story.
My nose scrunched up everywhere I looked. I didn't like the smell. Everything, bit, by bit, was being enshittified. But I'm not even sure enshittified is the right word. We lost belief, collectively. The belief that we could build for ourselves. That we could do better. And on top of that, the work lacked meaning. The focus on engagement and metrics over any real progress was everywhere to be seen.
This lack of belief shows up every day when people zombie-fy consumption with social media, or communities without heart. There is no longer a belief that it's worth spending time in the communities we build. People don't even try.
Along with this comes the natural loss of imagination. We can't see a way out. We only see what is being fed to us. Despite the promises and the overglorification, still none of it really helps us as human beings.
It's a real case of hope disappearing. We are sold the idea that community is the answer, but we go seeking it and find nothing. Desperation can creep in, and with that, it's all too easy to freeze and do nothing meaningful. We might show up and do the work, but even then, often it isn't work that actually matters.
I know, I know, it sounds a bit harsh. But at the same time, 2, 3, 4 years ago, I was looking for inspiration to fuel my imagination, and I wasn't finding any.
And then AI entered the room, which threw even more up into the air. I choose to be cautiously optimistic as an adopter, mostly because I'm just an average person trying to build a good business. It's reckless to drop everything and jump on the AI hype train. But recent efficiency gains have been great.
Finding acceptance.
One of the most helpful things for me was to find acceptance that the way things have been is not going to work for what we need for the future. With that acceptance, it felt crazy to realise that we have so much possibility with tech, yet what we have now, is simply quite disappointing.
When I found acceptance, I had no choice but to change. I thought I'd only need to change a few things, but the deeper I went, the more I felt like everything needed to change. It seems acceptance is continuous.
I accepted that things have changed to help us think about how to move forward. Doing things the old way was simply not possible. It would be stupidity to keep going as things were. I have one life to live, and I'm not going to live it doing things that I don't believe in.
I accepted the work that would come. Acceptance on its own is not enough. It's what follows afterwards that most of us won't "succeed" in: it's called THE WORK of rebuilding. Yes, simply do the f*cking work, it's not hustle, it's the invisible work. But also, what crucially gets missed out is figuring out how to have the resources to do the work that actually creates the things we need. And actually, there is much unglamorous work and people who will show entitlement or happily knock you down along the way.
I accepted that I didn't have the answers. That I truly don't know where we'll end up. That I'm not sure how to solve certain problems. That we may not have the solutions. But the solutions will present themselves when the time is right.
I accepted that we can do better. To me, there is no point in doing the work unless we can do better. To do this is to accept we have not yet done enough, that there is still work to do. It means there is untapped potential, which is exciting, for those who love a challenge.
I accepted that it will be an uphill battle. It's been tough. It continues to be so. Some days are better than others.
I accepted that it's worth the investment. Whether we succeed or fail, I've become comfortable with the idea of it not working out. What we achieve, do, learn or become along the way is valid too.
I accepted that people won't see our work, yet. That will take time. We will keep going and trust our daily choices to keep moving things forward.
People say businesses will solve problems say it's because you learn and iterate. This is only a partial view of a very incomplete picture. A big reason why initial efforts don't work is because we lack the imagination of what we could build. It is only when we find the acceptance and do the work, that we understand the intricacies of how the system works. Then, as a consequence, the things we should be building.
It fuels our vision and then our imagination of what we can build.
Perhaps it is this imagination that has fuelled humanity through evolution.
What this actually means for community, is the imagination is becomes innovation. And this is what we need the most right now. And as I like to keep saying these days, the possibilities are beautiful.
