This week in community building — Issue 68

Fractal communities vs the magical bullhorn

By Ben Werd

A broadcast model creates a direct line from anyone with power to everyone. Theoretically, that's a beautiful, democratizing thing; in practice, it turns the protocols and assumptions underlying the broadcast medium itself into the ultimate influencer. Everyone who is trying to reach an audience falls into patterns that they know will improve their reach; they game the algorithms, which are really reflections of the values and ideas of the teams which created them. Influencers like Donald Trump game the minds of engineers and product managers in San Francisco in order to game the world.

College Campuses Are Designed at Human-Scale. Our Cities Can Be Too.

From Strong Towns

There are many reasons why the college environment facilitates relationships and personal connections. Everyone there is at a similar age and stage in life. Classes and majors tend to group students by interests and personality traits. There is also a relative freedom from responsibility. One factor often overlooked, though, is the structure of colleges themselves. Because of their scale and walkability, college campuses meet human social needs in a way that is impossible for many of our nation’s towns and cities.

💡 Tip of the week

Diversify your income. Just because you run a community, it doesn’t mean all money has to come from community specific activities.

More community news:

• How to create an instant-community – Danielle Maveal
• My First Year Building an Online Community — Ronan Mc Guire
• Building Customer Personas with Community by Alex Angel
• How to tackle the monsters holding you back from being a good leader — Fast Company (h/t Jeremy Bonney)
• Vanessa Mason's Building the Future of Belonging at Work event series
• Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds — Adrienne Maree Brown 📚
• Hopin acquires StreamYard — Hopin
• 🟠 #1 Let the Journey Begin | Startup Communities: say "What?" — Francisco Fonseca
• We love this post about creating a community-centered social media strategy by Among Us' Community Director
• Why Has Clubhouse Been Plagued by Trust and Safety Issues? — Community Signal 🎧
• Building the Dream Community Team with Holly Firestone — Masters of Community 🎧
• Realizing a global movement 📣 Colombe Cahen-Salvador, Andrea Venzon & Laura Giani, NOW! — GetTogether 🎧
• What to consider when starting a community — Build With Users
• Why you should organize a community event in Virtual Reality — Alfredo Morresi
• Issue #41: Belonging and Institutions — Future of Belonging
• Meetup Launches Keep Connected Podcast — Meetup 🎧

🛠 Tools

• Passion Economy Stack has gathered resources for Community Leaders and Event Organizers.
• Ghost's Community Builder PDF starter set
• Feels like a good week to share Greater Good Science Center's Bridging Differences Playbook

🐦 Tweets