Bring In The Social… FinTech Is Getting Wavy!
By Marie Dollé
There's a cultural generalization that talking about money should be taboo, but the reality is that the topic of finance fires up curiosity and conversation. Social dynamics shake up and accentuate interactions around money in younger generations between friends or within communities. Fintech, which has been witnessing this social upheaval in recent years, now offers new community experiences.

We Were Missing the Personal Touch
Shobeir Mazinani
I argue that obsession with personalization is not enough. There are still three missing elements.
The personalization machine doesn’t take the need for positive interactions with a human being into consideration. We are slightly happier when we have a good interaction (I really like your outfit!).
The personalization machine doesn’t prioritize the users’ personal growth. It almost always chooses today’s sales over a long-term return. Take algorithms that try to solve the multi-arm bandit problem. They will prioritize (over time) the option that maximizes the immediate response (open-rates of your email marketing campaign). To be clear, this is not about the algorithm as much as it is about the objectives that we, the data scientists and business owners, set for these machines.
You don’t have a sense of community, so you become a cultist! I hypothesize that one of the reasons that we have seen an increase in the polarization of society is the lack of a true sense of community. While we have connected people more than ever, people are missing out on the benefits of being part of a community.
♣ This week Clubhouse gets its own section!
- Clubhouse’s Inevitability — Stratechery
- Clubhouse Is Suggesting Users Invite Their Drug Dealers and Therapists — One Zero
- In defense of blocking on Clubhouse — Casey Newton
- You’ve been invited to Clubhouse. Your privacy hasn’t. — Vox
- Clubhouse in China: Is the data safe? — Stanford
- EP81: How Clubhouse is Affecting Community w/ UiPath — The Community Corner 🎧
More community articles:
- The Great Unbundling — Anne Helen Petersen
- The terrible task of documenting abuse — Tracy Chou, Block Party
- Online Community Governance: Six Case Studies — Howard Rheingold
- Should I Measure NPS Specifically In My Support Community? — Adrian Speyer
- How to Use Slack Effectively — Sam Corcos
- An Atlanta Neighborhood Will Finally Own Property as a Community—Adina Solomon
- The Signals Research — New Public
- Organising Communities: Identiyfing, connecting and facilitating — Peter Staal, Kirsten Wagenaar 📚
- What Tristan Lombard teaches us about community building — Simon Tomes
- How can we calculate or prove the ROI (Return On Investment) on community? — Carmen Taubman
- The Decade of Internet Communities — Rex Woodbury
- Owned Community Matrix for Creators — Peter Yang
- The Rise of the Community Department — Lisa Xu
- Migrating Our Community from Slack to Discord: Tips & Lessons Learned — Patrick Woods
- Community-Led Growth: The Product-Led Growth Expansion Pack — Corrine Marie Riley
- Supercharging Communities Through Ownership — Ian Vanagas
- The steps to getting your community off to a flying start — Peter Staal
🎧 Podcasts
- Human-Centric Operations and Metrics with Sophia Vargas — CHAOSS
- Building Member Habits and Becoming Indistractible with Nir Eyal — Masters of Community
- Episode 046 - Green fielding, Growth and Maturing Community - What is Your Engagement Strategy — Peers Over Beers
- Online Community Governance: Six Case Studies | Howard Rheingold on Patreon
- How to design engagement triggers for your new community — Wes Kao
- Learning in Public with Anna Gat and Anne-Laure Le Cunff — Venture Stories
⚒️ Tools
- Skool — Like Facebook groups, but better. 🤷🏻♀️
- Virtual Venue by Mixily — Host custom video gatherings right in your website
We are happy to announce our upcoming Community Management Mental Health Training Programme is open for sign-ups. Thank you to everyone involved with @jinglejam 2020 which has enabled us to deliver this training. Register interest here: https://t.co/T7dp4GtBPX - RTs Appreciated. pic.twitter.com/Qxu1S4nnEw
— Safe In Our World™ (we're hiring!) (@SafeInOurWorld) February 10, 2021
I'm all in on creating conversations and relationships.
— Rosie Sherry (@rosiesherry) February 13, 2021
Everything else is a side effect of that.
Lurkers are an important part of any online community.
— Mac Reddin 🦕 (@TheTeaGuns) February 1, 2021
When trying to convert lurkers, I've mostly focused on elevating those who are already participating. Seeing others 'succeed' in the community can be a great motivator to pull a lurker into the conversation. https://t.co/aUI0nJXVMq
What's an online community that has had a profound impact on your life? Even if it no longer exists or you are no longer active. And who managed or facilitated that community helping to create a space that could have such an impact?
— Patrick O'Keefe (@patrickokeefe) February 11, 2021
If you're growing a community quickly, you're usually not growing a community, you're building an audience. Community moves at the speed of trust and relationships. These can't be growth hacked.
— venessapaech (rhymes with cake, she/her) (@venessapaech) February 9, 2021
What will the post-social media era look like?
— Pat (he/him) (@pattimmons_) February 11, 2021
A strong focus on communities that build the communities.
"If the people who sustain your platform are also those who engage with, it you’re incentivized to design for their needs." - @co_matter pic.twitter.com/j5QcrOBSak
« Subscriptions aren’t religion. Too often, people take absolutist approaches. The best way to make money remains lots of different ways. » https://t.co/wqTYyBBwbk
— 👩🏼💻 ... (@MarieDOLLE) February 10, 2021
Community reaches across your entire business. Community isn't marketing.
— Holly Firestone (@hollyfirestone) February 11, 2021
Community isn't support.
Community isn't sales.
Community is community.
Community is EVERYTHING. pic.twitter.com/3RfaGmogDT
I continue to be amazed by how many communities focus on quantity of members and engagements vs depth and quality of relationships. Do we really need more groups to connect on a surface level? Friendships > Connections
— Fabian Pfortmüller (@pforti) February 12, 2021
Working and learning out loud connect us
— Iris Thiele Isip Tan MD, MSc (@endocrine_witch) February 13, 2021
- @hjarche pic.twitter.com/A7Ov82dVvH