This week in community building — Issue 91

Dreams of discord

Beyond that, I don’t know. Is a chat room, even a very good one, just another trickle of mild dopamine hits, another social slot machine lined up beside the rest? Or is it an opportunity to make deeper connections, the kind that might be truly generative? (You start chatting with an interesting person on the Dagger Discord, and six months later, you’re building a website together!)

Is it just… a hangout? Nothing more, nothing less?

Community ≠ Marketing: Why We Need Go-to-Community, Not Just Go-to-Market

By Patrick Woods

The upside of community extends beyond just defending one’s position and territory, though. In a world where software is no longer sold, but rather adopted, more companies than ever before are embracing the customers, contributors, and fans they had previously overlooked. But while some of them do recognize the importance of community in their go-to-market (GTM), I’ll go much further here and argue they need a related but distinct competency: go-to-community (GTC).

🌈 Rosieland

• When building community, go narrow and deep
• Develop a rhythm that is right for you and your community
• Start virtual, with a goal to meet in real life
• How Strong Towns is building community
• Joyful spaces to discover together. 💭✨

🕸 Curated from the wonderful web

• May 2021 Weblog: Communities Long Gone — The History of the Web
• Selfish vs. Selfless: Self-Promotion in Communities — Arvid Kahl
• In photos: Communities across nation celebrate Juneteenth — Axios ✊🏿
• Community Used to Be the Default; Now We Have to Seek it Out — Douglas Rushkoff
• Creativity is dead, long live curation — The Sociology of Business
• My New Book Launches Today (it’s about these community skills) — Richard Millington

🗞 News

• Twine raises $3.3M to add networking features to virtual events — TechCrunch
• Co-living startup Habyt closes $24M Series B, merges with Homefully — TechCrunch
• Twitter is eyeing new anti-abuse tools to give users more control over mentions — TechCrunch

🎧 Podcasts & Videos

• The Orbit Model with Patrick Woods — CHAOSS
• Matt Scott on Building Community Through Story Telling — This Must Be The Place
• Accelerating Personal Learning & Building A Vibrant Community — Viral We Grow
• Helping Online Community Members Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis — Community Signal
• Building Communities with Purpose and Integrity with Carrie Melissa Jones — COHERE
• Rosie Sherry: Community building – nowadays! — The Audience Explorer
• Membership Maker - How to Build a Sustainable Membership Business — Membership Maker

🐦 Tweets