This week in community building — Issue 57

I’m in the Arena and I’m Not Leaving 🦠

by Liz Elam

Tough times in the coworking and COVID world. 😞

I’m a warrior. I’m not going to make foolish decisions, but I’m not going to give up. Like everyone, I’ve battled in my life, personally, professionally and health wise. I didn’t come this far to stop now. When we come back, the coworking world will need us more than ever.

It takes time ⏰

By Pat Walls

A personal story that equally applies to community building.

I’m in Tampa, a new city, and I still want to play tennis regularly. I’m frustrated that I have no one to play with, and finding even one person to play with feels daunting…

But I must remember that it takes time!

I should just focus on finding just one partner, rather than expecting to have what I had in New York.

Start small. One partner at a time. From there, I will build.

Community leaders deserve better: An open letter about community software 🛠

By Li Jin and David Sherry

Our belief is that every niche will form a community around topics of shared passions and learning; during COVID, there is a greater need than ever before for online spaces that facilitate those communities. Yet while the appetite for online communities grows, the accompanying management toolkit still largely misses the mark. At the end of the day, a community platform should have a feature set that accomplishes two key goals: (1) to make the community leader's life easier, and (2) to improve member experience.

I found out the hard way that caring for dying relatives is almost impossible in our society ❤

Emily Kenway, The Guardian

A hard reminder that when building communities we need to think about everyone. But how? 😬

Our social security system treats care as an afterthought, offering an insultingly low carer’s allowance of £67.25 each week. In carer support calls and forums, the topics of conversation are as repetitious as our days: financial distress, depression born of isolation, the stress of juggling care with employment, lack of local services. Superficial sticking plasters like the paltry carer’s allowance or the week of unpaid carer’s leave the government is currently considering don’t solve these deep structural problems.

Things community people deal with 😞

We’ve recently run into a problem with somebody creating a lot of new accounts with racist/heterosexist names, and although they can’t post they can go around and like a bunch of posts to get their names to show up in everyone’s inboxes.

Weavers 🧶

Weaving is a way of life and a state of mind, not a set of actions. It’s about the spirit of caring you bring to each interaction with someone else. It’s a willingness to be open and loving, whether you get anything in return. As humans, we long for honest, deep connection. Weavers make the effort to build those connections and make others feel valued.

More community articles…

• How Spotify Built a Super-Fan Campfire You Probably Haven't Heard Of — Digital Campfire 📺
• Community and Workaholism — YEN.FM
• Sensemaking 101: tips for improving your sensemaking in a time of confusion — Phoebe Tickell
• Connection, Community and Storytelling #12 — Anna McAfee
• Issue #31: Future of Belonging Community
• How lemlist’s community is playing a big part in their rapid growth – Issue 3 —Build With Users
• Attraction rather than promotion! Uncommunity #7
• Online Community — An overview of online communities — Richard Awoyemi
• The power of community and the trap of opt-out — Seth Godin
• How Creating a Community for Helping & Healing Health Issues Grew to 3M+ Members with Mike Porath — Masters of Community 🎧
• Building a Local Sewing Community — Seamwork
• Community Management and Mental Health — Jake McGee & Greg Hyland
• The 5 Elements System of Community Success — Standing on Giants
• OC21: Seeing Possibilities and Creating Your Own Pathway with Andee Chua — Our Community with Anne Morgan 🎧
• Trump's attack on online communities — Danielle
• How Slack Built Their Community Events From Scratch with Elizabeth Kinsey — Masters of Community 🎧
• The introverted community master 🤓Joe Robinson, Designers + Geeks — Get Together 🎧
• EP71: Finding Events That Work During COVID w/ MongoDB — C2C Podcast 🎧
• 17: Minimum Viable Community — In Before The Lock 🎧

🐦 From Twitter