Community building thoughts

[gpestana]

• the best thing you can do is to create value. bringing people together is huge value creation.

• a community is made of givers and takers, and that's fine. at the end of the day who puts the effort and energy will become an organic authority, similarly to the ideas of "Advice giving: a subtle way to power" (paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29359627), but applied to community building and sharing.

• community bulding is all about creating experiences for other people and create the ground to bring people together. If anything else, only making people to meet and talk to each other is enough. This should not be underestimated and should work to lower the barrier to start and maintain communities and events. At the end of the day, there is no pressure if the content is not the best or polished: people will appreciate the opportunity for being part of whatever you come up to.

• don't understimate the power of edge effect. bring people from different backgrounds together!

• at the end of the day, the community is as strong as the incentives there are. and for community builders/organizers the incentives are usually to be seen as an expert in some fiels. connector and create a safe space for experimenting.

• having a safe space for experimenting, train and get quick feedback is very important. small communities are safe ground for this to happen.

• want people to be more active? ask for it! and ask why don't they contribute more (e.g. talks, etc..). try to tackle those and help people to get started. hard not to get hooked up after the first talks are given in a safe space ;)