What Makes a Community? - For The Interested

What Makes a Community?

“We find ourselves working under a false definition of community — accepting any connection, any conversation, any link as qualification — and we end up with something that looks like a mob or a mass: singular, thin, and gross.”

For all the talk about the importance of building communities around brands or media entities, there’s been little conversation about what it actually means to build a community.

Jeff Jarvis pulls apart the concept and explains, “Community means connecting people intimately and over time to share interests, worldviews, concerns, needs, values, empathy, and action.”

And how do you do that? He’s got some interesting suggestions.