where do communities from?

March 31st, 2005

The failings of that community thing is a post made by Jake McKee, who has a very interesting job working for LEGO in community interaction and development.

Jake is musing on a recent post from Common Craft

I think that the biggest reason that “community” failed in circa-1998 was that businesses were using their 1980 business mindsets to approach community. Most community was thought to happen on the corporate Web site, not where the people actually already were (which was rarely on the corporate site). When no one showed up, they assumed that community didn’t work, rather than understanding that like real estate, it’s all about the location, location, location.
I think that we have a better platform (and more importantly the right mindset) for helping to build community now, at least in theory. I think that businesses are starting to understand that they need dedicated people, who understand community, and are willing to go to them, rather than forcing them to come to the corporation.

From corner store to community, is a paradigm shift. And as a very good friend of mine a global marketing director of shall we say a big company said to me today, “You (SMLXL) are trying to break a paradigm and mental model of what marketing is. Not that we mean’t to, it just seemed common sense to us.

We are in a transition stage from industrial mindset to something other and why Tomi and I felt compelled to write our book.

Communities are multifacted – they are good, they are bad and they are ugly, they do not operate by the old rules, they have escaped from the straight jacket of consumerism and therein lies the challenge for companies.

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