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Discovery some psychology of communities
theOTHERblog- Psychology of Communities [Newsability] [Bruce Landon: Social Psychology]
Ian Dickson is putting together a community, he wants it to be large, but ran into a few challenges. Here you will find comments and a brief summary of his findings on the psychology of communities.
What is a community?
A community is a group of individuals who have a common interest, purpose, objective, or desire; who work together to reach this future point.
Communities share resources, ideas, and generally help each other relate reach objectives as defined by subgroups in the larger collective.
Individuals in a community can relate to the experiences to others in the same group and often community these points with each other.
Communities are often defined by a trait recognized but not necessarily understood by individuals outside the community, this trait may even be an abstract belief.
Who is the most important person in it?
Individuals in the group are the most important part of a community, their contribution increases community value for others and shapes the outcome created.
Community leaders are facilitators or solutions providers as defined by the individuals in the group, they remain in power as long as they produce value.
Individuals can choose their own lown level of activity or involvement in a community, in turn this influences the amount of value they will receive, and how relevant this value is to them.
Group segmentation is better defined my its members than leaders of the group, use surveys and research to understand key important issues inside a larger group.
Individual desires determine the perception of community value. You can appeal to the group by appealing to individual needs under a common theme.
Other aspects of the psychology of communities: (Key points quoted from Ian Dickson's original work, Psychology in Software)
There is no such thing as an on-line community.
Communities actually comprise of many overlapping subgroups.
Members must, as far as possible, control their community.
experience, relationships and involvement.
Most people are semi detached from their communities most of the time.
Most people are shy about speaking in public.
People do not like to impose.
Real communities have knowledge
People who are silent are important
Established communities are largely self sustaining and self managing
Communities are not isolated, but have relationships and interactions with other communities.
Ian Dickson is the CEO of Commkit, a provider of tools and knowledge necessary for building communities that work. For more papers and articles visit on-line at http://commkit.com/
Very interesting article. I was recently discussing communities with an ex-colleague as he is working on some consulting on developing communities. This article provides some good basic pointers on how to go about setting up a community, although not necessarily the perfect recipe. I think I would challenge the statement that there is no such thing as an online community though. There may be a good argument for this assertion but on its own i disagree. There are extremely vibrant online communities. The blogging community for one.
Posted by Paul Goodison at September 10, 2003 09:45 PM | TrackBack