Communities are like sour dough bread–they need ’starter’
When my partner and I moved to our neighbourhood 15 years ago, our ’sour dough starter’ was a 9-week-old Boxer puppy and our garden. People need a way to open a conversation–a way to break the ice. In an online community, breaking the ice can be more difficult. Blogs are like puppies and gardens.

Doers and watchers/participants and lurkers
In any community, real or virtual, there will be doers and watchers or participants and lurkers. We’ve all been watchers and lurkers at some point … sometimes because we don’t have anything to add and sometimes because we are juggling other issues in life. It’s important to recognize that for any community to thrive, we all have a responsibility to take a turn as a doer/participant.

People come to a community for different reasons
Even though the focus of an online community may be specific, the reason people join may range from mild interest to a passion for the topic. Some folks have lived in my neighbourhood for their entire adult lives … and others are passing through while attending university.

We shouldn’t expect a community to give us everything we need
Different communities meet different needs. The benefit of online community is that we can find multiple communities to meet multiple needs.

Never underestimate the importance of your role in community building
Community building is dependent on community members. YOU are your community… just because you choose to lurk or to watch doesn’t mean that you are not part of/responsible for your community.

Expect disagreement … diversity is a good thing
Whenever people gather, there will be disagreement. How we deal with disagreement is key in any community and especially important in sustaining online community.

We can never really know the impact of our comments, support or information on another community member
I’m always amazed at the unanticipated effect we can have on those around us. Sometimes the simple act of listening or sharing a bit of information can make a profound difference to someone’s day.

Online communities wither quickly without participation
Online communities are like ‘community in a petri dish.’ The life cycle is shorter/faster. Because we can’t see each other, online participation is essential to community survival. Participating can be simple–like short comments or observations via the discussion forum or listserv. You could think of these as ‘bus stop conversations’ with neighbours. Comments on a blog posting might be considered an ‘over the fence garden chat.’ An offer to stop by on Saturday afternoon to help a neighbour paint their porch might be a post with numerous references to relevant resources or sharing a relevant personal experience. In the online world, no participation = no community.

Online communities are another way for humans to connect–but the rules of community-building apply and are perhaps even more important because we can’t rely on visual cues. The role of facilitator is critical in encouraging an environment where lurkers feel comfortable becoming participants.

“As our ancestors evolved to live in groups, the hypothesis goes, they had to make sense of increasingly complex social relationships. Living in a community requires keeping tabs on who the group members are and what they are doing. What better way to spread such information than through storytelling?”

[From "The Secrets of Storytelling: Why We Love a Good Yarn" by Jeremy Hsu Mind & Brain (September 2008)]

I came across this article late last week while folks in our Facilitating Online Communities (FOC08) class discussed the mixing (crashing?) of technology and community. Hsu’s comment about increasingly complex social relationships and the need to keep tabs on community members felt apropos. In the modern world where we have truck-loads of tools to achieve the “keeping tabs” aspects of community, it’s easy to get caught up in the toys and forget the ultimate goal. I love that this course provides an opportunity to create a new community and to explore a truck-load of tools. I think that in a week or two, once we’ve all become more familiar with the assorted tools, the real glue of community–storytelling–will go to work. It’s going to be a fun few months!

As always when we consciously work on our “personal story,” I’m feeling a wonderful sense of anticipation mixed with anxiety. While I’ve always been keenly interested in technology, learning, and community, I confess that the information highway has been roaring past at an unmanageable pace. However, I’m looking forward to learning what I can, meeting a terrifically diverse group of classmates from around the world, and reflecting on the experience … while updating my blog. Stay tuned as information and story collide right here before your eyes. Here we go….