Comments on: The Secret of Successful Communities

By: Jeff Parks

Jeff Parks — Fri, 01 May 2009 11:44:29 +0000

You’re all a bunch of tools! ;-)

http://jeffparks.ca/index.php/community/youre-all-a-bunch-of-tools/

By: Suzemuse

Suzemuse — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 11:54:23 +0000

@isfan: Ah, I’m not saying the tools aren’t important! However, they are certainly not primary, as some people tend to make them out to be. I agree with you, if not for the tools you would have not reconnected with your family, I would have never reconnected with some friends, and many other opportunities in our lives and our businesses may have been overlooked or missed.

The tools help facilitate the community, that is for sure. But what is it that makes the community exist in the first place? Surely it’s not the tools. Communities are created when like minded people come together for a common goal. That could be a close family, a sports team, activism, or even a social gathering. There are plenty of examples.

The tools do go a long way to help keep the communities strong, diverse and growing. But they do not create or sustain the community. People do.

By: Andrew Moizer

Andrew Moizer — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 03:48:43 +0000

Successful communities revolve (involve) around folks with a shared passion. That passion could be family, geography, religion, cars, maple syrup, back hoes, old construction equipment, technologies, etc. etc.

I’m with Alan that the tools are important, in at least they are tremendous facilitators of communities, especially more “esoteric” ones where geography would/could be a limiting factor.

I’m increasingly reminded that the “death of distance” vision that sounded so “out there” back in the late 80′s when we were pioneering the high capacity transport systems that have become the current “Internet Backbones” has increasingly become “mission accomplished” with the current internet and social networking tools.

I’m tremendously optimistic as to the benefits. Dr. Sylvia Earle (explorer in residence at National Geographic) summed it up best: “with knowing comes caring”.

cheers,
Andrew

By: allan isfan

allan isfan — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:53:34 +0000

Thought provoking as usual Suzemuse but permit me to disagree somewhat.

I think the tools are more important than you seem to be implying. Community takes more than just passionate people with a common interest and strong leadership.

The tools can be an important element for bringing certain communities together that otherwise wouldn’t come together or disintegrate.

Take family as an example. Yvonne and I have family all over Canada and Western and Eastern Europe. If it wasn’t for skype & facebook, we would never connect .. which exactly what happened for many years. Nearly zero contact!

One could argue that the “family” community was there all along but it may as well not have been because if the people in the community don’t interact, calling it a community is perhaps not accurate.

Because of these tools, we have reconnected not just on-line but also off-line in a massive way.

So the tools are important and will allow us to extend our community around the world and possibly change the world. So don’t count web2.0 and social media utilities and all that stuff off … they could save the planet by unifying it.

Or not, and I’m full of it.
@isfan

allan isfan’s last blog post..We Launched Bluesfest ViewTube

By: Brian Schuster

Brian Schuster — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:16:35 +0000

Community... isn't that a strange idea? I think people got old of the idea and then Oprah made it big again with Twitter. I wonder if people will stop caring again... Brian cleverwebtech.com Brian Schuster’s last blog post..Is the Dawn of New Media the End of Worldwide Pandemics?