My very first job out of college was as a Community Development Coordinator for the residence life program of a large university. My job was to take a dorm full of relative strangers and help them build a community for themselves.
It was challenging and it was FUN! And I’ve been building communities throughout my career ever since. Volunteer communities, organizational communities, sales team communities – all kinds of communities. It isn’t an external “strategy”, it’s just part of who I am and how I operate in the world.
I’m starting look more and more at how it is communities function – mainly because I believe that the more disassociated and confusing and scary our world becomes, the more we CRAVE a community to belong to.
But what is it, exactly, that makes a community remarkable enough that we want to belong to it? And by that I mean, what quality is it that draws us in AND compels to keep coming back?
I have my own ideas about that, but I am extremely interested in your ideas. So, if you feel so inclined, in the comments section below I would love to hear about:
1) A community (online or offline, local or global) that you belong to that you think is remarkable.
2) THE single quality that makes it feel remarkable to you.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with!!!
