Alas, I am not the only one in "comms" -- we'll visit that corrupt, truncated word in the future -- who enjoys writing about the dumb words, phrases, and cliches that dominate our working lives. Over the past year, the overuse of the word community has aroused an unusual amount of contempt. My favorite ranters on this subject: Mike Manuel, Tara Hunt, and Tom Foremski, who has asked the comms world to "kill the sacred cow of 'community' and reveal the hidden commercialism." The trouble that many people have with the word community is that it appears to be a whitewash; marketing consultants love the word community because it's a feel-good term that masks the real interests (might make you feel bad) of their clients.
I sympathize with Tom, Tara, and Mike. But I'm not convinced that whitewashing is the cause of this lexical epidemic. Believe me -- I am usually among the first of my peers to sniff out a secret or unconscious desire to manipulate a word to meet the needs of marketing (watch out!). In fact, that's what this column is set up to do. But if you troll and tramp about the various neighborhoods where this word is getting play, I think you'll find that community has become a catch-all for all the various group experiments that are in great need for a general name; if there is an unconscious reason for using the word community so wantonly, it is probably benign. We -- in the comms world -- have been so preoccupied with communication in the post-blogging world that we cannot help but want to reify what we talk about. Community is communication made tangible. And we need things that are tangible, even if we haven't found the right words yet.
But even this insider perspective begs the question -- is it right to use the word community when in fact we might be talking about something else? Here's a simple set of rules you can follow before you commit to using the c word in public:
(1) First -- ask: "whose interests are being served?" The defining element of all communities is the "shared interest." But it's also the defining element of most groups, and as critics of the word community have noted, not all groups are communities. Communities have something else. But how do you divine that something else?
(2) Second -- determine whether the group in question has been formed around shared group interests, shared self-interests, or a third party who shares your interests. The distinctions are important.
Take the first -- a group that has been formed around shared group interests. We are all familiar with these types of groups; they are the kind that immediately come to mind when normal people say community (at least until Web 2.0 came along). The defining thing about these groups is that, ostensibly, they exist to benefit the cause that brings the group together. By coming together, of course, the group also benefits the individual people in the group, but only insofar as they are members of the group.
That differs subtly from groups that are more directed toward serving self interest. Good examples of groups in this category include MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites, where the environment is designed to support the social needs (personal or professional) of its members. To the untrained ear, the word community may sound permissible in this context, but it ought to sound strained. I am not suggesting that true communities do not serve self interest. As many students of social networks have noted, you cannot expect to build a sustainable community wihout suppporting self-interest. But if that's all there was, the word community would be meaningless. Go ahead and use the word in this context, if you must. But be prepared; you are likely to get an odd look from a smart colleague.
Finally we have groups that have been formed by a third party who shares your interests. Good examples of groups like this are the recent initiatives at Yahoo! and Dell to collect Digg-like consumer feedback to help them design better products and services. We can expect to see many more of these experiments, for they represent what may be the next big thing in social media -- co-creation, a subject that Patricia Seybold nicely explores in her latest book. But it's more than a stretch to call this kind of group a community; it's way off. The host might ultimately serve the interests of the group it has pulled together. But the group has been pulled together at the behest of the host, and it is the interests of the host -- at least in the short term -- that are being served.
(3) Third -- follow the links. In All the President's Men, Deep Throat urged the reporters at The Washington Post to "follow the money"; it was the best clue to solving the case. Deciding whose interests are being served -- and whether it makes sense to use the word community -- can be a tricky thing, because in reality, most successful group experiments on the Web involve an intermingling of self, group and third-party interests. But if you have the skill and the time, see if you can follow the links of communication between the various constituents of the group. If the links between people are many and frequent, perhaps it's OK to call the group a community. But if the links point mostly to the host, then it would be hard to call the group a community (not with a straight face).
Not that there's anything wrong with groups like this. As I said, they are probably the next big thing in social media. But words used imprecisely, or ambiguously, can lead to unpleasant results (recall the "To Serve Man" episode of The Twilight Zone; there are at least two ways that you can be "served"), and it would be wrong to imply that a group's interests are being served if they are not.
NEXT ON OFFICE TALK: "GOOD PROBLEMS TO HAVE"
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[Photo Credit: From "To Serve Man." This image is a screenshot from a copyrighted film, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the studio which produced the film, and possibly also by any actors appearing in the screenshot. It is believed that the use of a limited number of web-resolution screenshots for identification and critical commentary on the film and its contents qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.]
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