When familiarity leads to rituals, obsession & bad tech decisions
During the Pacific campaign of World War II, Japanese and American forces occupied a wide swath of islands. In an area as vast as the Pacific Ocean, these islands were often the only way to reliably deliver supplies and material to the front lines. Thus these islands were of vital strategic importance to both sides.
Little known to these newcomers was the fact that many of these islands were populated. Often the occupants were primitive tribes that had little to no exposure to such technologically advanced peoples. …
Before you build a community ask yourself these questions
The textbook definition of community is “a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society.”[1] Another useful explanation for defining a community that I often relied upon is:
A group of people with a common interest and shared values.
Given these definitions, what makes your community distinct? What is that common thread that brings people together? Once you bring people together, how do you ensure the community remains healthy and grows? To figure out your community, you need to answer four simple questions: what, who, why, and how?
Normally, you would think to start with “why.” After all, that is what well-known speakers like Simon Sinek talk about.[2] In general, this is true, which I will share the importance of why later on. In my experience though, most communities start with a mini-”why” seeking a “what.” …
Developers don’t like writing docs, what’s the alternative?
I don’t often spend time on Reddit, mostly because doing so sends you down the Internet wormhole. You click one link and all of a sudden, you realize you lost half the day shouting at people being wrong on the Internet. My one indulgence however is to read r/ProgrammingHumor and it was then that I saw this earlier in the week.
No matter how much you try, it can be hard to guide users down the right path. I plead guilty here as I often skip over all the introduction videos, guided tours, and setup wizards. Once I managed to delete my entire website just because I was too anxious to try out a new tool. …
How to spark a movement in an organization
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals or SPCA is a bit of a misnomer. Though they have done great work as a non-profit to improve the general welfare for animals, there has been a darker story behind their public brand. The problem is that they also kill animals.
There are many reasons given for killing animals from population control to illness. Then in 1994, Rich Avanzino and Nathan Winograd led San Francisco in becoming the first no-kill animal shelter. …
How long do you stay the course when results are slow to come
The legendary and infamous professional boxer Mike Tyson once said something to the effect of:
“Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face.”
That is not exactly what he said, but the point was clear. When adversity hits, your best laid plans might not mean too much.
You have two choices. You can scrap your plans altogether and come up with an entirely new plan of action. The other choice is to see where the plan went wrong and tweak it.
When chaos ensues, it sometimes feels as if the best path is to choose the first option. We are experiencing our flight or fight response which senses danger and tells our mind to scrap logic and plans and critical thinking. …
Measure what matters, not what is convenient or comfortable
When money is at stake, people will go to great lengths to get their share. There is nothing nefarious in that desire. We all want our fair compensation for our work, and we all want a fair price for the goods we buy. What happens though when a seemingly positive goals creates the seeds for less desirable behaviors?
In order to promote greater cross-sell of their banking products, one bank promoted the mantra “8 is Great”. This meant that every one of their customers should have eight accounts with the bank. While the mantra had a nice ring to it, realizing this goal was much harder. …
Tuning the levers of software engineering performance
There is an ancient parable out of India about an elephant. It is a story of blind men that, never having come across an elephant, seek one to find out what it is like. Elephants are rather large though, so the blind men spread out to touch the elephant and share their thoughts.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they each share a different perspective. One touches a tusk and thinks an elephant is like a spear. Another touches the trunk and thinks it is like a snake. And so on and so on. All six blind men report a completely different experience.
A non-blind observer off to the side can clearly see it is an elephant. The blind men however, going only by what they feel, insist their perceptions are the correct. Sometimes this parable is shared to describe how different religious traditions experience God, and the analogy has even been extended into the realms of quantum physics and biology. …
Communities need to foster continuous innovation to grow
Launching a community in many ways resembles launching a startup. There are many more unknowns than certainties. There are never enough resources. Getting to product-market fit is a winding journey.
Communities and startups are also similar in one very important way. Steve Blank, the tech startup entrepreneur and godfather of the lean startup movement, coined this definition of startups over a decade ago:
“A startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.”
It also applies to what it takes to build a community from the ground up. You are experimenting, testing, learning, and implementing on a continuous basis so you can reach a repeatable and scalable community. …
Three lessons I learned about my journey building community
My journey into the world of community started from the ashes of a failed tech startup over a decade ago. I was a co-founder of a company launching an enterprise human resource analytics platform during a time when the world’s financial systems were on the brink of collapse.
While the global economy certainly did not help, the problems with my startup were more profound and self-inflicted. I learned some important insights about startups from that failure:
- Tech startups should not outsource their tech.
- Choose your business partners very carefully.
- Networking with founders, investors & advisors is not optional.
I could write a book just about the first two points alone, but the last point speaks directly to the idea of community. Driven by ego and pride, I was exclusively relying upon myself to figure things out. The problem was that I was getting a lot wrong and making critical mistakes along the way. …
Despite a global pandemic, community matters more than ever
I have been writing a book on community called “Community-in-a-Box” and I am getting close to publication. The final edits are in, the proofreading done, and eBook formatting set. I am incredibly excited and nervous to share it with the world later this month.
One question that I have gotten from reviewers is why write about this topic now and why the focus on events? “Community-in-a-Box” is book about the process of launching and growing communities, using events as a catalyst for engagement. …
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