Communities

A group of people bound by a shared membership — a university, an association, a company — who relate to each other and not only to the organisation. What sets it apart from an audience is that members start the activity.

An audience receives (a newsletter), a network connects but stays latent (LinkedIn) and a community acts: its members help, recommend and build things together. Most organisations have an audience sitting on a network.

There is no minimum. Eighty people who relate to each other are a community; eight thousand who only receive emails are an audience. Size affects the logistics, not the nature.

Because the organisation is designed to broadcast: broadcast tools (email, Excel, WhatsApp), broadcast metrics (open rates, followers) and no place of its own between one event and the next. Communicating more doesn't fix it.

With the first guide, which explains what a professional community is and how to tell whether what you have is one. Then the Feending Method module gives the process for building it in five blocks.