By Sonia Simone
Have the past couple of days been driving you nuts (here and on some other blogs you might be following)? All this inside baseball from SOBCon–lots of us Twittering like crazy, mostly for the benefit of the other 130-odd bloggers who were there.
The worst part is, most of us are so exhausted that our notes are terrible. "Brogan said we should care about people! OMG he is such a freaking genius. BRB, I have to go schmooze Brian Clark."
(Note: this is in no way to suggest that Brogan is not a genius.)
There were exceptions, but I’m afraid I wasn’t one of them! I hope my fragments held some value for some of you, at least.
But I did pick up a lot of ideas to riff on, and the heart of SOBCon itself is one of them:
Community Is Fundamental
Community, along with ego and family and mortality, is one of those primal driving forces. If you want to tap into something deep and fundamental in order to deliver your message, community is one of the options.
When we were just starting out as upright monkeys, you kept your tribe solid or you all died. Finding stuff to eat was not so easy, and finding stuff that wanted to eat you was way too easy. We needed an intense bond that kept us connected, even when we wanted to kill each other. Connection was not optional. It’s why we, as a species, are still here.
Creating a community around what you do is still a great way to survive in a hostile landscape. If your customers can form a tribe around your product or service (or church or nonprofit or whatever your particular gig might be), you win. Their loyalty to your tribe can become completely disproportional to the merits of what you have to offer. (cough Apple cough cough).
Tribes Aren’t Indestructible
They can be wrecked by cluelessness, carelessness, shifting priorities. Back in the day, there was a rich collection of tribes on GE’s online forum (GEnie). Gardeners, romance writers, gamers, Forth geeks–you name it, there was a GEnie RoundTable for it. Then one day, GE decided to sell its weirdo little project to a company that couldn’t handle it. Chains were yanked, prices skyrocketed, and eventually GEnie was killed off by a failure to patch it up for Y2K. Bye-bye tribes.
Those of us who were there can tell you that the tribes didn’t die because they weren’t real. They died because tribes are fragile, and (assuming you’re not an Inuit on an ice floe trying to survive the winter) we have other options.
Inside/Outside
As powerful as community can be, it hurts to be on the outside looking in. Inclusion feels safe and natural. We find our little monkey place in the community, and that feels right. Exclusion feels dangerous and wrong. There is no hatred like the hatred of the monkey who feels she’s been shut out.
If you build a community for any reason, you owe it to them to figure out how you will keep the infrastucture going. And you owe it to yourself to figure out–early–who you’ll bring in and who you will keep out. There are many excellent reasons to put up some boundaries (ever been in an AOL chat room?), but you also have to realize it’s going to be acutely painful to someone.
While I’ve been monkeying around with my blogger pal tribe, I hope I haven’t done so to the exclusion of the community that’s grown up around this blog. I’ve just been on vacation one tribe over.
They’re nice folks, thank you all for indulging my postcards. The weather was beautiful, wish you’d been there.
The funny thing about the blog tribes is that people are always wandering by, checking them out and wanting to join (or not). The boundaries, in one sense, are very porous.
I’m very glad that SOBCon was a nice place to be. I really value the friendliness and helpfulness of the blogosphere.
I found your posts to be very inclusive – probably in part because you’re a very good writer, and good writers can really bring you “into the room.” So thank. About tribes falling apart, it’s so true. I was part of a 3000 member BB related to a small region, based on a yahoo group. One strange morning the whole group and its branches were gone. Poof. The talk site, the reader site, the personal site, all gone. The strangest sensation I’ve had online. It got rebuilt, and there were wars among the rebuilders. Oh, all so human. So goofy and human. Good advice, take care with what you are building. Thanks Sonia!
I like your tribe observations. Bloggers to run in packs and there are definately some status issues.
BTW–It was a pleasure cursing like a sailor with you on video (and at Naomi). If that’s not community, then I don’t know what is.
I’m not a genius? Sniffle.
I know just what you mean. Whenever I’m moved to take notes, I find myself staring at them later, wondering just what the circle with the three exclamation points means. One of my notes said, “Sonia is even cooler in RL.” That one makes sense, still.
: )
Oh, Chris, you are just trying to make me blush. Dang you.
And pay attention, dear one, I actually said you were a genius, tho no one would know it from our shards of notes. 🙂
Yes, exactly on the circle with three exclamation points. Sort of a Flowers for Algernon moment. I was so smart for a minute there, but now I can’t remember any of it . . .
@Evan, I think that’s very true, about the porosity of the blogging world. Mostly, you show up and start contributing, and make your place that way. It’s pretty cool.
“If you build a community for any reason, you owe it to them to figure out how you will keep the infrastucture going. And you owe it to yourself to figure out–early–who you’ll bring in and who you will keep out.”
Thanks for that Sonia – I’ll be chewing on it for a while.
And it was great to meet you at SOBCon08!
Communities and tribes are also dangerous, particularly in business. They tend to talk to each other too much, lose track of the outside world, think alike, and believe everyone is like them. If you’re a marketer, this can be fatal.
SOBcon tribal ripple is palpable.. 🙂 Big good stuff. Sympathetic monkey dance here…..:)
It was great to meet you at SOB Con. It’s interesting to meet the bloggers I’ve been collaborating with / following for a while: on the one hand, I feel there’s a little clique amongst us, but on the other it reminds me that bloggers are just like everyone else (only a bit more verbose).
As my blog grows, it’s interesting to feel the difference between random commenters and those who I’ve known in the real world. It’s just good to be cognizant of all this stuff so that the mentality never becomes US and THEM–or inside vs outside the tribe.
Many of the great bloggers posting from SOBcon walked the fine line of making a visitor like me feel included (or the other excellent way to make me feel welcome without excluding anyone was the video you guys did and IttyBiz posted — !)
You’re walkin’ the talk, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by us those of us who are neither insiders nor outsiders — just neighbors.
Thanks.
Hey Sonia,
I’ve just been monkeying around the blogosphere and happened to swing across your site.
Your observations on tribes are brilliant – there’s nothing more frustrating than being excluded from the ‘in’ group, yet it also feels great to be in that group.
Yet community is so important too…
You’ve set me off thinking.
“If your customers can form a tribe around your product or service (or church or nonprofit or whatever your particular gig might be), you win.”
Yes, true, without a doubt love it. This is why I find the relationship to be so important. It’s not about business, marketing or money. It’s about relationships. Businesses get built because of the relationships they build with their audience and their peers. Sure, there’s other factors as well. But, especially for small business owners, making the strategy about relationships will at least offer a chance for success. The rest is about communications and sweat.
And, I can over simplify things from time to time.
Really enjoyed hanging out Friday by the way. Wish I had that sort of quality time with everyone. Wasn’t Carmine’s great?
Dawud, that was great, wasn’t it? Made me glad to have come in a little earlier than I strictly had to. (To bring the rest up to speed, Dawud & Chris Garrett and I had a wonderful afternoon wandering around looking for a lunch spot, and finding a little place that was just right.)
Conferences are great, but there’s usually too little time to just hang out a few at a time. I had a fantastic coffee with Communicatrix, as well.
Great post Sonia. I think that’s the draw of social media, the ability to create our own community that isn’t bound by geography, class, or other typical demographics. I think over the last 50 years we’ve moved from community as neighborhood, to community as job, to now community as online networks.
Cheers