Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.
—Izaak Walton
You made it. We have covered a lot of ground and are now getting into the closing lap.
Writing this book was a rather complicated endeavor. The value, opportunity, and approach to building productive communities is a topic that could span ten books. Heck, it could span one hundred books.
Cherry-picking the most important elements of this journey and assembling them into a pragmatic methodology that can map to many different types of organization—well, let me just say it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. I hope you have felt it was not only worth the price on the back of the book but also worth the time invested in reading it.
If there is something I hope you have picked up throughout these pages, it is that I am a no-BS kind of guy. Here is another piece of no BS: you are only just getting started, and to get good at this you need to immerse yourself in an always-evolving stream of content, methods, and expertise.
The sum total of expertise on this topic is not just contained in these pages. I have taken a throaty whack at assembling what I felt were a key set of ideas and approaches for a primer, but it is essential that you keep on keeping on. We are only as good as the ideas, approaches, and experiences that we are exposed to.
So, as we near the end of our time together in these pages, I want to share some recommendations for not just how to maintain your forward momentum, but also how we can continue to build our relationship too.
WAYS TO KEEP LEARNING
There are five key things you should do to continue learning, growing, and setting you and your team up for the most success in understanding how to build communities:
1. Read this book again. Seriously. It might seem trite, but I mean it. As you read this book the first time, you were taking in a lot of information, the vast majority of which is likely new to you. You may have read it while lying in bed before you nodded off, or on a beach or a busy commuter train. Our brains get distracted and we miss things.
There is a lot of detail in these pages, and rereading will not just help with what did soak in, but it will be a valuable “second scan” for the bits you missed. It will also give you the benefit of reading the earlier parts of the book while knowing more about where we are ultimately getting to. This really does help to seal those principles in your brain.
2. Surround yourself with new ideas. Earlier in my career I made the mistake of thinking I had much of this figured out. Then I quit my job, went and worked somewhere else, and realized there was so, so much I had yet to learn.
Read other books and articles. Find people who have read this book and discuss and debate it with them. Put yourself in a position to expand your understanding of the material I have presented and augment it with new ideas and approaches. Take my methods, hack them, and improve them. This will all help to provide a full complement of material to help you shape your own approach.
3. Interview and ask questions. There are thousands of people out there who have been a part of both successful and unsuccessful communities. If you are new at this, one of the best things you can do is learn from the old (and young!) hands.
Reach out to them, hop on a call, ask them questions, and understand their experiences. Community people love to talk—they will take the call. Tease out the elements of their approach that you can harness in your own work. You are sure to have a number of “aha!” moments in these discussions as elements of the journey become clearer.
4. Test and challenge your assumptions. As you have read through this book, you will have made a series of assumptions. Some of them will be accurate, and some of them won’t. This is perfectly normal.
Convert your assumptions into hypotheses. Test and learn from them. Do you presume social media is a waste of time? Do you think people won’t want to create content for your community? Do you think travel is a waste of money? Do you think you can’t possibly make an annual Big Rocks plan? Treat everything as a test condition, and it will keep your mind open and your feet on the ground.
5. Document, share, and discuss. Throughout this book I have drummed in the importance of openness and transparency in communities. In keeping with this theme, one of the best things you can do is to share your experiences building your community. This can be on a blog, podcast, video, or somewhere else.
Talk about your work, gather further feedback, and continue to evolve. Don’t forget to keep me posted on how you are doing at jono@jonobacon.com. I always love to hear about how my readers are doing!
Be vulnerable. Share what worked and what didn’t. None of us are perfect, myself included. Being vulnerable not only generates respect from the people you work with, but it also invites an opportunity to discuss new approaches and ideas. Encourage your audience to provide their feedback and comments.
KEEP ON KEEPING ON
I will always remember when I first discovered the potential of communities. It was 1998 and my brother Simon had just introduced me to a rather nerdy, quite-unknown-at-the-time computer operating system called Linux. At the time I worked part-time at a bookstore, so I used my staff discount to buy a book about it.
In that book I discovered that Linux, and the broader open-source ecosystem, was built by a global community of mostly volunteers. Sure, the tech was interesting, but it was this global-community-working-together bit that really switched a lightbulb on in my mind.
I decided back then, in my barely pubescent teenage peanut of a brain, that I was going to make it my life’s mission to understand every nuance of how all of this works, and to help other people to see and harness the value of these communities too.
As such, this book is just one component in this mission. I have a raft of additional resources available, and I recommend you head to https://www.jonobacon.com and follow three steps to plug yourself in:
Step 1. Use the Resources. Select Resources in the menu to see a raft of resources that support the content in this book. This includes sample personas, on-ramps, job descriptions, incentives, content ideas, and more.
Step 2. Read the Blog. Click or tap on Blog and be sure to see my articles. Every month I write new content with pragmatic recommendations covering community strategy, incentives, metrics, behavioral economics, tools and platforms, social media, leadership, and more. This book is a firm foundation, and this monthly content will continue to expand and grow your experience and capabilities.
Step 3. Join as a Member. Finally, click or tap on Join and consider signing up as a member. This is entirely free and comes with a raft of benefits such as new material delivered directly to you; exclusive member-only content, events, and opportunities; one-on-one workshops with me; early access to new books and projects; and more.
Importantly, I take care of my members, and I will never spam you or sell your details (people who do this are the barnacles of humanity). This is the best way to always stay up to date and keep developing your skills and experience.
You may also want to follow me on social media:
• Twitter—https://www.twitter.com/jonobacon
• Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/jonobacon
• LinkedIn—https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonobacon
• YouTube—https://www.youtube.com/jonobacon
• Instagram—https://www.instagram.com/jonobacongram/
If you follow me on any of these, be sure to say hi!
Finally, I love to hear from my readers. Drop me a line at jono@jonobacon.com and let me know what you are doing and what you thought of this book.
WORKING TOGETHER
When I started writing this book, one of the main goals that I set out with was to not make it seem like a giant bulging advert for my consulting services. I have read too many business books that do this. Books should be for sharing ideas, experience, and insight, not for shoving commercial ambitions down someone’s throat. I am already embarrassed enough to call myself a consultant (due to so many snake-oil consultants out there). The last thing I wanted to do was to add this book to that turgid pile of pitches masquerading as books.
Being mindful of this though, it would be remiss if I didn’t share a little about how I work with organizations to help them build communities, as some of you might actually find this helpful. So, let me keep this simple, concise, and importantly, reserved to these last few pages of the book. You can safely skip this if you are uninterested.
In a nutshell, I work with clients to help them build communities either wrapped around a public product, service, or platform, or communities within the walls of their organization (often designed to break down silos and improve how their teams work together).
I usually work with my clients to help them build out their community strategy, and mentor and train their team in the execution and delivery of it. I also provide speaking (both corporate and conferences), training, and support. My approach is to not just help an organization put together a strategy but to integrate the skills to do it themselves into their team and make me ultimately irrelevant.
You can find out more about my consulting services by heading to https://www.jonobacon.com/consulting. If you would like to talk more about working together, drop me an email at jono@jonobacon.com.
PEACE OUT
As I write this, at thirty thousand feet on my way from San Francisco to Edinburgh for a business trip, it has been twenty years since I was first exposed to communities. It has subsequently been a twenty-year journey trying to soak up as much as I can about why and how we build powerful, thriving communities. I have worked hard to really understand and sieve the signal from the noise. As with everything, this is a constant journey, but one that is a blast to be on.
Throughout these twenty years I, and many of you, have seen the darker elements of humanity. Despotic regimes, unnecessary conflicts and wars, an increasingly narcissistic online culture, political tensions, etc. It is tempting to turn on the news and question our collective faith in the human condition and whether the potential I have shared in these pages is all just an optimistic pipe dream.
But then I think of Abayomi, our young friend in Africa who I talked about right at the beginning of this book. I think about the rich tapestry of technology, content, experiences, and ideas that have been generated around the world by people working together. I think about the legion of unsung heroes who get up every day to create, mentor, support, and cheerlead the success of others. I think of the thousands of careers that have been forged, the businesses started, and the dreams turned into reality—all because we are more powerful together than as individuals. I see a flip-book in my head of the thousands of people I have met over the years that have grown into the measure of the person they wanted to be because they were bolstered by the community condition.
People are remarkable. We all have an amazing capacity for kindness, counsel, and courage, and when we are surrounded by those with similar traits, we become better. The human condition is not a fearful, angry, divided one. It is a social and supportive one. We thrive together.
This book is dedicated to that condition. When we can dream big and put in place a set of guardrails to make that dream happen, the world is our oyster. That has been my hope for this book. I can’t wait to see what you all come up with!
Best of luck. Let me know how you get on, and let me know if there is anything I can ever help with. I want you all to succeed and thrive, no matter what you are working on. Rock on!