Creating Community: The Key to Success

This week I read/watched:

- The Dawn of the Human Network
- How to Build Your Start Up Without Building Code
- Information Liquidity Podcast
- Why the Groundswell and Why Now
- The Internet Before Search Engines
- Star Search

I moved from D.C to Chicago this weekend. As anyone who has moved knows, you tend to need to get rid of a bunch of stuff when moving, only to replace it when you arrive at your new location. We needed to get rid of unnecessary furniture and clothes to make our condo look good when we put it on the market...but now we are in a new apartment and looking to replace what we needed to get rid of before. Because of these recent life developments, this week's readings particularly interested me. As I am doing a lot of online shopping I have become very attuned to the power of crowdsourcing and the online community of consumer participation with online reviews…

The reading “The Dawn of the Human Network” made several points that resonated the wider themes of this week’s readings. As so many of us can attest to in our personal lives, word of mouth advertising affects our purchasing habits more than print ads or commercials we may see. I trust my friends and family more than I trust an ad executive who is trying to entice me to purchase a product. The main difference between my friend and that ad executive is that my friend knows me and understands the type of community I want to belong to. That is what the Jakes understood so well with their company. You must create a community for your product, and make sure it is a community that your target customers actively want to be a part of. I thought it was interesting in the reading when they described Ross Zeitz. The reading described him as running the community, rather than running a certain division of the company. That shows this mindset has been internalized by the company, and that can explain their remarkable success. The “prosumers” are certainly out in force for this company!

The video, The Internet Before Search Engines, made an important point on this topic. It noted that people are often slow to adapt change, even if that change will benefit their lives. Though once online communities were established and once people understood the benefits to the internet, then its usage quickly picked up. The Information Liquidity video pointed out that today the internet is evolving constantly. People and businesses are evolving with it, which is amazing to think how quickly society has picked up on this technology.

Though none of those points are necessarily shocking, there was information in the Star Search podcast that really surprised me. I tend to think that people can be their harshest when they write anonymous posts or reviews. But the point that consumers’ reviews say more about the consumer and their need to feel like an expert, rather than about the actual product, was surprising. But as I read through reviews of particularly mundane products that were mentioned in the podcast, such as paper products, that does seem to be the prevailing trend.

The main take away for me from this week’s reading assignments focused on the importance of community. Even the article “How to Build Your Start Up Without Learning Code” mentioned the importance of letting people tap into your site- which creates community. Once you have created this online presence and consumers want to be a part of the community, then they will advertise for you and you won’t need to spend those resources on traditional forms of marketing.

These readings brought up several questions for me. Since we can now transmit and receive information at the speed of light, how can we improve on this technology? Would the technology change, or would the actual users have to adapt in order to better utilize the technology? I also wondered how far we can use crowd sourcing before it loses its credibility. Right now there is a certain form of legitimacy to it because the hype and reviews are driven by the consumers. But if this community ever feels manipulated by the company, how can this positive force quickly turn into a negative? These will all be interesting developments to look out for as this technology continues to evolve and become more sophisticated.