Afterthoughts

As mentioned in the introduction, a sense of community has four main elements:

1. Membership
2. Influence
3. Fulfilment
4. Shared emotional connection

So far we’ve seen that community provides a sense of belonging to something and the ability to influence and be influenced by each other. And yet, there’s still more.

Why do we form communities in the first place? What draws us together to form a community or to join an existing community?

For starters, reinforcement is a major part of all communities. It’s about creating a sociological structure strong enough to support us as we reach for goals that might otherwise be out of our reach as individuals. Reinforcement is something to lean on, something to connect through, something that ensures the success of our other endeavours.

We join communities because they offer something we want; communities have the potential to satisfy a need (in this case “need” means something valued and desired, not necessarily basic needs like food, water and shelter). You might be after personal reinforcement, knowledge, support, social interaction, or collaboration. Regardless, there’s always something we want to take out of the community to satisfy our own requirements.

One can usually tell by merely observing from the outside whether a community might be able to fulfil a specific need, however, if it were as simple as merely walking in and “taking” what we sought, community would not exist.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which fulfils my purpose for participating in this community! (Ooh, yeah-heh)

There’s something quite interesting about the thought that we join a community to take something away from it so as to satisfy our own needs. What’s interesting is that everyone in the community is doing that — doing so is part of how community is defined — and yet everything we take out must still come from somewhere.

When McMillan returned in 1996 to “update” his definition of the “sense of community” he changed his approach to fulfilment, readdressing it as “creating an economy of social trade”.

This economy of social trade is the engine that keeps a community running. As long as someone is fuelling the machine, someone else can draw from it, and in some cases merely drawing from it will fuel it further. In other words, one must give something to the community in order for it to give back.

A community’s favourite fuel is reinforcement. By contributing to the community, one is reinforcing its value as well as its ability to fulfil the needs of all of its members. Someone may come to a community to have their own views reinforced but for that to happen, they must also reinforce the community.

The more you give to a community, the more you get out of it. However, once your needs are fulfilled, do you stop giving? Generally speaking, a community will reward those who contribute to reinforce their community. The initial reward is the fulfilment of needs. Beyond that, rewards will vary from community to community but typically take the form of improved status within the group, increased success of the community (which can be considered a reward to all members) and also the improved abilities achieved by other members.

The rewards can be plentiful and unexpected. You can join a community to improve your knowledge and skills, and end up developing a new network of contacts. You join a community to make friends, and you end up improving your knowledge and skills. A person joins an online Star Wars fan-fiction community to share ideas and have others assess her stories; some time later she’s marrying a fellow member of that community. Finding love wasn’t a need she was looking to fulfil when she joined the community but, through their commitment to the community and their reinforcement of it, both of them were “rewarded” in a very unexpected way. This is a true story, by the way. I know the couple. They told me this story last year, so I might be wrong on some of the details (it could have been Star Trek or Stargate instead, but it was definitely “star” something).

A community is constantly seeking to fulfil the needs of all of its members, and will do whatever is necessary to make that happen. As each individual in a community is satisfied, so, too, is the community as a whole.

It’s quite fascinating to note that the social structure of community is one that always seeks to grow, enrich and empower itself and its members. Community is a strong positive force. As its members reinforce it further, they can climb ever higher. It is because of this that, once a real community is established, it is nearly impossible to pull apart.

When our participation in a community fulfils our needs, wants or desires, it is one aspect of a sense of community that we’re experiencing.

So, returning to our definition of community, let’s see what we have now that we’ve added fulfilment to the mix:

Community is a group of people who feel they belong to something, can influence and be influenced by one another, and will have their needs fulfilled by fulfilling the needs of the group.

As a whole, that definition could almost be complete… but there’s another element to go: Shared emotional connection

Posted from Greg Lexiphanic | Comment »