Community building has become a fad, but it rarely achieves the results it promises. I’ve made it a point to understand why communities around the world fail and how to make them resilient in the face of the digital revolution. Noted below are some of the lessons that I’ve learned on building better communities.
1. Start small - target champions
In the first stage of community building, most of the time, people want it to grow quickly. This is often a miscalculation, especially when building new communities.
It takes a ton of time and hard work to grow sustainable, long-lasting communities.
A good way to go about this is to find some early adopters who share the same passion for the community that you are trying to build. They are hard to come by but should be easy to spot due to their sheer enthusiasm.
2. Mentor the champions - let them grow
These champions are full of energy and enthusiasm. As an experienced campaigner, share your experiences and insights with them. A good idea would be to grow the organization around them. Let them take different responsibilities from evangelizing to accounting, so these champions get exposure to every area in community building. This will be of utmost importance when they grow up to be the next leaders.
3. Trust and delegate
The best decision I have made when building communities is trusting the team and delegating work to them. When given the confidence and backing, these individuals outperform expectations at every turn. In addition, this helps to build a strong group of leaders who can grow a community.
4. Time to grow
When the hard work of growing a strong team is done, it's time to scale up. External partnerships are vital at this stage. Always reach out to companies, universities, and existing communities and see how you can collaborate and grow. Most of the time, these organizations are more than happy to help out another tech community. A common mistake is reaching out to only technology organizations.
A good community will always have strong collaborations with organizations and communities outside the tech bubble.
5. It’s all about the community
When communities grow, the founders will have to be comfortable losing most of the power and responsibilities that they had in the early stages. This is especially hard for some community founders to do since their identity is so intertwined with the community. But to ensure the success and the continuity of the organization, it is always vital to give up control and appreciate how the child you made has grown up over time.
6. Continuity
When communities come to a certain stage, the members become complacent. This is often a death knell for any organization. Therefore it is a must to make sure that the community always thinks like a startup.
It is vital to change how the community behaves and the faces behind it at least bi-annually to make sure that the structure is agile and not rigid.
These are some of the lessons I’ve learned by building technology communities across Sri Lanka which have now grown to over 5000 active members. I am always looking forward to ways to improve on things that I’ve done, and you can always reach out to me with your feedback.