Community .. What Community?

Spoiler alert: it's not your Slack workspace

Photo by Marija Zaric on Unsplash

BusinessEngaged is what we call our approach to systems we are building for organisations that are ready for The Age of Engagement. It is a fundamental shift in how businesses connect, operate, and grow.

At the heart of engagement is community.

And that’s where we have a problem.

Because community has been hijacked.

Not suddenly. Not by one bad actor. This is how language always gets killed - slowly, by overuse, by laziness, by marketing departments who needed a word that felt warm and human and didn’t cost anything to say.

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We know this pattern well. At PHI⑊PIN, precision in language isn’t a preference - it’s a principle. Language was one of the core tenets of People First and now in Structured Thought. Words shape how we think. Corrupt the word, corrupt the thinking.

So before we go any further - before we build, before we invite, before we grow .... we need to define exactly what we mean by community and just as importantly, what we don’t.

What does the dictionary say?

Let’s start with Merriam-Webster. 🔗 Their definition opens with:

a unified body of individuals

And then it goes on - and on. Seven sub-definitions under the first sense alone, from people living in a particular area, to a monastic community, to an interacting population of micro-organisms.

It’s not wrong. But a definition that needs seven sub-senses has told you everything and nothing.

I think the second sense gets closer to the feeling people chase:

a state or feeling of caring about and wanting to interact with others in a group

A feeling. Isn’t that what everyone is selling when they say “join our ‘community’.” The feeling. Not the substance.

And that’s the hijack in plain sight.

A Community Is

... people who need each other to succeed. And know it.
... people who recognise each other’s stake in a shared endeavour.
... where an audience knows the presenter - and members know each other.
... not where you go. It’s what you contribute to.

Community Is NOT

... an audience - they might know the presenter; they don’t know each other.
... a mailing list or database - transactional, one-directional; your community are not records.
... a membership - a card doesn’t make you known.
... your users - a relationship with a product, not people.
... your new Slack workspace even if you call it that. A channel is not a covenant.
... a networking event - connections made over coffee don’t create mutual stake.

and it certainly isn’t a room full of people having conversations, thought it might be a starting point.

A Quick Test

Do the members need each other? Not the platform. Not the host. Each other?

If yes - you might have a community.

If no - well then you might have something useful. Just don’t call it community.

The conversations are happening. The commitments are real. If you’re sensing this and already asking these questions, then you don’t need a better system - yet. You need a clearer answer to a simpler one: what are you actually trying to do?

That’s where we start.