:: What is community?

by Carole Guevin

Are virtual communities great for business or is it one of those buzz words floating around? Is a successful virtual community a myth? We will find out in our discovery of the virtual community in freedom: to be amongst our own.

1- Buzzwords.

These are the carnival like charlatans that cut purses and throw blinding powder in the eyes of innocent onlookers. Nobody wants to be caught not knowing. Ignorance is the step prior to knowledge. It's a humiliating position no one wants to have to be in. So buzzwords deface and empty knowledge from its substance. It's truth without context - leading to no possible objective interpretation or analysis. It's power words in the hands of commercial predators. It's all over the internet and even in the mouth of trusted counselors. Virtual community is not the new buzzword for "masse critique" - critical mass.

2- Lingo.

The ancient Greek word "koinonia" refers to a group of citizens meeting in a town hall to discuss and vote on civil and urban issues. First characteristic of a koinonia was that its members were getting involved voluntary. They chose to participate and were assembling because the topic, matter or issue of discussion was something that mattered to them "personally" and was going to have a direct impact on themselves, their family, their neighbors and even on the whole town. Being involved was a civil responsibility - nobody was going to blame the mayor for out of hand troubles or unresolved ones. It was part of their upbringing to get involve, share interests and openly discuss sometimes-difficult issues for the greater good of the community.

3- Myth.

Once upon a time after the Arpanet project achieved it's dreadful goal and deemed doom the infant network - scientists who had collaborate in the experiment demanded and refused to have it disbanded. They won and so thrived the primitive international network.

Around 20 years ago in the backstage of the present techno based era was developing the small corpus of research groups laboring between complex lines of programming code and their legitimate branch of science: mathematicians, physicists and engineers we're magnet drawn to the epicenter of a revolution. There were incredible communication possibilities in the ante-browsers years.

Everything was complex, long, slow but also immensely fun and exciting! Just like when the first phone lines were installed - folks didn't mind and couldn't care less to having to pass through a third party who had to manually pass along and set you up with your party or having your conversation eavesdropped... The sheer power of the tool was overshadowing the fears and annoyances. Even the traffic on the "lines" was giving a sense of closeness, belonging to the then lucky citizens. No longer were they isolated in the endless acres of farmland. They were "together" - "connected" by the tool - they had a sense of the "community" they already were belonging to and had met with for years on every other Sundays or while running errands... They felt tremendous joy and power at being able to talk to the others - their isolation was broken.

In our primitive techno lab - the added-value of being capable to be in touch with this great mathematician or physicist at a rate of more than once or twice a year when abstracts were usually swapped between faculties and universities. No longer were time and geography obstacles! This was indeed generating not only campus wide enthusiasm but was permitting a faster circulation of scientific hypothesis, results and problems. So was born the "information era" which, in its giga growth has paved the way for the Internet as most of us as known it and the networked world opportunities.

4- Definitions.

Our definition of virtual community is one that is an extension of the prime directive of the initial networked community. A virtual community communicates, exchanges and collaborates. A virtual community is where:

• we put interests, knowledge and problems in common.
• we share the same goals which would be best described as "I am here today and this is where I'd like to be tomorrow".
• we have this sense of need and humility (this is an important quality) because we all need coaching, tutoring and reprimand at a time or another in order to become our "best" selves.
• with fellow members we share a passion for others, the subject, the media and the outcome.
• we get involved to leverage the expertise of all in order to give professional representation to our field of expertise
• we share openly information, solutions, standards of conduct
• we provide business opportunities! Yes - you want to work and refer and offer leads to fellow members because you value and trust them so much.

Note: the profound sense of community comes from putting the emphasis on the *we/us* versus the *me/me*.

Originally published in Monday Magazine - July 1998

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