In this new media part of the economy, I believe community is the deciding factor for sustained success. Money is pouring into the space, and you and I aren’t seeing much of it. But I think that same money will wash out a lot of the competition, the ones who work to build community will be the ones who stay.
I left 16 years in the telecommunications industry, and yes, on the working level, we all cared about each other. I was remarkably blessed with several years of office environments where backstabbing didn’t happen, or if it did, it just wasn’t all that well rewarded. But on the doing business level, I doubt relationship was a key deciding factor. Nor did it have to be.
But what about in situations where there’s not a lot of money changing hands yet, but that it’s the start of something potentially larger? What about in situations where there’s lots of people just barely making it, but they all have a passion in their belly about where things are going?
I believe strong relationships are the coin of the realm.
Community as Business Driver
I’m fortunate to work with a wide array of people in a given day. Lately, with my focus being heavily in the Video on the Net conference, I’m talking with heads of corporations that have been around for ten years. They’re not large players, but they’ve established their niches very well. They’re out looking to build their name a bit, take credit for the hard work of ten years. They understand (maybe always have, but they surely do now) the value of relationships.
My company, pulvermedia, makes community building their core value. It’s baked into the logo: pulvermedia builds communities. Why? Because the boss found it to be good business to not just go after a quick hit, but instead, to grow the entire ecosystem around what interests him.
But even in my own endeavors, Grasshoper New Media for instance, it was 100% community-built. I reached out and found Kevin Kennedy-Spaien for the Health Hacks Podcast. I found Megin to runGNMParents. I have the Great Big Small Business Show with Becky McCray. And I have Ben Yoskovitz growing my business like an ENGINE!
In Praise of Grassroots
PodCamp was amazing to me. It was a chance for all kinds of people to get together for free and share information. But “free” meant that they had to find their way to Boston (we had LOTS of out of staters and a few out-of-countryers, too), find lodging, and then it was free (if you liked bad sandwiches). But look at the information that exchanged! Look at how many other PodCamps were started! We’ve built a network that still reverberates.
I think the grassroots experience is vital to growing the larger ecosystem of a community. Look at the oft-cited “user-generated video.” Was it yesterday the New York Times posted “2006: Brought to You by… You!”? Well, I went onto YouTube. These people have numbers that Podcasters would salivate over. Some of the “nodes” of YouTubers who are posting regular videoblog-like posts have 24,000 friends and more. Their video clips have hundreds of thousands of views, or millions even. And though these folks aren’t creating episodic content that we like and promote at Network2, it’s quite an incredible number of passionate connections there.
Imagine if someone with 20,000 active viewers put out a call to action. He says, “I REALLY love this new movie, Eragon. You HAVE to go, and then we can post videos about it.” What if that call drives a thousand viewers? Not such a big number, really. But if 600 of them post videos talking about what they liked about Eragon, that’d be 600 free ads circulating in a node with 20,000 fans at the hub, and however many more extrapolated out.
This isn’t long tail. It’s more ideavirus (Seth Godin).
You Like People Like You
I read a tidbit in eWeek magazine a year or so ago saying that Linux was suffering a little under an “image” problem in the enterprise. It seems that the folks most often advocating Linux in corporations were the long-haired sysadmins with beards like Rob Zombie and a hundred buttons on their canvas messenger bags. (Yes, an exaggeration, but that’s the image corporate execs gave about Linux promoters.)
It turns out that execs buy Windows because the people using Windows look like them.
Have you done this? At all? Have you realized a propensity to buy from people who seem to be in your community? Hell yeah. I went to the 2006 Podcast and Portable Media Expo (did anyone else see that Tim renamed this again?) in September, and I could tell almost immediately the vendors I wanted to do business with and the vendors who were there for a buck. I could tell it about certainly folks in the overall crowd, too, but I’ll say that overall, I met really nice, engaged folks.
When I do business, I usually smell three possible types: engaged, passionate people are first. Second are drones doing what they’re paid to do. Last are sharks, in the water for reasons usually dealing with money, but sometimes just because they’re mean. Sharks often land in sales (no offense to my sales friends, I’ll offer). It’s something about Darwin at work.
As such, the folks I do business with are often a little squishy in the middle when it comes to heart. They have strong, absorbant hearts, the kind of people who reach out when their friends need something, the kind who ceaselessly promote the work their friends are doing. These are my types of people, and they’re who make the most sense for me to find when I’m out building community.
Thankfully, the Video on the Net community at large – videobloggers, podcasters, software developers, platform hosts – all seem to be in the category of people I like.
Will I Make the Most Money?
No. Flat out. No. If that’s the goal of doing business, to make the MOST money, there are far easier strategies. Screw your friends. That will make you money in the short term. Lie about what you’re getting. That will net you some cash.
But if you want to keep coming back to the well, go long and get some community built around your business. Look with that lens. Reach out and grow your community, and then work to grow the business around that community. There’s nothing wrong with making money. Please don’t leave the article thinking that. I want EVERYONE to make money. But it can be harvested sustainably versus clearcut. And that, friends, is the work of community.
–Chris Brogan…