Tag Archives: purpose

Conversation with Gina Bianchini (Part 1)

Posted on by
Reply

This is the first of two parts of a conversation I had with Gina Bianchini. Gina is CEO and Co-Founder (with Mark Andreessen) of Ning.

Ning is a social platform that enables people to form communities of interests and passions. Well, you’ll see what it is and why Gina thinks it’s different from other platforms in this conversation…

This part covers why Ning was founded, what makes it different from other social platforms and what defines a successful Network.

The next (to be posted in a few days) will cover the evolution of Ning, it’s next significant development, what social platforms will be around in five years time and what Network Creators need to do to ensure success.

Douglas: Gina, why did you start Ning?

Gina: We started Ning with a simple premise: what if we gave everyone the opportunity to create their own unique social experiences online?

We saw early on that the native behavior on the web – or what people wanted to do on the web differently from any other medium before it – was connect people with other people. Looking at eBay, Craigslist, chat and discussion boards, it was clear to us that people wanted to connect and engage online in a fundamentally social way that the Internet and no other media type enabled.

With this as our foundation, we sought to create a social platform for people to create rich, immersive social experiences for the things they cared about the most.

Ning vs. other Social Platforms

Douglas: So what distinguishes Ning from other social networking sites?

Gina: We are focused on enabling unique social experiences for people’s interests and passions.

The fascinating thing about how social technology platforms are evolving today is that each social platform focuses in on a specific area of the human experience. It’s a bit like the five families actually. You have Facebook for connecting you to people you already know; Twitter for news and real-time events; Linked In for your professional identity and Ning is designed for meeting new people around your interests and passions.

For example, the IAVA (The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America) has created a private social network on Ning for returning veterans to be able to find and talk to other returning veterans in a safe place and share their experiences.

Or TuDiabetes (http://tudiabetes.com), which has over 10,000 members touched by diabetes who are there to dive deep and build strong relationships online with others affected via videos, blogs and discussions around topics critical to living with diabetes.

From the politically important to the emotionally critical, Ning is the broadest platform for unique social experiences on the Internet today.

Douglas: So do you think online relationships based around a passion or a need are inherently stronger than, say, those that are on Facebook?

Gina: I don’t know if they’re stronger, they are just different. There will always be a place for you to have a relationship with the people with whom you grew up or went to college. That is one of the things that makes Facebook special.

I think relationships built around interests and passions are typically about meeting new people who have a shared love or identity to you. Where you can’t control where you are born or who you went to school with, what you care about – your favorite music, your critical causes, the reason you get out of bed in the morning – is what makes you uniquely you.

Connecting people around the things they care about requires a different approach than Facebook or Twitter, which are really set up for a different purpose. Interests and passions require context for that particular topic and the ability to go deeper with a smaller set of people filtered for the truly engaged.

Douglas: I agree.  I was talking about this to Linda Stone. We discussed what needs were being satisfied by which social networks.  Twitter versus Facebook versus Ning versus Meetup and so on. The only two that lean into the passion/interest/ cause/needs area effectively are Ning and Meetup.  Except there’s a fundamental difference between the two. Ning is enabling people to cluster around these things online…not necessarily anchored by geography. Meetup is at the intersection of passions and local.

Gina: Yeah.  I think they’re very complementary actually.

Douglas: I do too.
So here’s another big question.  What is community exactly?

What is Community?

Gina: A community has historically been defined as a group of people organized around common values and social cohesion within a shared geographical location.

With the Internet, you don’t need the geographical location, so the opportunity for community has increased exponentially with the types of communities expanding in ways that have no analog in the real world. From offbeat brides to steampunk aficionados, entirely new communities can emerge in minutes around interests that may only exist or be possible in an online world.

Ingredients of a successful Network

Douglas: What constitutes a successful Ning Network?  What are the ingredients?

Gina: Our successful Ning Networks share one thing in common and that’s “The Hook.” Regardless of topic, category, or member base, when a Ning Network has a Hook you know immediately what the social network is about, who it targets, why you should be there, and whether you belong in this contextual world.

How is the Hook communicated? The Hook is communicated via the name of the social network, the brand, the visual design, the features, and the layout. From these small sets of levers, we’ve seen tremendous diversity in the rich, immersive social experiences on Ning.

For example, when you show up at the Offbeat Bride Tribe, it’s got a Goth boot – like a Doc Marten boot – under a wedding dress.  In a split second, you know this Ning Network is about brides who want a wedding that doesn’t conform to the traditional.

Or Lost Zombies, which is a Ning Network creating a crowd-sourced documentary of people who are contributing themselves as the majority of the zombie army.  You immediately know when you’re on it that it’s about zombies: the look and feel, the photos, the videos and overall design tells you immediately what it is about.

These different Ning Networks are really clear about why they exist and why you should join them. They make their case immediately when you first land on the homepage and it goes from there.

Difference

Douglas: One of the things I wrote about in the Culting book is the ‘Four D’s of Difference’. It’s about how effective communities must communicate their difference to potential recruits. Everyone is trying to find their tribe.  We have a profound human need to be amongst ‘like-others’.  The successful cult-like communities…the ones that generate enormous stickiness…are the ones that telegraph their difference to those that are the most likely ‘match’. They say: “you’re different and we’re different in the same way… so come on in.”

Gina: Exactly.

Douglas: And they can do this in a number of ways.  But they absolutely must declare their purpose very clearly.  It could be in a Manifesto. By the way the membership behaves, maybe how they dress, the design of the site, the church, the meeting place, how they talk to each other.

And what’s equally important is to communicate not just to those who could belong but also to those who shouldn’t.  It needs to say, “Hey, you’re not like us. That’s cool but you probably don’t belong here so find the place where you do and you’ll be more comfortable”.

In other words you need to be very clear about who you’re appealing to and who you are not. And be very clear about what you get, and what you don’t if you join.

Gina: Absolutely. And I think that that’s going to get more and more obvious as we move forward.

Douglas: Why?

Gina: Because people are becoming more sophisticated in how they use social technologies and, especially, how and where they define what they stand for and who they want to stand with online.

If people want to be one of many in a rigid, uniform social network, they have that option with where social networks have been, not where they are going.

As the number of options for social experiences continues to grow exponentially, social experiences must both be unique and interesting, but they also must telegraph who belongs and who doesn’t. And they need to do it quickly and effectively on the first impression or they may not get another chance.

We see this playing out everyday across hundreds of thousands of active Ning Networks and it’s absolutely critical in separating out the successful from those that merely exist.

Gating and Culling #3: How?

Posted on by
2

We’ve covered Why and Who you should reject and eject in the previous two posts. Now we’ll talk about the difficult job of how to do it.

In the case of culling, the general rule here is respectfully, kindly and keeping the rest of the community informed about why the person is removed.  In the case of rejecting a potential member, again, respectfully and explaining why.

Those are the general rules. Here are some specific tools you can use to ensure you get and keep the right members, and lose and reject the wrong ones.

  1. Use your Mission/Worldview/Creed/Ideology/Purpose/Values
  2. Have Rules and use them consistently and fairly
  3. Approve Membership
  4. Use a ‘Cultural Sieve’
  5. Have a Like-get-Like Strategy
  6. Accountability. Self-Policing. Transparency
  7. Charge a Fee.
  8. Have Courage and Be Kind…and don’t let it get you down.

In this post I’ll talk about the first. In the next two posts, I’ll cover the rest.

1.  Use your Mission/Worldview/Creed/Ideology/Purpose…whatever you call your founding idea and values.

During the very early days the founder of Ebay, Pierre Omidyar, wrote over a weekend what amounted to be the community’s ideology. Its origin was frustration. He found himself sucked into refereeing disputes between buyers and sellers that took valuable time away from building the site. He wrote what he believed the ebay community should value, implicitly who belonged and who didn’t, how to behave and what constituted infringement.

‘eBay is a community that encourages open and honest communication among all its members. Our community is guided by five fundamental values:

* We believe people are basically good.

* We believe everyone has something to contribute.

* We believe that an honest, open environment can bring out the best in people.

* We recognize and respect everyone as a unique individual.

* We encourage you to treat others the way you want to be treated.

eBay is firmly committed to these principles. And we believe that community members should also honor them—whether buying, selling, or chatting with eBay friends.’

Note he describes ebay as a community, not a marketplace , and he articulates several of the classic norms of community behavior, including reciprocity.

Ebay’s business model only works if there’s a republic of trust (at least before the advent of PayPal). The buyer has to trust that the seller’s item is as advertised, and that it will be shipped. The seller has to trust that they’ll get payed.

Interestingly, social trust is used by most sociologists as the key measure of social capital in any neighborhood or society (social capital is a concept that is used to measure the number and quality of social connections and interactions within any society or network).

It was therefore critical to elevate trust as the social currency of the community. The truly brilliant innovation (that removed Pierre’s need for direct involvement in disputes) is that he ‘operationalized’ the ideology by creating one of the first and most effective reputation engines. Members could rate each other according to how much they trusted each other after each transaction. You could attract more transactions as you improved your trust-based status.

In effect, he put a value on good citizenship.

Several of the eBay-ers I interviewed even viewed their rating within the eBay community as a badge of rectitude within the larger culture. There’s no reason not to. It mirrors Judeo-Christian doctrine…but with a metric attached!

The purpose of a purpose

One of the benefits of having a coherent vision, values, and code of behavior is that it is a template that allows fast decision making about who to reject and eject (among other things). Do they buy into the goals of the group? Do they share the same values? Did they infringe the contracted standards of behavior?

Not only does it make for faster decision-making, it makes for buy-in by the rest of the community to your decision. You can point to the ideology and say “they weren’t living it”. And you can use it to have a less subjective conversation with the person you’re rejecting or ejecting: “this is the contract we all live by. You broke it here, here and here”.

Using the Purpose as a measure for membership

This is exactly what Cheryl, who runs the Queens County Parents Autism Coalition, Inc. Meetup Group used to cull passengers and flakes from her group.

This, plus a retelling of the moving story of why she started the group became standard against which compliance would be assessed.

For Cheryl, flakes and passengers were a big issue. Passivity wasn’t just an annoyance. It couldn’t be tolerated for the reasons mentioned in an earlier post in this series: it undermined the purpose of the group because value was only generated by the degree to which members shared knowledge and practical help. And in particular, it eroded the morale and energy of those valuable members who did share information and help.

Cheryl sent out an email that essentially blew the whistle:

”Major changes are coming to QCPAC where some members will stay, some will leave, and most will be removed. These changes are necessary in order to align members with the mission of QCPAC. Up until now we have only had a handful of contributors. QCPAC is a community not just a resource. We cannot display “autism awareness and support” proudly if we don’t walk the walk.”

She had two meetings (on a weeknight and weekend to ensure everyone could come) and solicited input to a proposed a ‘terms of use’ for membership. “It’s like a contract a guess. It says what we’re going to do and what we expect them to do in response and they have to sign it. And if they don’t’ we have to remove them.”

Cheryl and her team modified the mission of the group to be more explicit about the fact that it was a community, and that it was dependent on the contributions and passion of its members for it to work: ‘Members of this community are immensely dedicated, passionate, and involved as one community in the vision that their child deserves a place in this world. We welcome new members who will be just as dedicated and involved’

There were three basic expectations or rules. Even the most vociferous objectors in the meetings (who, interestingly, were the ones who contributed the least) had to admit they were fair:

  • Attendance. Members had to show up. The basic minimum was six events a year (not unreasonable given that Cheryl organized an average of four per month)
  • Participation. Members had to post on the boards at least once a week. The boards were a key source of facts and practical help. If you didn’t share your knowledge and support, then the group couldn’t fulfill its mission.
  • Membership Fees. The people who administer the non-profit are volunteers. No-one receives a salary. But basic costs needed to be covered so the group charges an annual fee of $40.

Some said they couldn’t comply and would return when they could. One woman said that she was offended that she was being treated this way, to which Cheryl responded by saying that she was offended at the way she had been treated all these years:

“We’re just like you. If anyone should be offended it should be us. We’re mothers like you, we don’t get paid. We’ve been doing this for 3 years. We want this organization to move forward, and we can’t do that if everybody’s not on the same page.”

Cheryl’s speech with which she kicked of each meeting is worth reading in full. For an amateur organizer, I think she handled the situation in a very professional way. I’ve reprinted it with her permission at the end of this post.

All of this happened a few months ago, so Cheryl is still assessing whether it worked. But so far she is pleased. The membership numbers are more or less the same, but the population of the group is now more engaged.

The restatement of the Vision and values crystallized to members and non-members alike the benefits and costs of membership. It articulated the expectations of behavior and essentially asked you if you were up for them. It was clear about who should belong, and who shouldn’t. It suggested that if you’re not comfortable with the ‘price’ of membership, then start or find a group where you might be.

In the next post we’ll take a look at Rules and Approving Membership.

More than sausages

Posted on by
Reply

Concord

This should be interesting. Thessy (pronounced Tessie) is creating a start-from-scratch community based not just on proximity, but shared values. Somewhere between a commune and a New York City co-op, Thessy is planning a ‘co-housing’ community where membership is predicated on alignment with a set of value enshrined in a Manifesto. A key element of this is engagement with your neighbors beyond a nod on the way to the trash chute (this is radical for New York City).

Utopian Communities

This is not without precedent. There were several start-from-scratch communities in nineteenth century America built around progressive ideals. Known as the Utopian Movement, they were social experiments, many with the mission to counter the social disintegration that their members believed accompanied industrialization

Arguably neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s infamous Park Slope, packed with champagne socialists and Militant Mothers (a friend of mine was hissed at in a playground for bottle-feeding her baby) are also places where people share proximity and pretty explicit progressive values.

But this is going to be much more. It’s going to be an “intentional community”: a term used to describe the Utopian Movement and their modern equivalents, with a bit of commune thrown in. Each apartment will be self-contained but their will be shared spaces such as kitchens.

The degree of interaction will be much higher than the dreadful Park Slope where arguing over a sausage’s degree of organic-ness in the Park Slope Food Coop constitutes community!

Purpose/Vision

Interaction is mandated in Thessy’s Manifesto. Residents will share their skills by giving lectures about their passions and interests in shared spaces. There will be voting, bartering with an alternative community currency, and “engaging with the community in the common spaces for cooking & meals, music, painting, play, gardening and yoga”.

And residents will be selected not just on the basis of their robust tax return, but their robust values:

“Eco, sustainable, green, multi-cultural, ‘ yes we can’ attitude, living with kids & elderly, learning/teaching/sharing as a core value, participatory, efficient use of resources, mind & body fitness, gay/bi/trans/hetero, political activism, secular, individual freedom, consensus process to arrive at decisions, techno-hippy, intelligent, fun, warm, loving, edgy, unique.

Not: scared, timid, rigid, righteous, pretentious”

(By the way, I don’t know why New Yorkers tolerate the humiliating ordeal of sharing their personal financial details with their neighbors to be granted permission to buy an expensive apartment and then see those same neighbors every day knowing that they know how much you do or don’t earn. Bizarre).

Thessy is starting off with the two most important glue ingredients:

Number One. She’s laying the bedrock of a tight and stable community by writing a Manifesto that is explicit about the values to be shared. Values are the foundation of a robust community because they’re things we use to define ourselves as individuals, and by extension, the community. It’s a profound identification that’s hard to dismantle.

Number Two: She’s predisposing the community to have elevated levels of interaction by making it a condition of membership. The increased frequency of people rubbing together, around shared interests, needs and support, and especially values leads to the formation of sticky things like partnerships and friendships.

In other words, she’s starting with the two key ingredients of Social Glue: Purpose/Vision and Rubbing People Together.

So we have an interesting opportunity to see the birthing and growth of something approaching a Utopian community in a city not known for its love of intimacy and ideals. All Thessy has now is the Manifesto. It’s a pretty good one, and being explicit about the mission, shared values and expectations of members’ behavior, is a recipe for a pretty tight community.

Actually she has more. She is pulling together fifteen people to help refine the Manifesto, and recruit like-minded members “based on values, interests and fit”. And she has the confidence borne of seeing it work before. She part of her life in a squat-like community in Dusseldorf characterized not by dingy mattresses and meth, but fiscal responsibility, liberal values, an artistic environment and skill-sharing.

A social experiment

Stand by for more on how Thessy takes this from Manifesto to bricks and mortar; from idealism to reality with all the attendant obstacles and triumphs that this ambitious attempt at glue-creation will encounter.

I’m especially interested in a key principle she is employing. She hopes that the values she articulates in the Manifesto will attract those who align with them, and repel those who don’t. She does not plan to enforce these values. She’s prepared to see how the community evolves from this solid, values-based start. From what I have observed of community, lack of enforcement of values can lead to abuse and/or dilution of those values, which can alienate members for whom they are important.

This is clearly an interesting social experiment and I can’t wait to see what transpires.

"We need a Vision!"

Posted on by
4

mainstreet

In need of a Vision

Not a religious one. The kind of vision that will keep two entrepreneurs in a small town on the banks of the Hudson River.

Two nights ago, my friend and his partner were pissed off. They’d moved from the city to relocate their design business in a beautiful town in upstate New York. It’s the kind of beautiful town that could be really be beautiful, and functional, and even moderately wealthy instead of teetering between resurgence and decline. Like most towns on the river, its fortunes sunk when the highway opened, river traffic stopped, tourism to the Catskills dried up and industry left. But like some of these towns, they’re enjoying a renaissance as their neglected beauty is being discovered and dusted off.

That means people like my friend are investing their money and time trying to make Main St. work again. Restaurants, stores and artisan workshops are cropping up to complement the inevitable Wal-Mart Mall on the edge of town, with opportunities for discretionary income to be spent and Main Street to be repopulated.

In other words, making the barely-beating heart of the town function again. You know, revive the traditional form of community that people crave so much. Make Main Street real instead a fantasy experience in Disneyworld.

But the town leadership has vacillated, obfuscated and dithered. They can’t decide whether to be the depressingly familiar, hollow, Wal-Mart-centric collection of suburbs or a historic town making a comeback. One that’s joining the movement for localism and new authentic industry that’s reinventing the Hudson Valley. One that has a diversity of businesses, population, entertainment…and tax revenue.

So my friends and many others are deciding to leave. Without knowing that their and their neighbors’ investment (not just of money, but in friendships and enthusiasm) is going to pay back because it’s being channeled to a common vision with resources to support it, why stay? Why not go to a town that’s clear about what it is and where it’s going, with a citizenry that helps each other get there and with incentives to make the tough life of running a small business worthwhile?

A vision would make all the difference in taking a community that’s stagnating into one that’s generating energy and producing happiness. Forget a cave in Lourdes. The people need a vision for Main Street.

What's your Purpose?

Posted on by
Reply

At the heart of every successful organization is a clear purpose. It’s the thing that the founder starts with. It’s what successful organizations use for big and small decisions alike, often for decades afterwards.

Religion or corporation, online support network or cupcake enthusiast group, all communities do better when they…their leaders, their members, their potential recruits and the world at large…are very clear about:

  • What the organization is here to do
  • The beliefs and values it executes against
  • And therefore, what is expected of its membership.

Without one, the community is rudderless. It may potter along, but it won’t be truly great.

I like this quote from a famous business book. Even in the world of commerce a Purpose, Ideology, Mission/Vision, call it what you will, is considered vital to an organization’s success:

“Like the fundamental ideal of a great nation, church, school, or any other enduring institution, core ideology in a visionary company is a set of basic precepts that plant a fixed stake in the ground: ‘This is who we are; this is what we stand for; this is what we’re all about.’ …core ideology is so fundamental to the institution that it changes seldom, if ever.” (Jim Collins & Jerry Porras, Built To Last)

So who consumes a Purpose? Why do they need or want it? And therefore, what goes into one? And when you have one, what do you do with it? And…what does one look like?

They can take many forms; some of them are very familiar. It may be a book: the Bible, the Koran or The Little Red Book. Or a speech: MLK’s “I have a Dream”. Or a Declaration of Independence. Or Constitution.

All of these have a vision of the how the world should be. They’re crystal clear about the values of the community, and are explicit about expected behavior. They’re used as a lodestone for making decisions that affect the fortunes of the community. They’re a statement of why you should join, commit and take action.

Most importantly, they define the community to itself and to others, whether it’s a nation, a religion, a movement or a political party.

Of course most Purposes or Ideologies are not famous, not as poetic or define things like countries. They can often be found on About pages or coffee mugs. They’re often statements about the group’s goals, what they stand for and who should join. But if they’re good, and they’re used, then they’ll do the exact same things that the intimidating famous ones do.

Let’s talk first about the consumers of a Purpose, and why they need or want one. That’ll help define what goes into one, and what you do with it.

By the way, I’m using the term ‘Purpose’ as a catch-all for Ideology, Belief System, Mission and so on. Each of these may have slight differences, but really they serve similar enough needs and are used in similar enough ways.

The Consumers of a Purpose.
There are at least four:

1. The Membership.
Arguably these are the most important consumers of an ideology.

If it’s well conceived, the benefit is Commitment. And with commitment comes the associated benefits of conviction, energy, involvement, motivation to recruit others, and willingness to take action.

2. The Leadership.
The key benefit for the leadership is clarity. Making fast and effective decisions obviously improves the efficiency of the organization, especially large and complex ones.

There’s a drag on decision-making when it has to be prefaced by yet another debate about the organization’s role and values. When they’re universally known and embraced, then decisions about strategy, next steps, who belongs and who doesn’t happen fast and with buy-in.

3. Potential Members
Potential recruits need to know why they’re joining and what’s expected of them if they do. They need to be able to say things like “those values are mine. I’ll feel at home there”, and “I love what this community is out to create. I want to join”.

If a prospect knows what they are getting into and is clear whether they identify with the community, or not, then they’ll join and stay. And you’ll spend less time dealing with the members who really shouldn’t be there, the ones who can make the community and themselves less happy and effective

4. The world at large.
If the community is begins to have an impact, it means it’s rubbing up against the world at large. Beyond recruits, those outside of the community need to understand what you’re about. They could be potential partners or sponsors. They might the media. Or government agencies.

The benefits are dependent on who’s engaging with your group, but they can include clarity about compatibility, whether commercially, politically or in terms of goals if it’s an organization with whom you’re entering into an alliance. Or ease of communication if it’s media who need sound-bite definitions.

Can you think of other consumers of your organization’s Purpose? How does your organization use one? Comment or go to the community site and post on the blog.

The Ingredients of Glue: #1-5

Posted on by
1

It may seem trite to have a list of ingredients. We’re talking about high-functioning communities here, not a sponge cake.

But over and over, the same motivations, techniques and principles emerged as I talked to members and leaders of successful communities. You really can identify the key ingredients that are essential to making strong social glue.

What follows is no more than a list. I’ll be covering each ingredient in much more detail and they’ll be illustrated with examples from real communities.

And this list is not exhaustive. If you think there are other key ingredients, then please go to the community section of the site and start a forum or group to discuss them, or write about them on the community blog. Or comment on this blog.

The more cooks in the kitchen, the better!

So far, I’m up to twenty ingredients. Here’s a summary of the first, and arguably, most important five.

1.  What’s your Purpose?
You can call it a Purpose, a Worldview, Ideology, Belief System, a Creed, Values, Vision, Mission, whatever. If a group doesn’t have one, potential recruits won’t know what they’ll get if they join. You and your members won’t have a clear mission that defines the group’s behavior. There wont’ be a values or belief system that the community shares, identifies with and becomes wedded to. And you’ll be fuzzy about whom you recruit and reject…and eject (all equally important in maintaining the integrity of the community).

2.  Make Love.
As important as a Purpose or Ideology is to a successful community, Love is more so. Purpose and Love are the two critical ingredients (like eggs and sugar in a cake).

But Love trumps Ideas.

People join and stay in communities primarily for the people, not the belief system or worldview (no-matter what they might say). It’s not the word of god, or the political manifesto, or the mission or values that’s the primary reason for joining and staying. It’s the other members.

This was an insight I gained from talking to members of cults and cult-like communities. And it was confirmed when I went to Meetup and we researched the key reasons for becoming committed to a group.

We found that it was after attending four of five events that people felt as if they truly belonged. At that point the connection they felt with the other members transcended (but not replaced) the original purpose for joining the community. It was the other people that became the reason to stay. So, welcome new members and introduce them to others. Create lots of opportunities for interaction…

3.  Rub people together.
Community is a contact sport. The more people rub together, the stickier they become.

If people interact frequently with others who share the same interests, causes and values, enduring relationships will occur. This is true for both virtual and real communities, but is more effective in face-to-face groups where two things are at play: a) the investment people have made to show up is often translated to investment in the future of the community, b) all the unconscious forms of communication that research is proving to be so important…body language, facial expression, voice intonation, laughter…get a chance to work in a way that is not possible, or is seriously compromised when online.

4.  Create a Safe Space.
This is not about protection from attack or harm (although it can be). It’s about creating what people often call a ‘safe space’ to be themselves. This is a huge, and I would argue, the most important emotional benefit received from belonging.

It happens when people feel that they are amongst ‘like-others’. They can relax and be themselves without fear of censure that they might get in environments where they can’t choose the others around them (such as their workspace or school). The ability to self-actualize is a huge motivation to join and stay in a community. Given this is most likely to happen when surrounded by ‘like-others’, having a safe space is highly dependent on having the ‘right’ members.

5.  Get the Right Members
There are right and wrong members. Frankly, not everyone should be welcome.

For people to feel at home and be themselves, to interact happily and to get what they need from the other members, to feel like they truly belong, to recruit successfully, the community must have the right members.

What makes a member right or wrong? The right ones are those that agree with and support the Purpose and values of the group. They’re the ones who contribute and show up. The wrong ones are the flakes, the passengers, the ones who are in the wrong place because they don’t really buy into the mission of the community. They’re the detractors (constructive criticism is good, undermining is not).