In the 1700s when the landscape of the United States was predominantly a wilderness, there were community builders afoot. Organizations uniting people with common goals and beliefs, secret handshakes and initiation rituals have been a part of the history of this country since the Freemasons, a union of stonemasons, crossed the Atlantic in 1730. Members donning brightly colored fezzes, elk antlers and colorful patches unapologetically formed private clubs that nurtured relationships and enabled them to socialize, share information and solve problems (and in some cases, drink alcohol on Sunday).
While membership in traditional community groups like Freemasons, Rotarians and Optimists has declined steadily in recent years, the number of groups forming on the internet frontier is rising rapidly. Every second, LinkedIn, the largest professional network in the world with more than 85 million members, gets a new member. And most of the members belong to at least one of the 650,000 specialty groups accessible through LinkedIn.
Although the way people are now connecting has changed, Ryan Sauers, president of Sauers Consulting Strategies, points out that human’s have not changed. “We have a fundamental need to connect and belong. We look for people with similar values, disciplines and challenges and build relationships as we share information—that’s what we’ve always done. We’re just doing it in different ways now, and with the internet we are able to have real conversations and dialogues with people all over the world that share our similar interests. We socialize, we share information and we solve problems—just like in a more traditional networking group. One of the benefits I’ve found is that people initially are much more willing to share information with competitors in forums than in face-to-face meetings.”
In addition to the networking advantages colleagues experience, community building also facilitates relationships between marketers and their customers. Patrick Whelan, president of Great Reach Communications, says that community building is quickly becoming a customer expectation for marketers. “It’s important because this is the vendor-customer experience that customers are getting used to. As we become more used to it, we therefore expect it.” Whelan cites the change in the internet shopping experience as an example of how something once considered a bonus is now a minimal expectation. “Look at internet shopping, particularly the recent Cyber Monday. Free shipping has now become the norm, whereas initially, only a small percentage of companies offered it. As consumers, we now expect it and increasingly are less willing to devote our attention to companies that don’t conform to our expectations. Customers increasingly expect vendors to cultivate relationships through meaningful communications and interactions, like networking.”
As Whelan points out, successful community building is also about fostering communication back from your audience. “The dialogue needs to be a two-way conversation. In addition to engaging your audience with meaningful communications via print, e-mail and face-o-face meetings, the strategic use of quality Web sites, social media and blogging are also particularly effective at this.”
What does successful community building look like? When you successfully build a community, your members are not only your customers, but they are also some of your biggest supporters. “On some level, they feel an emotional attachment to your company. They want you to succeed because they are part of your community,” Whelan says. “A sale, at its core, is about the relationship. And the relationship is the cornerstone of community building—the more personal the relationship you create, the stronger it will be. Your community members not only want to do business with you, but they also start to encourage other people to do business with you.”
“We have a fundamental need to connect and belong. We look for people with similar values, disciplines and challenges and build relationships as we share information—that’s what we’ve always done.” – Ryan Sauers, president, Sauers Consulting Strategies
Dscoop (Digital Solutions Co-operative) is an example of a successful community within the print industry. Started less than six years ago by a combination of
HP Graphic Arts press owners, and their sales, marketing and production teams, Dscoop now has more than 6,000 active members in 43 countries. Members of Dscoop are focused on supporting each other to collectively improve their print businesses and the backbone technology of HP Graphic Arts digital solutions. The executive director of Dscoop, Eric Hawkinson, says that the foundation of the Dscoop community is their virtual and in-person networking and educational opportunities. Their dynamic Web site (www.dscoop.org), offers a frontline peer-to-peer resource for learning and sharing. Here members have access to a quarterly newsletter featuring relevant thought-leading content and news, monthly real-time and on-demand webinars, and an online community forum with unfettered access to HP expertise. “We are fortunate to have the best and brightest in our industry involved.”
Collective Intelligence Among Groups?
Information exchange and a sense of belonging are two reasons people cite for joining networking groups. But apparently there is another advantage.
When it comes to intelligence, the whole can indeed be greater than the sum of its parts. A new study co-authored by MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College researchers documents the existence of collective intelligence among groups of people who cooperate well, showing that such intelligence extends beyond the cognitive abilities of the groups’ individual members. From ScienceDaily (Oct. 2, 2010)
One of the offerings that cements the online relationships is their annual conferences (www.dscoop6.org)—one in the U.S. and one in Asia. “This is our sixth year, and it keeps getting bigger. Many of our members come every year to see friends and colleagues that they have built online relationships with, and to network and integrate with people who face similar business challenges. In this day and age a lot of printers are taking a step back and trying to decide what to do. We are a community of print pioneers who are constantly looking for new ways to evolve successfully and help our membership grow their businesses,” Hawkinson says.
“It takes knowledge, time and resources along with some discipline. But we are doing it, and other printers can do it too.” – Paul Edwards, president of FormStore Incorporated
Often in the past, relationships forged at annual conferences were not given much attention the rest of the year. But with easy access to online networks, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, e-newsletters and blogs, relationships can be nurtured year round. Another media outlet that is coming into play more frequently is YouTube, a video sharing Web site on which users can upload and share videos.
Paul Edwards, president of FormStore Incorporated, a 30-year-old print company in Missouri, recently created a YouTube channel accessible from a link on his Web site. In the six months since its inception, the channel has had nearly 3,000 viewers. Edwards is in front of the camera on most of the posted videos. “You have to be prepared to participate if you want results,” Edwards explains. “It’s all about accelerating the two-way sharing of relevant information and con- tent to help you and others succeed. It takes knowledge, time and resources along with some discipline. But we are doing it, and other printers can do it too.”
“Not only can they do it, but they have an advantage over most companies trying to do it,” Whelan adds. “They have the technology to generate printed mail communications, e-mail is simple and the technology easily accessible, and most printers have experience working with databases. If not, they frequently have established relationships with vendors who do. Printers with variable data capabilities generally have almost everything they need to build a community right in their place of operation.”
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