No idea what that means? Most of my good friends would. Why? My friends and I make stuff up. Say 'mooky' out loud and it might become clear to you what it means...you know....when you start getting motion sick, in a boat or a really large American car and maybe you've had too much to eat and the motion has that perfectly sickening wave length that creates a slow oozing motion. That's mooky.
What does that have to do with *anything*?!?
Language creates lock-in. Language distinguishes people who are 'in' from people who are 'out' - communities in particular create linguistic habits that maintain community history and cohesion. Linguistic habits are formed but they can't really be created without the help of many community members. It is also why individuals who can 'translate' between multiple communities are some of the more important people in large organizations - the product managers, the customer service reps, the sales people...and the other catalysts that don't explicitly need to be.
When you create customer or employee networks a measure of success will be when there are unique expressions that having meaning only to a specific community. It is great to encourage and support some of that but think about how it affects its position in regard to the rest of the organization and how it might affect new members. If you are looking to create a small passionate community to co-develop products having a high degree of unique language will drive cohesion, trust, and attachment. If you are creating a community for prospects you will want to encourage more translations and less unique terms so that the community discussion (and associated meaning) is transparent to new members.
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