Can Communities Focus?

After years of working in various size companies, one thing that I am struck by how immensely difficult it is to maintain focus.  It is very difficult to keep two people on the same page, let alone hundreds or thousands of people.  To combat this, companies organize themselves into a decision-making and responsibility hierarchy.  One thing I wonder is that in a community environment, where there is even less ability to directly motivate members, is it even more difficult to maintain focus?  And if it is, how does a corporate entity who wants to incorporate communities gain traction in any one direction?

I go back and forth on this answer...and I think this is one of the most difficult issues to grapple with as a profit-driven entity.  And it is why structured content will not go away - and neither will organizational process and structure (sorry to the social media activists who may believe that you really don't need formal information structures). Because businesses need to have decision-making and investment categories, they will necessarily need structure around information and content. Add to that financial and regulatory constraints and businesses will never get away from a top down structure.  The question is - how do you incorporate user generated information into that structure...and how do you allow individuals to add structure to content as appropriate rather than forcing it on them?  User-generated conversations are immensely empowering and motivating because individuals can participate in topics about which they are passionate. The productivity and value gains generated from that type of activity are huge but to take advantage of them, they must be transitioned into the corporate structure that can take advantage of the opportunities.

I do think some communities can focus - if the values of the community are strongly felt by each member. In that case, only people who are like-minded opt in to begin with and that is certainly a model that some companies can emulate but in my experience, most companies do not espouse and act on a strong articulated value set in a way that is conducive to enabling focus and a community-based structure. There are a few Craigslist, Zappos, W.L. Gore

What do you think?  Will there be more community-based companies? Is structured content important? How important is it to link structured content to unstructured content?

Picture by: pietroizzo

Comments

[Christian DE NEEF]

I don't think that it is anyhow related to structure, be it content or organizational. Companies and communities (in the broader sense of the word, including all sorts of associations, cooperatives, etc.) thrive or fail despite very different models, structured as well as unstructured approaches.

I also wonder what is the requirement to maintain focus over a long time span. Companies and communities have a life cycle. They live and die. This is particularly true for KM (Communities of Practice) which will develop in the face of an evolving environment, and possibly changing goals and values for the organization where they prosper.

I think that it's not about maintaining focus, but about reaching the end goal. Getting the first man on the moon was possible thanks to a compelling vision, a goal which was a dream, a strong focus over a decade (yes, and means, of course).

So if you wish a community to prosper, then it must have shared values as you say, but a compelling vision is even more important! And one should not worry about communities having their ups and downs, transforming themselves, or fading away. It's life...

[bob]

Ironically, democratic values do not really enshrine collective vision, but rather invite conflicting visions. Focus is most easily achieved in a totalitarian regime, by force, of course. We proceed toward outcomes by whomever can wrest control of debate.

It's perplexing to train in on achieving communal focus while our culture enshrines pluralism, multiculturalism, difference, the "other", and hyper-individualism. Communities are not teams, but ragtag mosaics. Focus requires a homogeneity which only exists in Western societies as a myth, e.g. the "Israelites".

I'm a Town Manager www.berwick.ns.ca and what sustains me contra this "focus" idea is to learn to live and thrive in the "cloud" which is ambivalence, ambiguity, agnosticism, diffusion, disparity and difference of opinion.

Values is another matter. More difficult to grab, of course, because they drill into the heart of the primary needs of humanity, food, shelter, sex, and society.

...thanks for twitter stimulus, got me thinking!

bob

[Anne Gentle]

As a technical writer and structured authoring advocate, I have pondered this question over and over especially for wiki writing. Does a wiki that adheres to structure with templates and even topic types offer better content? But does it also contain a barrier to entry if a writer or community contributor doesn't want to stick to templates?

I've co-authored a paper and submitted it to WikiSym about using Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), which has three topic types, concept, task, and reference, for wikis used for software engineering.

The idea is that a software engineering group usually has business analysts, designers, developers, quality assurance testers, and technical writers working towards the common goal of making software that meets specific user needs. If you can convince people in those groups that writing specific task, concept, or reference topics in the internal wiki while designing, testing, developing, and generally working on their different tasks in software engineering, the information can be more efficiently shared with actual end-users in an external wiki.

It basically documents the experiment that my co-author Lisa Dyer does in focusing her software dev wiki community in order to get reusable content for end-users. So far, it's working well for them.

Oh, and the conversational content in discussion areas of the internal wiki is decidedly not structured.

I'll send you a copy of the PDF if you think that sounds at all interesting. :)

[Geoff Livingston]

I guess it comes down to how much focus the community wants to self govern... If it's very focused, it makes sense to govern, but if it's just people hanging out.

[Rachel Happe]

Awesome conversation. Christian I agree, a strong vision that is collaboratively shared, can drive a more communal group (but usually needs a person to drive the vision - Kennedy on space, Al Gore more recently on global warming).

For most companies I don't think that strong shared vision exists...and sometimes I think that companies shouldn't actually exist if they can't recruit employees who believe strongly in their vision and values (because I then question if they really are, in fact, producing anything of societal value). I also question, generally, why people work for companies that don't ignite their passion.

The reason I am actually so passionate about social media is because I believe it helps people find others who share their passions and interests...and thereby allows people to self-organize in ways that allow them to work on things they truly care about - whether that is within the walls of a corporation or more generally. And that, is better for society.

But I don't think a completely communal structure is the answer...but I'm not entirely sure. It is definitely something I am watching.

[Christian DE NEEF]

I don't think that “ambivalence, ambiguity, agnosticism, diffusion, disparity and difference of opinion” stand in the way of shared vision and values, do they? I have managed multicultural teams where members had very different background, behaviors, beliefs, opinions, opinions, and sometimes values... Still, we could be very successful in working towards a (motivating) end-goal.

[bob ashley]

I agree, Christian, that a shared vision is possible in an environment of diversity. I'd suggest, though, that moving from a "team" to a "community" is not just shift by degree (bigger), but also by kind (a different kind of entity). A community is always a composite of competing teams. A community is a political entity as much as a social one. And politics is war, we hope in our culture, without the violence.

Another angle on this is by definition. By definition, a team has one purpose, usually one culture, usually led by a coach. By definition, a community is well, errmm, ahh...there is no convergence here; it's political, it's cultural, it's economic, and in our culture of "So you think you can dance", alot of what we do focuses on destroying the opposition, even in fun, no harm done.

bob

[David Zinger]

Rachel,
I just came across your blog and appreciated not only this post but a number of your posts. There is certainly a dialectic between community and organization that is being played out every day in so many organizations I see. I look forward to reading and learning more from you.
David