Vitamin We #8: The Power of Community

Do you think community building is hard, or easy?

I have observed something interesting when it comes to communities that creative people truly desire:

Creatives are usually proud to be different - quirky, independent, original, nonconforming, crave LOTS OF personal space away from the crowd, and the sovereignty to do their own thing. As if a baby needs to stay in the womb long enough before facing the world, sharing one’s work-in-progress prematurely could feel daunting.

Thus, for community engagement, we can’t expect creatives to show up like overcooked pasta🍝 that sticks together 24/7 (but gaming🎮 communities can be like that!); Rather, building an intuitive infrastructure with minimal rules and technicality, giving and holding safe space that respects boundaries, designing a UX that is visually and intellectually stimulating, occasionally organizing crazy flash-mob-like initiatives etc might be more fitting.

Deep down, just like every human, creatives crave to be understood, to feel not alienated, and to find people who get them without over-explanation. Simple math - even if we feel like we were the rarest 1% of the population on earth, there’d still be 80 million🧑🏻‍🤝‍🧑🏾 who are just like us!

It’s just impossible NOT to find our people!

Who doesn’t want to be around a bunch of weirdos who get us and vibe with us who are also supportive and encouraging? And that playful dance between individuality and togetherness is an art in itself!💃🕺

In this week’s edition of Vitamin We, we are curating some golden nuggets from experienced community builders in Web3, as well as stories from creatives who shared their vulnerable experiences about the power of community - and the impact of lacking one.

I hope you’ll get some insights from these sharing and find what might work for your community, because there is certainly no fixed formula!

From Late Latin, the word collaboration means "to labor together”.

Today, we understand it as people who come together with a common goal, typically by using their various complementary knowledge, skills and resources.

It is the opposite of “survival of the fittest” and zero-sum games between groups of people in the same arena.

In 2023, no one will argue about the importance of collaboration, but HOW?

For example, business meetings within organizations began as a collaborative effort, right? But when we look at the corporate culture and high burnout rate, especially as remote work and teams have become the norm in recent years, numerous studies and surveys have been suggesting that ineffective meetings are ranked the #1 time waster in work productivity.

When collaborative attempts become a mere formality, or worse, conformity, without a genuine individual motivation for everyone involved, the effort to work together will become forceful instead of organic.

In fact, it is not that hard to find a “common goal” - If we zoom out far enough, we can always find a common goal between 2 humans as long as we address the basic human needs.

Rather, the challenge is that we all have way too many goals, with very different priorities fighting for our scarce attention spans!

Some questions to ponder:

• How do we make working together a win-win-win for everyone?

• How to reduce time, effort, costs, friction, mental hustles, and heartbreaks?

• How to increase engagement, rewards, peace of mind, fun, and a sense of HOPE for the expansive possibilities when joining forces?

• What value benchmark do we need when choosing who to collaborate with?

• What infrastructure and foundation need to be in place for us to feel secure, easy, and eager to collaborate?

“ I have constantly dealt with feeling not good enough and have truthfully been blocked by personal circumstances and toxic friendships.

However, what I realised was that my power was my belief in communities.  

I love connecting people together and seeing how they can flourish.

So I’m not really a creator but more a connector…”

“ Before the pandemic, I ran a relatively successful "zine/art biz", travelling around Ontario to sell up at markets and building up the local zine community.

Obviously, all events were cancelled, and I realized I needed to shift my biz model and get online. Did a lot of work to make a website, paid for Shopify, and hustled. I talked on online panels about mental health and art for local events. But... all my friends were drifting away.

No one messaged me; the community I felt so part of prior didn’t seem to care I was gone. I reached out. I confided I was struggling as a disabled creator, unable to go out. Silence. I was in a bad place and knew I needed to do something to shift.

I had avoided web3 because I am a people pleaser, and the idea of anyone being upset (because NFTs are terrible blah blah) at me was a lot to overcome. I was also nervous, I'm not a tech person, and I didn’t work digitally. But, the allure of a new art community, focused online and exploring new tech seemed better than being depressed and isolated. So I started learning about NFTs.

I've made amazing friendships with people all over the world. Started painting digitally, learned glitch techniques, and I've minted on multiple blockchains. I've made more art since Oct 2021 than I had in years. I've sold artwork and had my work in New York City.

I feel like a whole different person.

I've lost some friends who have found out, but I guess they didn’t like me too much? I guess I don’t miss them either, though. ”

Idea #1 What We Stand For vs Stand Against:

Learning from history, we all know gathering people to fight against, pointing fingers towards the “bad guys” and condemning what is wrong with the world is not too hard; the hard part is to have them engaged enough to bring change with collective effort.

Where is our focal point? Does the vision bring hope? Does it empower us to get into our creative mode (vs victim mode) so we feel motivated to build and bring forth the change we wish to see in the world?

Idea #2 If the challenge we face doesn’t scare us, then it’s probably not that important:

Just like the diagram of the state of flow above, as recapped in the Productivity Workshop, our goals have to be challenging enough for us to feel engaged; and as we grow and become more capable in handling that challenge, we can move along from feeling anxious to flow.

Idea #3 Convincing vs Influencing:

Short and impactful, this is the last sentence that nails the whole idea of the book:

So elegantly put🤩!

And this is the music video that brings the key messages and the illustrations with the song together: