What is a community? The first time I heard the term, I may have been 7-8 years old. The term was used to refer to individuals from our caste. If I recollect correctly, it was a reference of - "that person is from our community, we can trust them"

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The community, was here being used to refer to set of homogenous people who had or were supposed to have similar characteristics, background etc. This was being used a proxy to do more due diligence on a person or group of people before engaging them for any activities.

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Now when I think of communities, it is really far away from the reference with which I had first heard the term.

Off late, I've been hearing of people talk about communities during my interviews of people for @ThePassionPeop1 , @herahussain from @ChaynHQ was the first.

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@herahussain spoke of the power of community. This time, community had a whole new context. One that I have taken a couple of years to wrap my head around and come to the understanding as enumerated in this thread. Hera talked about a group of people with a common goal.

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@herahussain started @ChaynHQ which is a an award-winning, open-source project run by 400 volunteers from 15 countries for survivors of abuse from around the world. I would argue that @ChaynHQ is a community, their FB group was totally LIT!

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Design and work sprints, leadership being rotated to different community members, international participation, self-motivation and most importantly a strong common purpose were some of key traits of this set of amazing people at @ChaynHQ

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It was the first time in 2016 and then later in 2018 when I met and interviewed @herahussain for this episode that I realised that she could be on to something when she spoke about the power of communities.

https://www.eplog.media/thepassionpeoplepodcast/s2e7a/

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I subsequently interviewed an old friend who had got an ivy league education and spoke highly about the work done by the good folks at @netcapglobal . NetworkCapital or NC focussed heavily on B-Schools, VCs and Start-Ups. NC has a huge FB group & even has a premium service

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@netcapglobal calls itself @netflix for Careers which may not be wrong. But, it is really a community organised around careers & professional success. It allows members to Connect with alums of distinguished B-Schools & 100,000 verified professionals from leading companies

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I had the privilege of being part of NC for a couple of years and met folks like @RuchiDhona who are building libraries in the Himalayas, Manan from @unergia which is leading the solar revolution in India to name a few. Through @netcapglobal I had made friends for life.

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Friends who had never met before knowing each other on @netcapglobal . NC had become the equivalent of a signal in the noise of people. If someone was a member of NC, it meant that we could trust them, have a conversation with them and possibly find a friend in them.

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While @netcapglobal and @ChaynHQ had their own spheres of influence, I continued to look for meaning and connection through other communities. One of them was the RemoteIndian (RI) Community - A digital coworking space for remote working Indians.

(12/n) https://remoteindian.com/ 

The RI community convinced me that I was really on to something about the whole - Power of Communities. On RI, folks spoke about Finance, Work Opportunities, Job Boards, Guides and most importantly a set of remote folks willing to help each-other unconditionally.

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Adam Grant wrote about Giving and Taking in a seminal book, but when it comes to communities, I have realised that it is always about giving.

"Give First" is something I remind myself before asking the community of any favours.

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Remember the trust that members of the same community have that I had spoke about earlier, looks like it applies to online communities as well!! Yes, seriously.

By giving, community members earned themselves more street-cred and visibility.

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The community members engaged more with individuals who answered someone else's questions, helped someone out and generally gave more than they took from the community.

Now, we come to the Podcaster's Community that the good folks at @MusafirStories pulled me into.

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The community became a melting pot for all things podcasts in the country and swelled in terms of membership. This is a group that is very close to my heart because podcasting is inherently a very lonely process. (Yeah, even before Covid hit)

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What started off with 3 like minded individuals, now a movement with 100s of members, organisations and other stakeholders in the Audio Content space in India. Community? Yes! As part of our work at @O2PodCollective we now organize meet-ups, workshops to for these folks.

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With the rise of remote work and social distancing, communities will gain more power. They allow us to tap into the human desire to connect. This was done by FB as well but we all know whats happening there. Communities now help engage people who cannot socialize.

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"FB says there are more than 400 million people in groups that they find meaningful as of April 2019,up from 100 million in February 2017." ~ CNBC

This is not a co-incidence. As the folks at @MorningBrew say, Covid only accelerated existing trends. The same is true here.

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Unfortunately I do not think FB Groups are the best places for communities to engage. As the interest in communities soar, so will specific offerings that cater to community builders. A prime example - @airmeet_com where event participants can interact on a social lounge.

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The loosely organised communities will continue to try to engage on WhatsApp and FB Groups. The more sophisticated ones are on @SlackHQ and @MightyNetworks (Venture Deals just started a MightyNetwork for folks who took their online course by @bfeld and @jasonmendelson)

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I am excited for the possibilities that these communities will unlock for all of us. Thank you for reading :)

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