Communities of Fun

Bret Simmons , the mastermind behind the Sm@art 2010 Social Media Conference Reno-Tahoe event happening this December and I were talking recently around the idea of Communities of Practice.  During our discussion, we launched into different Communities of Interest, Communities of Purpose and also the notion around Communities of Fun.  We were discussing this hot new company that has a personal awareness engine with a credible event notification platform  that has free applications at the tap of a button to share with you from wine tasting ,to theatre to sports events.   This company is setting itself up for joining the triple digit growth mobile application business with this concept of Communities of Fun.

One of the things that I’ve seen over the years in my field of work is that in fact people come for content, but they do stay for the ‘community’.  So it does become important how you co-create the charter for the community with your members and cultivate them over time so that they stay engaged and active.  In the case of the personal awareness engine company, it will become very important that they,  www. GotDibbs.com ,  spend time to look at allowing their users to personalize the communities, content and/or channels they want to subscribe to in a meaningful and easy to use manner.  If they allow their members to stay and watch, capture interest, they will find members will get braver and braver and soon will feel safe enough to upload their own knowledge and information and start to share their own information.  After all, that is what the give and take communities are about.  I’m really looking forward to see how these Communities of Fun are ‘cultivated’ – I feel quite fortunate that they are in my physical ‘backyard’ so to speak!