Full Circle Associates

Monday, August 27, 2007

Cliff Figallo and the Evolution of Virtual Community

Jon Lebkowsky interviews online community practitioner Cliff Figallo on WorldChanging (part 1 of 2 so far)! Cliff Figallo and the Evolution of Virtual Community. The snippet I share here is around the definition of community...

The definition of "community" – whatever it is – has been spindled, bent, folded and probably mutilated by its passage into the virtual realm. The idea now seems to apply to people who buy the same products, who are identified as "friends" in social networking environments, who come together physically for a few days (see: Burning Man), who simply use the same conversational interface, and you name it...if it fits the Web 2.0 concept – user-driven content – it's got the community tag on it.

I spent most of a chapter in my book, Hosting Web Communities, explaining some of these variations on community – that they vary with the amount of actual interactivity, whether the focus is on a common interest or on the personalities of the members, whether the people join because of the topic, the members, or the platform that mediates their interaction. But frankly, I wish there were other terms to describe these associations besides "community." The word is now bearing an awful burden.

I have an especially strong referrent for the term, having lived on the Farm for 12 years. To me, a true community requires commitment at a level that you rarely find in exclusively online groups. Community grows out of going through difficult changes together – life and death shit. WELL members did develop some impressive levels of commitment and relationship beyond what went on through the software interface. It facilitated relationship building. This does occur, I understand, through many other Web sites these days – MeetUp certainly comes to mind – and I can't claim to know what's going on as "community building" in the vast majority of social sites. I can only hope that lots of people are finding meaningful real communities through the Web.

With the tremendous increase in bandwidth today, compared with what we had at The WELL, a personal profile can convey a lot about a person, and can thus provide a better idea of their personality – providing they're not spoofing you. On The WELL, you had to interact with a person for a while, in various contexts, to build an image of them in your mind. The classic first meatspace meeting was often mindboggling since the mind's image rarely matched the actual appearance.

But the ubiquity of the Web today makes it much more likely that online and offline relationships will intersect and complement one another. Facebook was created to provide a resource for enhancing what might become real life relationships among students on a given campus.

1 Comments:

sheryl nussbaum-beach said...: Nancy,

Thanks for sharing this interview. I loved reading the entire piece on World Changing! In fact, it really connected some dots for me personally.

I lived on the Farm for awhile. While I wasn't there long enough to build the kinds of relationships Cliff did, I was there for Stephen's meetings, deep conversation, lots of home births, and took that vow of poverty he mentions (which- :) I am still trying to break today)

I also followed with online communities, not the Well, but others where I made deep, life changing connections. As a community we cried together at each other's sufferings and rejoiced when there were reasons to celebrate together. It was not unusual to spend hours together online, drinking coffee and solving the world's problems- while we shared the latest about our kids or marriages. I still am connected with many of them today and those who I am not, I still hear their comments and often find myself using their ideas and belief system to guide my decisions and actions today.

Reading Cliff's piece made me wonder if I was destined (or molded) to be so enthralled with the concept of community and the depth of which I find value in my collaborations online. Jon's interview has definitely added a dimension to my literature review (for my dissertation) I hadn't considered before.

While I do absolutely agree with Cliff about the community tag being thrown around so loosely, and I do feel many uses of the term are abuses of the word, I do feel it is possible to build and find true community online. It is a different kind of community than one gets in a marriage, which is what we had on the Farm, but it is community. Not all community, online or face-to-face is like family, but the question for me is-- can I find value added in my interactions?

For example, the Teacher Leaders Network,is nothing more than a listserv, but for the last four years it has provided a lifeline for many of us who are trying to improve the teaching profession on the policy level without becoming jaded. Deep meaningful relationships have developed between people who have never met.

Thanks for sharing Nancy. This post will continue to stir in my mind for quite some time.; 3:55 AM