Markets and Communities

Communities : the human race demands them, needs them. Belonging is fundamental.

Marketers should be obsessed with communities, not just fret about how to market to an impossible number of individuals.

Our collective idea of “community” has changed dramatically over the past couple of decades. Tectonic societal and economic shifts, as well as blindingly fast advances in technology, have caused each of us to periodically erase and redraw our own definitions and expectations of the communities around us.

Communities look different than they did 50—even 20—years ago. They are organized around businesses and brands and providing profound opportunities for companies around the world.

The potential to build community-curated knowledge networks remains largely untapped. There are reasons to be optimistic; the economic feasibility of paid communities, a renewed interest in curation, a slow move away from big social, and an improved understanding of platform incentives. All combined, this will lead to communities that are more sust... See more

Unfortunately, the patterns of our techno-social order tend toward the fracturing of community and the isolation of the person. We are offered an array of tools that promise to assuage the resulting economic and psychic precarity, but, more often than not, their real aim implicit in their design is to perpetuate and accelerate social fragmentation ... See more