Some of these questions people could just type into Google. But the answers are more meaningful when they come from a trusted circle. And many inquiries aren’t about information: they are about sharing resources. When there is underlying trust, people become willing to offer up information that’s valuable, relational and risky: for example introductions to people in their network or honest reflections on a challenge.

Fabian Pfortmüller • Communities = human search engines?

Saved by sari

the tremendous power of curious questions.

Tiago Forte • The Heart Is the Bottleneck

When hierarchy and status are removed via anonymity, we’re at peace knowing the recommender has nothing to gain. As a result, participation is perceived as low-stakes, unbiased and selfless. There’s no ulterior motive. They have nothing to gain. And they answer honestly because when it’s their turn to ask for advice, they want an honest answer too.... See more

Matt Klein • Distributed Trust: The Future of Crowds & Honesty

The power of your network is not just the number of people or devices connected to it, but also the strength that you create and derive from that network that gives you all those data points in a way that lets you make better decisions. A lot of what you see on LinkedIn or Facebook are fragile networks in which many of the connections are between r

Diane Brady • Connecting the Dots

These combinations of answers and questions can then be curated through a mix of AI and human input—experimenting with different types of searches and then refining the answers that come back, rather than relying only on a single dimension for ranking results. Thus, alongside offering answers to ‘frequently asked questions’, ‘frequently needed ques

Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination

The result of this are very real network effects: as engagement grows, the community gets smarter, faster to respond, more globally available, and generates more value.

Jeffrey Bussgang • When Community Becomes Your Competitive Advantage

The more people have their questions answered, the more interested they are going to be and the more value and credibility they see in you as a source of information.

Ros Atkins • The Art of Explanation: How to Communicate with Clarity and Confidence

The Holy Grail of Building Communities: Developing a Strong Sense of Community

Richard Millington moz.com

The open community of the internet is somewhere where you can find other people who are interested in those same things as you and who want to learn about those same things as you in a way that was not really possible before, without there being a substantial amount of transaction costs involved.