Community Next – Event Notes

I’m back from Community Next, nearly caught up on work and still reading through many, many recaps!

There are a ton of people who have left comments about the event. Here’s just one list (scroll down). If you only read one recap, check out Lee’s notes. He notes some interesting distinctions in the crowd:

These are two major groups and subjects that I saw at Community Next:

  1. Community *as* Business. These are the web sites and businesses that are built on a foundation of community. Often, community was the intention is starting the site. Examples from attendees include: Dogster, Fark, skinnycorp (parent of Threadless), Daily Strength, My Church, etc. are examples of sites that depend on community as the core component of the site.

    This was the most dominant group by far. It seemed that many of attendees were planning a community-based start-up and looking for ideas and resources for community as business.

  2. Community *in* Business . This group was less represented and accounts for existing businesses that are interested in “community” but haven’t yet taken the plunge. A few of the talks, including Tara Hunt’s and Jake McKee’s was more focused on this perspective – thoughts on making community a part of an existing business.

We went into more detail on this week’s episode of The Clue Unit podcast.

Here’s a few of my take aways:

Best recap: Rohit Bhargava’s great summation notes

Best quote: Matt Roche of Offermatica said: "[Social networks, especially MySpace] is the overtaking of American culture by the 8th grade."

Second best quote: Also by Matt: "Finding truth through volume" (Not sure I agree, just find it to be an interesting quote)

Third best quote: "Integrate, don’t infiltrate"

Best Factoid: AIM away messages are used/modified on average 7 times a day

Second best factoid: There are 300,000 churches in the US… more than all elementary, middle, and high schools combined.
 
Best story: Noah’s opening remarks as the event organizer:
"I had a girlfriend in high school — she cheated on me several times. . .she was apparently VERY interested in community/people."

Newest nerd crush: Heather Luttrell from 3jane and indieclick. Her credentials make me look like a part-time grocery store clerk.

Nerd crush quote: Heather said: "A community manager isn’t a VP of advertising, it’s the one who will argue with the VP of advertising on behalf of the community" (Are you starting to see the crush factor??)

Funniest guy ever: Drew Curtis from Fark.com. Man that guy’s hilarious.

Best new word: Ted Rheingold from Dogster coined (or at least used): Netmanity – i.e. the flood of communication that flows into a community liaison.

Scariest thought: "Becoming an entrepreneur is like signing up to be bipolar" – James Hong of HotOrNot.com.

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For information about my Community Consulting, Training and Speaker services, or to find out more about Dinner5, my unique community for community builders, contact me today.

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