Romantic group idea

I don't know that the biggest attraction to Social Networking is the number of people who "follow" your every move on Twitter, Google Reader shares, Myspace, Flickr and everywhere else you exist online, but rather in the potential and for the people who aren't yet reading you.

This is the same thing in real life, where a group of like minded people forms a club, organization, company, guild, etc. Those original people do not last forever. In order to continue the organization of the group, you lay down some guidelines and expectations and allow new people to join the ranks. If you're going for popularity, then you should be selective and exclusive. If you're going for mass acceptance, then you should focus on marketing and activities.

It's a lot more difficult to sustain mass acceptance in anything. The advantage in this lies in those groups who either invented "it", or continually re-invent "it". Where was the Buffalo Wing invented? Where is the generally perceived "best wing joint"? For those not from Buffalo and just traveling through, the first place they hear about is Anchor Bar (the bar that claimed to invent it). The wings at Anchor Bar are completely different than every other place in the city. When I explain what a Buffalo wing is to someone, it's usually a deep fried chicken wing part slathered in melted butter and Frank's Red Hot (to varying degrees), or with some sort of vinegary BBQ sauce and then grilled afterwords.

What I'm trying to get at is that when you form an organization, the first thing you should decide after your mission statement (i.e. the Preamble to the US Constitution) is to decide if you're targeting mass appeal, or if your mass appeal is in your exclusiveness. There are levels of both, but this is the major difference.

Collab21 is a niche group that hopes to have mass appeal within the niche market. This means we're looking more towards mass appeal than exclusiveness. Since it's in a niche market, it may look like it's exclusive to some. We've already lost a few of our founders, and we haven't even found the right space yet. What does this mean? It's a different company already. If the remaining members can keep up the good work, things will work out as we had originally planned. But realizing that people come and go because of changing interests is important. Catering to the people that you dreamed of having in your group from the very beginning is key to getting other people that you never dreamed about...but can't see yourself without once they're there...in.

This may be a bad analogy, but if you set up a church to praise your God, everyone else who wants to do the same will come and hang out. Community.




In the meantime, read "Rooted in the Land" by William Vitek and Wes Jackson. This is a collection of essays on community. Knowing and loving your community is what we all strive for.