GLOSSARY

Acknowledgment: The act of specifically articulating the contribution a participant makes (or made), without judgment. Typically, this includes words that specify how the individual is making a difference.

Advocacy: Any organizational effort to motivate individuals outside the organization to enact change. In advocacy, work usually includes sharing a change message widely. With advocacy, an organization seeks to grow its influence, whether, for example, in the domain of political change, in the adoption of a for-profit company’s technology, or in a nonprofit’s involvement in promoting a social good.

Appreciation: A kind of acknowledgment that includes a judgment.

Belonging: People’s experience of two feelings: (1) feeling valued (or needed) by the entire group or some part of it, and (2) feeling that they are a fit for what is needed in the community and in the environment that has been created.

Brand: Any identifiable organization that promises value. A brand can serve for-profit, nonprofit, political, social, artistic, faith-based, or other purposes.

Brand community: A community with an aspiration to serve both individuals and organizational goals. All brand communities have members who (1) care about one another, (2) share an identity founded on value(s) and goal(s), and (3) share experiences that reflect shared value(s) and goal(s).

Building community: Facilitating, accelerating, and supporting the individual relationships that together form a community.

Campfire events: Planned events in which participants can find an intimate experience.

Campfire principle: A principle that leaders adhere to when planning events to build participant relationships. At campfires, we have proximity, permission, and conditions to connect meaningfully with others. Most important, campfires are small enough that everyone can participate, if they choose, and feel seen.

Campfire space: An offered space where there is no planned event, but participants can use the available space for intimate conversations.

Coercion: The use of fear and threats to get people to do (or not do) something that the coercer wants done (or not done).

Community: A group of people who share mutual concern for one another.

Community activities: Experiences offered to members. These include programs, events, blog posts, trainings, celebrations, rituals, and so on.

Community health: Members’ satisfaction that they feel supported, included, and accepted.

Critical mass stage: Critical mass stage is marked by additional members taking on leadership roles and upholding community guidelines on leadership’s behalf. At this stage, resources come to the community without leadership needing to bring it all inside or specifically asking for it.

Establishment stage: The stage of community development that can be identified as the point at which the returning-participant rate reaches and then remains approximately 50–60 percent.

External motivation: A driver of action in order to get a reward or avoid punishment. Typically the reward is offered and/or given by other people. They decide whether, when, and how much is awarded or punished.

Founding members: The early members who shepherd the community from its beginnings to critical mass stage.

Gamification: Refers to using game mechanics to manage a group, usually by introducing competition between members. Gamification is designed to help motivate groups to do things—that is, get actions done.

Inception stage: The earliest stage of community development, when the founding members constitute the community.

Inner rings: Groups within a community that segment members by some criterion (geography, skills, interest, etc.). Mature communities offer members inner rings that provide a path to growth.

Insider (esoteric) understanding: Things insiders understand that outsiders do not or cannot.

Internal motivation: A driver that comes from inside us and feels like a natural part of ourselves. When we are internally motivated, no one else needs to provide anything more to inspire us to action. The (internal) joy we feel after an activity can be enough.

Intimate experience: The usually small-scale experience that makes participants feel connected because of the individual conversations, private moments, and vulnerability that they experience with other participants.

Meaningful community engagement: Any action by a participant that supports that participant in (1) caring about the welfare of other community members and/or (2) feeling connected to the community as a whole.

Member: Someone who returns to connect with members, considers themselves a regular participant, and ideally has experienced some kind of opt-in initiation, so that they have reason to identify themselves as a member. Without a recognized initiation, members are difficult to distinguish from visitors. Even if the initiation experience isn’t dramatic, there should always be some discernible difference between members and visitors.

Mirage community: A group that aspires to form community, and may even call itself a community, but lacks fundamental elements that constitute a community. As a result, mirage communities fail to deliver positive community and organizational benefits.

Network effect: In a brand community context, the effect whereby the more people who use (or participate with) a resource, the more value it offers.

Norms: Common terms, behavior patterns, rules, and discussion topics.

Organization: People participating in an agreed order, including at least one element of membership, hierarchy, rules, monitoring, and sanctions. (This definition is from Göran Ahrne and Nils Brunsson, “Organization outside Organizations: The Significance of Partial Organization,” Organization 18, no. 1 (2010): 83–104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508410376256.)

Organization outcomes: Behavior, skill, or resource that supports organizational goals.

Pareto principle: Also known as the 80-20 rule. It predicts that in many situations no less than 80 percent of success (or results and value) will come from no more than 20 percent of resources. This principle will show up in many areas in a community, including in membership involvement.

Participant: Anyone who takes an action to participate in your community in some way. Typically participants include both visitors and members.

Platform: The technology that allows participants to connect. As a tool, it is never enough, by itself, to form a community. Typically a platform enables members to communicate, share, and discover both one another and resources no matter where they are.

Rituals: Activities that have meaning. Appropriate rituals can be a great way to offer acknowledgments and appreciation. In mature communities, rituals acknowledge changes and milestones.

Segmentation stage: The stage at which a community branches off into subcommunities. These are a type of inner ring where not all members fit in all rings because of skills, interests, or maturity.

Shared experience: An event for a group or community that articulates, references, or reinforces the shared values of that group.

Shared space: A venue for meeting that allows participants to ask for help and deliver support. Whether they do or don’t depends on several factors. In this book, space can mean a physical location or a digital location where participants can meet.

Surrogation: The tendency for people “to confuse what’s being measured for the metric being used.” (This definition is from Michael Harris and Bill Tayler, “Don’t Let Metrics Undermine Your Business: An Obsession with Numbers Can Sink Your Strategy,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 2019, 64.)

Two-sided market: An economic platform that brings together at least two distinct user groups that provide each other with network benefits. (It is also referred to as a two-sided network.) A platform that offers value primarily by supporting connection between at least two types of affiliated customers is called a multisided platform.

Visitor: Someone seeking to learn more about your community. Typically, the person reads about the community, discovers its website, watches a video about the community, or visits an event, and grows interested.