Often we think of communities as places that flourish in creativity, good will and wild founder visions. Whilst all of these points can be true, what is also true is that most communities are built on flywheels which also happen to be made up of day to day and repeatable processes.
Let us go exploreā¦
If a flywheel has A, B, and C:
Then for each A, B and C there will likely be multiple processes needing action.
Letās say you write a weekly newsletter, a simplistic flywheel might look like this.
The flywheel diagram is deceptively simple. Thatās kind of the point, after all, in that the goal of the diagram is to communicate how the parts fit together. But keep in mind that each phase of a flywheel is built on important and detailed processes that drive them forward.
Perhaps a newsletter flywheel will be built on processes such as:
Newsletter creation:
For sharing the newsletter:
Looking for new content:
A little while ago I started a Communitree initiative designed to get people talking about community building over short audio conversations, aka, Rackets.
If we were to break it down into a community flywheel then it would look something like this:
To me, sure, itās useful to have an overview of this to help understanding, but really the power in getting any initiative is in the grind of the doing ā ie. the processes. Creating initial excitement about something and people will not just magically come.
Iāve been refining the Communitree process over the past few weeks. It currently looks something like this, as documented in our Notion account:
Notion is our place to document all community and company processes, while much of our community work is happens directly in Orbit..
Every person who hosts a Communitree is tagged in Orbit as āCommunitreeā. The current count is 45 Communitrees recordings, and as this project keeps growing I want an easy way to reach out to everyone who has participated, which is why tagging is super important.
Iām not exactly sure how Iāll reach out, or why. I have some loose ideas around this, but for now Iām paying my future self by keeping the data nicely organised. The point here is that processes evolve over time.
In addition to the tagging, logging an activity is important from both a community and Orbit perspective. When communities are distributed we need to have the mindset that community building happens everywhere.
Every interaction can count towards community building. Some of it can be automatically pulled in via an integration, while other things still need a bit of a handcrafted and curated approach.
With Communitree Iāve been tagging Communitree as an activity with ā1ā weight.
Honestly, I started without a set process and I started making it up as I was going along. Trying to figure out where all the pieces of the puzzle fitted together.
There are some automations in place, but it doesnāt necessarily apply to everyone. For example, to book a Communitree with me people need to do so via Calendly. I have a Zap set up so that an Orbit activity is automatically added to Orbit when this is done. This wonāt necessarily happen for people external to the team, but it can happen for those within it.
Alas, I wish processes were perfect, theyāre usually something that require iteration, feedback and evolve overtime. Good enough over perfect is probably a good mindset to have.
Let's be real about this.
This looks easier on paper than it is in real life. Iām super guilty of thinking that I can get more done with the resources I have access to. Everything takes longer than expected, pretty much always.
Here are some things to be mindful about:
Iād love to talk more about community processes and how we can build these into our day to day workflows. When we talk, things can so easily get lost in translation. There is also a risk of losing core insights if a team member āgets hit by a busā.
However, by focusing on processes can enable us to build in predictability. Afterall, if we know what needs to be done, we will then be able to manage with increased precision.
Instead of looking at processes with reluctance, we can choose to look at them with joy!
With more talk and support for community building itās pretty exciting to see new conversations starting to appear around this. Community Operations is a term being used now, as a way to think, act and work on the day to day operations of community building.
The world just moves way too fast to stand still. This can feel like a blessing and a curse at the same time. Just when you feel you are starting to find your feet, often youāll find the world around you changing at a faster pace than your community has been accustomed to.
As part of your community strategy you need to balance what needs focusing on. Processes are never done. Just like flywheels are forever changing, processes need to change within them.
Building communities needs to have a culture of constantly reviewing (and iterating where it makes sense) where energy is being spent.
It is easy to fantasize about all the things that a community can create, the possibilities are endless. Perhaps it is within this potential that we can get overwhelmed and lost.
Flywheels are a great tool to start visualizing the things that need to be done. However, the real work is in drilling down, developing the processes and doing the work. Itās not sexy, but I assure you that the communities that thrive are those that are built upon actionable processes.
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