Category — Community Building

Many companies are looking for innovative added value service, whilst an increasing number are realizing the benefits of customer communities.  One idea that serves both purposes is to find a logical ‘area or interest’ for your company to build a community of interest around as a service.  A pharmaceuticals company did just that with a women’s group in Africa.  They were providing women with HRT, but found that in African society women going through the menopause felt isolated; what they really needed was support from other women who understood their personal issues.  So the company started a community group for them, helping with organization and materials - not only did this help the women, but it reflected well on the company and they gained more customers and custom.

I have thought of this story this summer whilst I have been laid up with my broken ankle trawling the internet looking for advice on turning scar tissue to ligament, good diets for healing bones, and flexibility exercises.  What experience has taught me is that Doctors don’t tell you everything and you have to take charge of your own recovery.  So what you need is other people to talk to who are in the same boat - there is only so much ‘wittering’ your friends will take.   I eventually found a good site for mutual support at my broken leg. com; basically a community for invalids to help each other through a time that can be very distressing.  Now how easy would it be for a relevant company - a sports clothing company, a medical company, health and fitness companies - to set up and support such a community.  Because the one thing I know from experience so many communities need is time and energetic people to run the show.

So is there a ‘problem’ that your customers have that you could support with a community service?  And serve as good research for you! And if anyone with a broken ankle needs help on their road to recovery do let me know.  I can tell you about everything from beauty treatments to ensure your have the prettiest potted toes, to the regime I’ve learnt to turn that pesky internal scar tissue back into useful ligament!  But more importantly, I can empathise with the emotional roller-coaster.

Whilst William Blake campaigned to free people’s imaginations from the slavery of command and control authority (see below),  his acolyte Samuel Palmer envisioned the warmth, harmony and intimacy of community.  Like Blake, he was not successful in his lifetime,  again because he did not market his work well,  but his early Shoreham and later art still has the power to reach out to us today.   His early work could well have been the inspiration for Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings; whilst his later paintings are worth studying for what they say about the importance of environment and community values to our well being.

Use examples of his work in innovative brain storming session on improving staff experience.

The  Dublin Writers Museum is an inspiring place, as long as you see past the ‘chip on the shoulder’ regarding the English: it also has a fantastic cafe!   A central theme is the crucial role played by the art of Celtic storytelling in Irish history: building communities, inspiring action, upholding values.   I was reminded of this recently when a friend commented that today’s media would rather cover their front pages with stories of fatuous celebrities, than real stories about the heroic lives of our servicepeople in foreign wars.

But ’twas ever thus, the national media have always been ringmasters of the circus,  whilst families and communities have been the real guardians of the flame - “Let us now praise famous men, AND our fathers that begat us”  chides Ecclesiasticus

A growing number of businesses are now rediscovering the art of  community storytelling, particularly in the small and medium size business sector (SMB),  to  align their organizations culturally with a set of values.    One telecoms company has what it calls ‘the legend approach’ - every month it records and lauds in a book  acts of extra special service to customers.  For example, a staff member who worked all night to get a customer’s network up and running for the next day.  Other staff are encouraged to applaud and celebrate such behaviour - and in so doing maybe be inspired themselves. 

In the end, great books, great deeds, give us a common currency,  but it is the ordinary people around us, with ordinary lives, doing both ordinary and extra-ordinary things who really inspire us - let’s sing their praises.

The picture in MM’s site heading is one we took of Antony Gormley’s installation  Another Place, at Crosby near Liverpool.  Yet another ‘inspired’ community placing of a work of art.

The sea around Crosby is wild and dangerous; where industry meet nature; not a place for bathing.  As the tide ebbs from the shore it reveals another, and then another,  and then, look, yet another figure on the beach, gazing out to sea at the passing ships plying their trade from Liverpool; yet in an environment where nature is still very much king.  

There are 100 figures in total covering just over a mile and a half (3km) of the shoreline - all totally covered by crashing waves at high tide.  The artist describes it as a ‘middle aged man, no hero,  trying to stand and breathe as time, tide and trade pass around him.  

It’s relevance to us was the mix of industry with nature,  the power of the whole group,  and the ever changing experience generated by the transient elements of the environment.

But we also liked the fact that even on a grey, wet, November Sunday it had the power to bring out a wide range of people - old, young, families, couples - from art lover, to hot dog connoisseur.   All mingling,  all exploring,  all fascinated by the experience.