I crave community but admit, I’m not good at online community.
I’ve been contemplating joining a couple of online communities but have hesitated.
So I’ve been introspecting what’s really the reasons that prevent me from sticking around online communities and here are my observations.
FOMO
Fear of missing out (FOMO) I believe is one of the big detractors of why I haven’t been good about online communities. Especially true for communities built around instant-messaging apps like Slack.
The stream of information that passes through is all in real-time and if I stop keeping up with that stream, I’m going to miss out.
If I’m missing out, then what’s the use of keeping up?
But I realized that my perspective has been the wrong one. While I join a community out of a common interest, the FOMO is a posture that the community is here to serve me.
This leads to feeling like I must consume all the things to get the value out of it.
To stay informed and relevant in the community.
But the realization has sunk in, that what if I join the community not for what’s in it for me…but for others?
At work, I’m part of an organization within a larger organization. The larger org is 1000 people, my org in itself is 100. The number of conversations are vast and many. There’s no way I can consume the water hose of information.
So the majority of conversations I purposefully let those get away from me and hone in on the conversations where I can provide value – like my immediate teams.
Hoping to go from fear of missing out and striving for joy of helping out.
Discord
Disagreements, not the app.
For a while I thought the internet had so much disagreement.
I’ve come to realize that the core of the fear of discord wasn’t because of disagreement, but more so a defense mechanism for criticism. Criticism was what made me limit what I put out into the internet for fear of being called a fraud or for not being good enough for whatever it was I was creating.
When working with people discord happens in discourse and it is healthy. Often it leads to better outcomes or there simply was a misunderstanding and the other person is just trying to understand your point.
Instead of ruminating on what a person said and how it made me feel, I’m learning to assume that others have positive intent and to be inquisitive.
Engaging by asking clarifying questions or simply saying, “tell me more” so that I can get into a shared context from which they are communicating.
Code of conduct
While discord is a natural thing that happens in communities, it doesn’t have to spiral out of control.
Which is why I really appreciate those with online communities that have a well-defined code of conduct.
You can tell that the organizer of an online community cares by the care that they had put into their code of conduct.
I admit, I haven’t always read code of conduct documents in the past, but am definitely paying attention to them moving forward.
Some examples of good code of conduct documents are from the Rands Leadership Slack and Wiggle Work.
The Setup
This time around when engaging with these online communities, I plan on setting up three constraints.
One is a time constraint. I’ll only devote 15 minutes of time to each online community. If I see that I’m able to be helpful within those 15 minutes, I’ll chime in and participate.
Second is a device constraint. I plan on only engaging in these communities on my iPad. My iPad is the device where the habits of going down a rabbit hole of online discourse is the least likeliest.
Lastly, I have all notifications except for Messages turned off for my devices. It is worth mentioning, that even for these communities, all notifications will be turned off. This is so that it doesn’t grab my attention, but only within the time I allot it.
Conclusion
Even with the introspection and constraints, I’ll admit that some communities are seasonal. Things in my life may change and the communities I may be part of may not be relevant to me anymore. And that’s ok.
As long as I’m able to help others out, I would be glad to have been a part of a community for however long of a moment.
Here’s to hoping I’ll be better at online communities this time around.