Network to Communities: the evolution of omidyar.net

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If you are not already familiar, omidyar.net/home/ has been an active online community sine July 04. It was created and opened up by Omidyar Network LLC, tracing back to Pierre Omidyar of Ebay fame. The purpose of the network space was to help more and more people discover their power to make good things happen. This attracted a particular crowd interested in making the world a better place, some through entrepreneurship, some through tools, and other opportunities. And this network, with some 100-200 active engaged users and nearly 20,000 sign ons is being bumped off the platform. The hope or strategy perhaps is to foster communities of purpose to move beyond the limitations of the network and the platform to scale up and out more good things.

There is much I can say about this network, having been a highly active member for several years. I can speak to the philanthropy on and from and to the network. But that belongs in another topic space. What I want to address here is the movement from network to community. What distinguishes a network from a community? What are the advantages of a network? What are the advantages of a community? What are the disadvantages of each?

I have some answers of my own. And I would love to brainstorm this with others (you) as well.

My sense is that a network is a grouping of people through loose or weak affiliation. And that affiliation may not be the same across all relationships. As has been noted in network theory there is a great strength in weak ties. I consider a community to be a more densely woven connection of people who are joined by purpose or interest. You may not realize the scope of your network(s), but you likely know the scope of your community. There is a greater sense of self-awareness of the group within community. In fact that awareness is part of the distinguishing characteristics, in my mind. To know itself. To know what it holds in common.

I very much look forward to seeing how the network on omidyar.net/home/ moves to new spaces and creates communities (or not) in the coming months. And I am eager to understand how others see both the evolution and the community/network distinction.

OYA at Burning Man

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Donations for OYA can be made by paypal or online through IHCenter.

Community Inclusion

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On one of my favorite online communities, Omidyar.net, I have seen great debates about inclusion in community. There are those who suggest that everyone should be heard and everyone has a right to say whatever they want to say within community. And those very people suggest that if what is said offends anyone, then that sense of being offended says something about that person. Sometimes I wonder if I agree. Perhaps to some degree.

But I think the whole argument stems from a blurring of the line between what a society is and how it should hold itself and what a community is and how it should hold itself. Societies can and I think should be comprised of diverse individuals within broad geographical shared space, functioning as large scale loosely connected citizens working together across differences for common good. Communities, while they can also be diverse in many regards, also are groupings of choice. One may live within a geographical perimeter of a community area, but can choose not to be part of that community. One may live far away from a community and still feel a part of it. It is a grouping of choice. And that makes all the difference.

Communities are collections of individuals (or families) that are tightly woven, usually of relatively smaller scale, bound by some commonality–often of interest or practice.

The practices that makes a society thrive, I suggest, are different from those that make a community thrive. For a community to flourish, we need to have commonly agreed practices. What is acceptable and what is not? And those things need not be, indeed must be, different than those that govern society as a whole. Who is inside the community? Who is outside? That critically determines the safety of the space for community. That determines what conversations can take place inside the boundaries of the community.

When Resource Generation brings together young affluent social justice activists, they create a safe space for conversations that could not happen elsewhere. Those conversations would be more difficult or impossible in a mixed generation community or a mixed wealth community or a community permeated by raging capitalists. And when that safe space opens up, then sharing happens. Sharing in a safe space opens people up to sharing more than their ideas. They share of themselves, forging their identity. They may share their belongings or other resources as well. Sharing follows from trust.

When community members slip into society-defending postures, justifying safe space destroying activities as free speech or other critical freedoms in society, that slippage makes false argument at the cost of community safe space. While we all may deserve the right to free speech, a community deserves to be able to construct norms around what is acceptable and unacceptable within that community. And they deserve to have the power to enforce exclusion. Within the Omidyar.net community, the cry for free speech has allowed any activity that is not completely clear spam to be allowed. And the cost of that free speech has been the safety of the community. Where raging loons rampage against multiple individuals and addressing them in words merely feeds the loon or troll with attention, then safe space and conversations of trust disappear.

For online community to evolve toward great collaboration, trolls must be addressed. Wikipedia attempts this in several ways–trolling comments are removed. Content that is contentious is marked as such. Debate over content is available while not marring the output of the site. When we see trollish or spamming behavior in other communities that fail to moderate or govern themselves, navigation of the space gets mired and difficult (Facebook, Tribe).

I look forward to discovering spaces for community online that have self-governing tools, as onet does, and community practices that foster safe spaces for conversation, collaboration, and community identity development. I suspect one way this may be possible currently is through smaller communities focused very selectively on shared interest as can be developed on tools like Ning.

As I said on omidyar.net

Goddess, please grant me an online community with conversation tracking, project management, acknowledgment, knowledge management, and high quality transpartisan collaborators trying to take action toward a better world for all of us!

Yes, and acknowledgment includes one with tools and practices that will help create effective semi-permeable boundaries for community to self-regulate effectively.

Localizing Global Change! Chicago Conference July 20-22

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You are invited to co-create the 4th Annual Chicago Conference for Good. PLEASE join us, bring friends and add spirit! Share this invitation with neighbors and colleagues, people you’d like to connect or reconnect with this July!

“…cuz people who do stuff need to know more people who do stuff.” – ted ernst

Localizing Global Change: Issues and Opportunities

July 19-22 in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, IL USA

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us! …for More and More.

More and more people. More and more resources. More and more easy. More and more connected. More and more green. More and more power to do good things, in more and more local neighborhoods and organizations.

Three years ago, some of us convened a small but national conference on the future of philanthropy, technology and community action. Two years ago, more of us joined in to create a second and international conference which was also the first-ever omidyar.net members conference. Last year we did it again, and along the way these conversations have sparked half a dozen more conferences and action on at least four continents.

All the while, you’ve been busy doing all the things you do to try make the world a better place, and you’ve been noticing that more and more people are getting together for global community good. This year’s global gathering in Chicago is going to focus on “doing”. All good work. All kinds of local action. We welcome good people from everywhere to join with people we are actively inviting who are “doing” in Chicago neighborhoods. Bring your own local doing to share. We want to do more and more in all localities, and to do it more together.

This year’s conference will follow the same simple and active format as all the previous conferences. We’ll gather for one big opening, create a working agenda that includes all of our most important issues and questions, meet with friends and colleagues to actively address everything on the agenda, document and publish our notes online, and head back out into all the things we are doing with more energy, more clarity and more connections.

The momentum of community is rising. Please join us!
…for more and more global good on the ground where you live.

WHEN? July 19-22, 2007 …music and barbecue on Thursday night, conference all day Friday and Saturday, finishing by noon on Sunday, with airport drop-offs or excursions for out-of-towners on Sunday afternoon.

WHERE? General Robert E. Wood Boys & Girls Club, 2950 W. 25th Street, Chicago IL 60623

WHO SHOULD COME? Anyone who wants to get more and more into community, technology, environment, and other social justice kinds of work and practice. Anyone who wants to make more and more connections between all these sorts of things. And anyone who wants to have more and more fun and friends in the process of community leadership.

WHAT TO BRING? Food to eat/share, materials to show/share, ideas and questions, issues and projects that you care about and want to inform and be informed by others AND a total of $40 (scholarships may be available) to pay for basic costs of site and materials for all three days of meetings.

NOW WHAT? Send an email to nurturegirl@gmail.com, make a payment at paypal, forward this invitation to friends and colleagues, people you work with — and people you want to work with. we’ll send you details about places and times and be glad to answer any other questions. Stay tuned to www.GlobalChicago.net for more information.

CO-CONVENERS? Ted Ernst, Hermilo Hinojosa, Kachina Katrina Zavalney, Michael Herman, Michael Maranda, Jean Russell, Dave Chakrabarti, Pierre Clark, and You…

Discussion

What kind of stuff
have we been doing?

* hosting and attending green dinners,
* community gardening,
* blogging,
* digital excellence & inclusion,
* chicago conservation corps training,
* growing food,
* organizing block clubs and parties,
* depaving your yard and inviting neighbors,
* restoring a riverbank,
* planting native prairie in your local park
* organizing your neighbors to work with the alderman or CAPS to get a camera,
* or get one taken out,
* recruiting volunteers,
* organizing safe routes to school,
* buying organic foods,
* experimenting with new tech ways to connect people,
* and living with less tech
* driving less,
* recycling more,
* ensuring all differently brained people are seen as human beings,
* seeing to it that the ADA laws are followed,
* making social activists are supported and nurtured,
* urban chicken egg farming
* block clubs
* traffic calming
* peace parks
* “doing.”… ,