Community – Synthesis Always Satisfies (or is it Snickers?)

Community, community, community. Even after four months of endlessly discussing this concept in not one but TWO classes (see also: IST 402H Community Informatics), and reading countless blog entries via Pligg, and even more blog entries from Twitter friends about the role of Twitter in community building, I am not sure how or where to even begin synthesizing my thoughts on ‘community.’

I suppose I can start with a few good definitions I have heard, and then relate them back to CI 597C. First up is from my blog entry, A Sense of Virtual Community, which I made in response to a reading assignment in my Community Informatics class. The four criteria that McMillan and Chavis (1986) use to define virtual community are:

• Feelings of membership
• Feelings of influence
• Integration and fulfillment of needs
• Shared emotional connection

You may recall that I joined CI 597C late, in week 3 of the semester. Even though the group had only physically met once at that point, I felt like an outsider, like each of you were intimately acquainted. This probably had less to do an assumption of bonding over two weeks as it did with my incorrect assumption that the entire class was in the same graduate program, but nonetheless I felt like an outsider, a College of Ag student walking through the dangerous woods of the College of Education. I certainly did not experience feelings of membership, influence, or a shared emotional connection, as suggested by McMillan and Chavis.

It was not until I had a role in what would later be known as Team Tweet that I began to feel any of these things. It was my ability to find a place in this smaller community that let me feel like a member of the bigger CI597C community, when I had something to share as I recapped what Team Tweet had discussed and decided. It was when I saw a blog entry on Diffusion, Paul Revere, and Cole Camplese receive a still-standing record 11 votes that I felt I had influence over the community. I also felt my influence when I offended a member of the larger community in a blog post about Have Nots that I felt I had influence. And when members of my group told me they disagreed with that entry while also publicly defending my right to express my thoughts, I felt a shared emotional connection with them and the classmate whom I had deeply offended.

When reflecting on these moments, I realized that CI 597C is a community — for me anyway, because I engage in the community. I also realize that I am only comfortable calling CI 597C a community from mid-February on, as before that I (or it?) was lacking McMillan & Chavis’s elements of community. Then again, if these elements had already existed for other classmates, does that mean it could be a community for them but not me? This seems to relate to engagement and Wenger and those sorts of things?

Second up is Lawrence Lessig’s keynote speech at the 2008 TLT Symposium. I particularly like the part where he described mashups and YouTube as the modern equivalent of “young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs.” Donna further expands the metaphor of a community gathering on the porch via office chairs and computers in her post, “Community: Sitting on the Front Porch.” I feel very fortunate to have had a group of intelligent, motivated people with whom I could sing the songs of the day or the old songs. The creative energy at my house in early April, when Mike, Liz, Donna and I were working on our discussion/preso for Twitter, was absolutely electric.

I have never been a part of a team that worked together so well so quickly. Each of us recognized everybody’s respective strengths, and immediately we started creating and accepting roles that suited our strengths. It must’ve been a neat scene to see: Mike has two computers open to work on video and audio, to create the Caveman transitions and other fun things we had planned. Lis is on her computer, creating wiki pages for the hands-on activity and other discussion questions we planned to ask. I was on my computer, finding and creating the images and materials we needed for our backchannel. Donna, who still refuses to acknowledge her technological prowess when around us, brought forth her mastery of academic literature by dissecting Wenger, and even found a gazillion Twitter applications for us to explore. It was a community of practice, a group of young people sitting around and creating new songs to sing and enjoying the simple act of creation. We even expanded this later in the week by meeting at Otto’s for dinner, drinks, and trivia — and two more hours of brainstorming for our discussion/preso.

Third is Becci’s question about the community membership status of Carla, the physical lurker in our class, which she raised in her post “Is Carla a member of our CI597 community?” I expanded her question to not only examine Carla’s membership in our community, but also the membership of my fiancee, other classmates’ family members/roommates, and other lurkers (hello, if you are still reading this!), in my post, “Re: ‘Peripheral’ Community Members, like Carla, Lurkers (hello!), and My Fiancee.”

Interestingly — or fittingly — this conversation happened before Twitter became a part of our lives. I imagine Becci’s question would have looked different had we been able to include micala, reginaldgolding, stevier, robin2go, and apetersen in the discussion, given the emergence of the Twitter community. I also find it interesting that Carla has not been to any classes since Becci’s post, and none of us have pointed this out. Did anyone even notice?

Finally, with relation to Twitter and community, I am preparing to end my time as a student here at Penn State. One of the options I face is moving back to Philadelphia, where I was born and raised. While I am excited at the possibility of physically rejoining friends with whom I can only communicate via phone, I am also saddened that this scenario means I will not be immediately, physically connected to people who share my interest and passion for technology and innovation, such as the PSU Twitter Community. I wonder if I will be able to create, or start, a similar Tweet Meet group in Philly. I currently only follow one person from the Philly area, and there is no connection between us other than somehow our Twitter paths crossed. In terms of trying to fit in professionally in Philadelphia, I wonder if she is part of a bigger network of Twitterers, or how to find/join that community. I know that the PSU Twitter Community will still be there to share Week In Photos, interesting articles, and ideas, but I wouldn’t be able to participate in the Tweet Meets and we have all acknowledged there is something beneficial about face to face interactions.

Funny how 4 months ago I would have laughed at the thought that Twitter would be a worry of mine in case I move to Philly, and laughed at the idea it could be such a powerful tool of community. But that is a small example of how largely my thinking and perception has changed as a result of the Spring 2008 semester.