You can better seed the community with the right shared experiences and norms for the space, because you’ll know who you’re building for. If you start there, you’ll have much more conviction on the decisions you’re making. Start with clarity on the specific problem you want to solve, and for what audience. If you create a clearly defined space that’s clear on its purpose, you can draw the relevant people together. Our most fundamental human nature is to create connection: there are a lot of communities that exist out there that may have trouble connecting or maybe cannot find each other. ![]() Good product development requires leading with the problem statement. At Instagram we talk about the core tenets of good product principles and building good products. Begin with the problem and then find the solutionĪY: Don’t be a solution in search of a problem: instead find a problem that’s worth solving and then figure out the right solution to it. It makes what could be hard decisions in transactional moments much easier. Prospective partnerships need to be aligned with our core values because we are crystal clear in who we serve. LDG: At Folx Health for example, we are here for the LGBTQIA community and they come first. This is where authenticity of voice in community empowerment is so important: transactional or superficial narratives lead to breakage and distrust, undermining the engagement that is required to empower people with meaningful solutions to a shared set of problems. One of the challenges with healthcare issues is that people‘s identities are broader than their health challenges. We see this with different identities: mothers who are navigating the peripartum experience, caregivers who are supporting loved ones with neurodegenerative or cardiovascular disease, or people navigating anxiety disorders. Imagine for a moment different communities who share common problems and issues around their health: access, treatment, prevention, literacy, the list goes on. “we need to get to market faster we don’t have time to start talking about the soft and fuzzy stuff.”īut that approach inevitably costs you cycles once you’re out in the world - the old saying that “there is never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it twice.” Without that clarity of principle for a given community, you end up making hard decisions messier and more time intensive but when you define community from the outset and clearly define who you are and what you stand for, it allows you to make hard decisions much more easily. This happens under the guise of speed, e.g. Entrepreneurs think about starting a new business or launching a new product and go right to the thing they’re going to launch without focusing on the principles that define their community and what they stand for. Too often, particularly in communities with shared health challenges, and especially with vulnerable or under-represented communities, people don’t take the time to empower and build communities. LDG: Authenticity of voice is important when trust is imperative, as it is in healthcare. ![]() Why is community building in healthcare important? This is critical to establish early on because it defines the entire space as it scales. ![]() Building community requires being intentional about how you see that shared space: the shared culture and norms. This is important because the community is what really shapes the space, while the medium helps set parameters and incentivize certain behaviors.Ĭommunity building at its essence is helping to seed a space with intentionality that serves a group of people. The most important and interesting thing is what fills that space: that’s the community. Platforms and social networks are just spaces - containers - for people to come together. Be crystal clear about your focus so people can see themselves in it and find their way to you if that is in line with who they are and what they want and need.ĪY: At Instagram, the first hire that the founders made was not a designer or an engineer - the two founders had those skills - but the very first hire was a Head of Community. So, first and foremost, you need to identify what your values are, what you stand for, and why you exist. People are often afraid to create that structure because they don’t want to turn anyone away but if you try to be everything to everyone, you are very likely nothing to anyone. Doing so also requires building clarity not only around who you serve and what you’re solving for them but, importantly, who you don’t serve. LDG: Rather than thinking of it as community building which can often feel transactional and inauthentic, I prefer to think of it as community empowerment that centers the needs of the community rather than your own. ![]() What is community building? How do you define it?
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