For me, that's how it's been with COMMUNITY recently.

I have a heightened awareness of all things community as I have been undertaking research to build out the business and tech plans for a new community-based initiative centred on women's wellness.  Niche market play?  Sure.  But that's where community can be successful - a group of people, linked by a common interest or problem, one with which they engage personally and in some cases passionately, and in search of information (i.e. content) and engagement (i.e. conversation). 

As I look at the specialist marketplaces in which many of my clients operate, I am seeing the potential for building communities.  I know this is not exactly new - we've had user groups, special-interest groups and, going back even further, listserv groups, but the new community is a different experience, and one which delivers more value to the members, and which can be more useful to the sponsoring company.  And that's what I am exploring.

In the first instance, here are a few resources I found to be useful:

Mighty Networks - this Palo Alto-based scale-up offers a tech platform for online businesses which are powered by community.  I spent a lot of time with this tech, and found it affordable and flexible.  What I love about the way this team is executing is that they are practising what they preach - they have a community site for their members to swap ideas about building communities, and they offer a specialist accelerator course in what they refer to as community design.  

While exploring the Mighty Networks, I happened upon this community - Legal Tech StartUp Focus - and immediately joined.  First impressions, I think it looks like a useful set of resources and news for those with an interest in this sector, and you can definitely count me in that group.  I am looking forward to participating, and contributing.

And I found this article on the Insights Partners blog - Building and Activating a Community-Driven Motion - and it's directly relevant to my current thinking in terms of how a community-led motion may drive higher engagement, and accelerate growth.

More to come on this as I continue to do the research on the potential and applicability of community as part of a growth plan.