A community is a group of people who share the same interest. The question is not, “Can you build a community?” Communities exist or they do not. The correct question is, “Do you have a community and how can you harness it?”
It is not always clear from a business context if every product or service has a community. Think about toothpaste. Not a lot of people care about their toothpaste. However, you can think about community from a different perspective such as a dentist or a mother. Tooth care professionals such as dentist have an interest in researching what toothpaste is the best for their patients. Mother's who are concerned with their children’s teeth are very interested in finding and discussing which toothpaste is the best. How can you harness these two groups who have a common interest and create a community around the product? The community always existed it is just creating a forum to bring them together.
"Tooth care professionals such as dentist have an interest in researching what toothpaste is the best for their patients." I agree with this thank you for bringing up this.
florence
Posted by: california teeth whitening | 08/10/2009 at 12:56 AM
I had no community but i liked to join the dentist community to enhance my white teeth, if you have any suggestion pleas let me know,thank you so much in advance.
by: florence
Posted by: california teeth whitening | 04/05/2009 at 01:26 AM
As the daughter of a dentist - yes Virginia, there is a strong and very active dental community and they care about more than toothpaste. ABC News Specials did a special report on Appalachia a few weeks ago, and they almost destroyed Pepsi Co.'s best selling brand - Mountain Dew, when they showed the rotting teeth of Appalachian children and said, "These kids have Mountain Dew mouth." Mountain Dew's higher than average acid content was to blame, the dental community told ABC, for the rampant rot in children's mouths. Now wonder how powerful this seemingly quiet community is.
Dentists worry about more than toothpaste. They're also the ones fighting for or against flouridation in our water. If you haven't read the research about flouridation, or the extremely heated opposition to it - you should. It affects you and you're drinking it whether you want to or not.
Dentists also show up in schools to fight for dental health, and take care of the poor and indigent across America so they can eat and stay healthy. Why? Because it's a matter of community health, the cost to communities in terms of insurance and medical problems such as heart disease, death and malnutrition.
Health concerns are huge concerns to the entire medical community. No, it's not sexy, but it's real and it's big and it's doing a lot behind the scenes to ensure the poorest among us keep their teeth, or even get teeth.
The message is, Your community is NOT always your customer or your product. Look at how dentists impacted Pepsico's bottom line. Pepsi was smart enough to agree to fund dental care for the region and to provide new dentures for the kids whose teeth were rotting out. Good dental health means better self-esteem and more likelihood that these kids will graduate from high school and make something of their lives.
Never underestimate the power of community. And as far as your question about whether or not every product, business or service has a community? My answer is YES. They do. They may not be obvious, but yes, they do. There is for instance, a community that collects body parts - fingers, teeth, bones.....small, but active. Who knew? There's a community that collects, sells and trades in the very lucrative business of old Post Office Wanted Posters. There's a community of people who make sweaters and clothing out of cat, dog and pet fur and sell them.
Name something and I'll show you the community. It may be a niche, but if someone makes, sells, uses or interacts with it, there's a community for it. I promise you, there is.
Posted by: becky blanton | 03/23/2009 at 07:55 PM
It's also interesting to think about how you harness individual pieces of your community. I work for a college, so we have a variety of communities--students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, industry, etc. We have decided to bring all these groups together in one college community we are building separate from our website. Launch date: September 1 (or sooner).
Posted by: Steve Buchholz | 03/23/2009 at 05:01 PM
Hi Jess,
Thanks for the encouragement. This is the only place we post publicly about the program. However, you can read our individual blogs here: http://www.sixmonthmba.com/about-samba.html
Stay tuned, and you will learn more about our individual projects soon.
Posted by: Rebecca Goldstein | 03/23/2009 at 11:34 AM
seriously love the awesome posts you folks keep turning out. Keep up the awesomeness.
Would love to hear about some of the cool projects Seth has you working on.
Is there another place I should be following you all?
Posted by: Jess Sloss | 03/23/2009 at 11:17 AM