Community Matters
Written by: Siria Contreras
With the day of thanks now in the rear-view mirror, I decided to take a moment to express gratitude for a word that I have formed a very personal relationship with over the years, COMMUNITY.
If you look up the word “Community” one of the primary ways that it is defined is as being “a unified body of individuals: such as people with common interests living in a particular area.”
Oftentimes, a community is assumed to be tied to specific geographic locations that we might find ourselves in. That is not incorrect, but neither is it necessarily in alignment with what we typically mean when we use that word.
I have found that the communities that actually have the most meaningful impact on individuals and on society as a whole are the ones that are sought out and formed to either fill a void or to substantiate and further certain interests and beliefs.
The importance of community is often underrated and taken for granted.
Unless the variable serving as the unifier of a community resonates with you, it is easy for these safe harbors that bring life and volume to previously displaced individuals and afford them the strength to find their voice to be overlooked and underestimated.
One thing I have learned both in my professional and personal endeavors is the highly-measurable value of community. Whether it is included as a lever in my marketing strategy for brands/networks, television shows/films, technology, products/services, etc. or in my more artistically-driven or philanthropic projects, communities are the necessary heartbeat for these and if the approach is genuine, the support of communities can help to catapult an idea, project, or product to success— or on the flip side deem it as a failure if it is not in line with their ethos.
“For better or worse, communities can help to extend the life of an idea or product or kill it entirely.”
One of the beautiful things about communities is that they can also help to serve as your incubator for a new idea or product.
It is a tactic that I have employed often in my career (especially in entertainment) when determining whether something would resonate with a larger audience.
However, it is not just about picking a group of people at random as that sample audience or “control group” that you select has to be diverse enough to deliver actionable data that can help to inform your decisions and strategy further. As we all know, most world-renowned brands/products are only as good as their marketing and with today’s EQ factor rising—how consumers associate with them. Finding the right audience demos can make your company overnight or be a costly mistake if the wrong audience is targeted.
One of the things that excites us most at The Nourish Foundation, but especially Olivia and I as we share a pioneering spirit, is the idea of “innovation” and “re-novation” when it comes to technology and systems that can help create improvements for society, in nourishment, workforce efficiencies, and beyond.
We are both very lucky to have an innate and strong pre-existing sense of community that fosters inclusivity as individuals, but are also fortunate enough to belong to a few collectives comprised of amazing peers and colleagues whose opinions we trust and value.
It is within these communities and small pockets of society, that we begin to test these new ideas and applications before we go to market with them.
As we continue to explore synergies within our ecosystems (another word I’m thankful for that we’ll cover another time), we welcome the new communities that will form around what these evolutions derive.
In closing, I leave you with these two quotes that capture what we feel a spirit of community is for us, by writer and theorist Meg Wheatley, I especially hold a lot of regard for the second one.
"There is no power for change greater than a community discovering what it cares about"
“Real social change comes from the ageless process of people thinking together in conversation.”
Stay tuned. We’re all on this journey together.