The Art of Community

Chapter 7. Measuring Community

“Learning without thought is labor lost.”

—Confucius

Great community leadership requires accepting the volatility of community. Volunteer communities are a bubbling pot of varying personalities, commitments, skills, and experiences. It is this reason why I often refer to the work of community leaders as “herding cats.” But as leaders we are here not only to lead and inspire our cats, but also to learn to see the patterns in the chaos that is community.

There are many patterns out there: common personality traits, techniques for getting people excited about something, methods of handling conflict, common opinions, and more. It is these patterns, correlations, and structures that help us to not only better manage our own communities, but to share our experiences with others. When I see a pattern, I want to share it so you can use it in your own communities. Unfortunately, the randomness of the chaos can sometimes hide these patterns from common view, and many perceive “community measurement” as something of an oxymoron.

Earlier in this book we contrasted logical vessels such as programming languages and more randomized entities such as community:

[Programming languages] live and breathe in a world where the answer to a question is yes or no. There is no maybe. In a world where maybe does not exist, you can plan ahead for an answer. With community, the importance and diversity of the question are equally essential.

You could be forgiven for thinking that community ...