I recently asked the ABV team to provide one piece of advice about communities or community-building. Here’s what they said:

• Join a community to enrich your life.Get involved to reap the rewards. This follows nicely with my experience of being part of the Coolest Women We Know community.
• Communities are unpredictable. This is neither good nor bad. It’s just the nature of communities. They can’t be controlled with Soviet-style centralized planning (come to think of it, that didn’t work either.) And it’s in the wild and wooly places that we find the stunning results.
• Don’t push the river. It flows by itself. The more you try to control it, the more you inhibit it. Another one of those less is more circumstances.
• It takes work to build a community. It doesn’t just happen. It’s more than sending emails. This might seem like a paradox based on the previous bullet item. I think of this as putting the work into the soil, watering on a regular basis and providing plenty of sunshine, so that a plant can grow to its full potential. You can’t force how the plant will grow (will it be 2 or 3 feet tall?) but you can help it grow.
• Don’t underestimate the power and kindness of community. Simon, one of the ABV consultants, told me of his adventure when his computer when on the blink, and had to go in the shop. He was a bit discombobulated, without use of a computer, until he queried his Twitter network. Would someone be willing to lend him a laptop for a few days? Shortly thereafter, someone he knew from Twitter but who he had never met in person offered up a loaner. (It turns out the person was just a stone’s throw away from Simon’s office.)

The more I learn about the nature of communities, the more fascinated I am. What advice do you have on community-building?