The Digital Community Of Tomorrow

Digital Communities – Our Certain Future

Many people cherish vintage cinema as though it was a postcard sent from their favorite yesterday. Classic communities filled with memorable faces; a small town square centered in the light flurry of a few scattered streets.  Last names are a luxury; if a nickname’s not used, a first name will do.  Each and every citizen in these cinema cities seems to have a key role in the happenings of the burg.

Over the years, we have collectively witnessed a steady transformation from this quaint concept of community to a broader, less personal breed of city dwellers. Gone is much of the character, chiseled away by the faceless replication of a million McDonalds and Walmarts.  Today we stare between the eyes of a far more drastic change.

Enter Digital Communities.

As the Internet continues to evolve, evermore accessible and increasingly useful, so does our population spend more time hovering across a virtual landscape than engaged in the sensory world of touch, taste, and smell.  Our Walmart experience is gradually shifting from a stroll down the aisle to a few keyboard taps chased by the cursory click of our mouse.

The last couple of years have ushered sweeping innovation and an increased acceptance about the nature of tomorrow’s community.  Web 2.0 is moving from buzz word to way of life for an ever increasing number of the population, with no generation excluded.  The notion of a tweet as a method of interaction amongst friends would have led only to confusion not too long ago.  Today, for many a blogger, the word may as well be a synonym for community.  Intertwined and interactive, the number of ways to inter-connect is ever increasing.

We are no longer restrained by the traditional boundaries of the past; we have no high walls to keep us down or out.  Common interests and content of character draw us together while instant communication keeps us connected.

Soaring online success requires a formidable fingerprint.  Building a robust digital community offers a shortcut.

Just a century and a half back, all information was still traveling along at the clumsy speed of mammal.  Now it is only slightly slower than thought.  The most successful artists, leaders, and entrepreneurs of our next looming decade will be those with the ability to use the immediate access to harness a digital community around themselves.

There have never been finer tools to gather voices together.

This week, we’ll explore some of the methods of building community in early 09.  Tomorrow, Sean will discuss some basic skills for effective online communication.  On Wednesday we will talk about finding your voice on Twitter.  Thursday, Eric will talk about the numerous layers of online relationships within a digital community.

Until tomorrow,

The BB Team

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