What is important in order to make a community? Activating economy? Organizing structure? Of course these are very true, but common idea to keep a community is just having FUN!
Ryuta Aoki is an organizer of “TEDxKids@Chiyoda” He tries to collaborate an idea of TED with the possibility of children. Nao Suzuki, publisher of greenz.jp, had a talk session with him at an event of “green drinks Tokyo.”
At first, just “FUN” is for this reason that people take action. You don’t want to do what you don’t wanna do, right? That is the reason. Organizing place where people can be a smile are important. Furthermore, it is wonderful to consciously produce conditions where peoples’ intellectual curiosity is stimulated.
Simply, this is an answer of keeping motivation in communities. Stimulating intellectual curiosity generates self-motivation.
Members of a community have different thoughts, values, and activities. Here is an advice from Aoki to continuously keep a team.
We need to organize opportunities for members to take a break and graduate from the community. This structure is really important. This means that breaks give other members leisure and that makes them feel comfortable. Nevertheless, some people possibly parts in anger. That is undesirable.
Aoki and Suzuki propose some keywords for community management.
Mr. Aoki’s keywords of community management
1. A reason for taking action is FUN.
2. Relation matching encourages self-motivation.
3. All members are the main character. Make a space to let members paint by themselves.
4. All members of communities are friends, not a laborer.
5. Placing emphasis on following one’s talk closely on communications.
6. Sharing ideas
7. Sharing visions, not deciding detailed plans.
8. Leadership is not a status but is a fruit of one’s own action.
9. Trust and making questions
10. Having some break times occasionally.
Mr. Suzuki’s 10 ideas for social design
1. Start thinking from “my own problems”
2. Making use of FUN which have ability to make people change
3. Starting from small things
4. Producing a structure which steadily goes on
5. Making customers “participants”
6. Exerting “weak leadership” (no compelling power. Power could deprive self-motivation and creativity from people. )
7. Sharing a vision
8. Creating an ecosystem from an activity (implies an organization which keeps going on if members of the community change.)
You realize that there are some common ideas like sharing the vision but not having compelling power. Organizing space means you can start thinking from occasions around your concern.
Weak structures, ecosystem of a community, help generating self-motivation and creativity. Can you find ideas you like to make use of?
[via Greenz.jp written by Kota Suzuki + Yuto Miyamoto]
[English Text by Yuki Hirayama]
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