Happy 4th Everyone! ...And Some Thoughts on Community

I loved this quote form poet Maya Angelou:

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

I got it from ‘The Chart Report‘ a new fave daily email I get from my friends Patrick Dunwila and Steve Strazza who are doing a great job curating the social web for the most interesting charts of the day. They are building therr own community within the larger community of people that love talking about stocks and markets.

I dish out my share of critiques about companies, people and products on the social web. I know it’s not fair, but hey life is not fair.

I also get my fair share of critiques and attacks because I am easy to find.

While I am not an expert in much, I feel like the closest thing I am to being an expert in is community. I live and breathe the idea of sharing and how t0 build community. I did it with Wallstrip and now over 12 years at Stocktwits and early adopter of Twitter and 14 years on my blog.

It is not hard to find me and scream. It’s just as easy as finding me to say something nice.

The truth is for every nasty comment or critique I get 99 thank you’s or hey ‘have you thought of this’ which I consider a helpful compliment.

I have written about this before but building a community is about having rules. The less the better of course which what makes community building hard. You just can’t be all things to all people.

It’s why I love centralized communities. It’s why centralized communities have been around for thousands of years. Obviously centralized is not perfect and thats why everyone in tech and crypto thinks the solution is ‘decentralize’.

As crypto and the blockchain take further hold, I expect decentralized communities will take shape.

I just don’t think people as a whole will be any happier with them.

I hope everyone has a fun and safe 4th of July. Ellen, Rachel and I will be walking the streets of Manhattan and enjoying the city.