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In this chapter, the author emphasizes the importance of understanding human behavior when building communities. They highlight how businesses often focus on the tools and platforms they need, but forget about the people they are building for. The author shares an example of a company that had boring marketing emails because they believed their executive audience needed formal material. However, when they changed to more dynamic imagery, they saw improved engagement. The author argues that we need to have a realistic understanding of human behavior to build successful human systems.
The chapter is divided into three areas: understanding human behavior, creating audience personas, and understanding group dynamics in a community. The author explains that human behavior is often irrational, which they describe as the “Ikea Effect.” People tend to overvalue their own creations and make irrational decisions based on the same stimuli. The author recommends studying behavioral economics to understand human patterns and behavior and harness them in communities.
The chapter introduces Daniel Kahneman’s concept of System 1 and System 2 thinking. System 1 is fast, automatic, and intuitive, while System 2 is slower and analytical. System 1 is more influential and guides System 2 to a large extent. The author suggests that understanding these two thinking systems can help in building communities.
The chapter then introduces the SCARF model, which stands for Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. The author explains that these factors influence human behavior and should be considered when designing community strategies. For example, status can be harnessed by creating different status levels based on participation, while certainty can be ensured through transparency and openness.
Next, the chapter discusses creating audience personas. The author explains that personas are sketches of typical community members and help in understanding their needs, motivations, and characteristics. The author suggests prioritizing personas based on their relevance and the proportion of members in each persona. They provide examples of different personas, including users, fans, support people, content creators, advocates, event organizers, inner developers, and outer developers.
Finally, the chapter presents the ten golden rules for engaging with community members. The rules emphasize that community members work for the community, not the company, and that they are motivated by personal validation and gratification. The author advises against using community members as free labor or sales leads and highlights the importance of transparency, accommodating different approaches, and engaging quieter members. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the malleability of communities and their potential to improve not only businesses but also other organizations and relationships.
Overall, this chapter highlights the importance of understanding human behavior and designing community strategies based on that understanding. It emphasizes the irrationality of human behavior and the need to consider factors like status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, and fairness. The chapter also emphasizes the importance of creating audience personas and provides guidelines for engaging with community members.
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