Chris Pirillo has just given the most animated keynote of the conference so far, talking with great passion about community. While he occasionally came across like a self-help guru, he clearly believed passionately in the point he was making:
"You can't create a community; it creates itself. It's organic, no matter what the tool."
Indeed, he suggests that it's far less about the tool than the people who use it.
And that's an uncomfortable message for companies that are busy building communities around their brand (or trying to)
"If you think community is a tool, you are a tool." That was his message for the most cynical of community builders.
In total, Pirillo's speech is a counter-blast to the corporate appropriation of the idea of community; to the idea that we can look at something that has evolved naturally and organically, and start doing it in a calculated, commercial way for the benefit of a business.
I agree with him and disagree with him. You can, consciously, choose to facilitate activity. You can offer places for them to interact and incentives for interacting there. But I agree with him in that you cannot create or own communities - just host them. And that simple truth runs in opposition to the corporate urge towards control.
"If someone tries to tell you that community can just be placed inside a box and everything will be beautiful...no."
And that's going to be a pain point for companies until the embrace genuine, open interactions with their communities, he suggests. After all, community is built up of multiple, over-lapping relationships and nothing else.
"You, wherever you go, are the community."
