One of my favorite things about working with early stage startups is getting the opportunity to use the earliest versions of their products — and then getting to watch those product morph and iterate over time. So when Puppet founder Luke Kanies offered me the opportunity to be an early user of Clickety — his newest startup pursuit — I jumped at the chance. Especially because Clickety had the potential to solve some very specific pain points and knowledge gaps for me.
I’ve been using the product for a while now. And it has totally changed my email workflow for the better. And hopefully, it’s simultaneously made me a better steward of the community I’m so eager to support.
Given that use, Clickety asked me to write a guest post on their blog. I’d love to have you read it over there. But if you only take one thing away from it I want it to be not my workflow with Clickety but this little bit about community being a jellyfish:
You see, a community — especially a larger community — isn’t a funnel. Or a pipeline. It’s not an orderly progression of attracting and retaining people. Community is organic. Like a jellyfish. It fluctuates. It ebbs and flows. People come and go and come back. Expertise is desperately needed and then unnecessary. Until it is desperately needed, again.
Some individuals are active participants. Some are more passive. Most are primarily lurking throughout their existence in the community — until they are specifically asked to engage. And when they are asked to engage, they have to actively experience value in that engagement. Or their connection to the community wanes.
To learn more about how I’ve been using Clickety to help better manage community, visit the Clickety blog.
