Who’s community is it anyway?

Lately I had had a few discussions with friends about communities. A word that seems to be one of the buzzwords. “Old” communities, as in buying addresses and thinking you own them, and “new” communities, as in people on Facebook or Twitter with shared interests and “like’s“. These friends were old friends, by the way, as in before Twitter or Facebook or anything online. Yes, we DID connect before online existed.

Key issue was the sentence: “I have this community”.  

Is that possible? As in a medieval king who owns people?  If not, then no way you have the community. I looked for a definition, finding that a community does not only have a common interest, but also interacts. And oh, it's mostly a free will kind of thing. So even though you know for sure that the people behind your addresses are in fact talking to each other and are a real community, all you have is database, and you're looking for opt in.

So what about events and communities? Does a meeting or a tradeshow own a community? Can organizers and associations speak of “their own” communities? It is a weird idea. And in a time when people chose their connections for more diffuse  reasons and via multiple (online) channels, membership of one specific organization might even mean less than it used to.

But then again, I also  talk about “my communities“, as in “the communities that I am proud to be part of”….    

I do not have it, I engage in it. Community. It is just a sense of belonging.