Communities: Breaking the Mold through Web3

In Mathew Krawczyk’s session at the 2023 Community Rebellion Conference, he talks about breaking the mold in community through Web3. 

📽️ Click here to watch the recording. 

When Mathew began his community building journey, one thing that stuck out to him was that in communities that he was part of, like summer camp or social innovation groups, he came out of it feeling transformed. Thinking deeper into how it operated - that is, how did the summer camp work in such a way that he left feeling different. What were the systems in place that caused this to be so transformative? From there, the thread has remained the same through more communities he has been involved in. He discusses different perspectives on systems that we can embody as communities that allow us to tap into each other, our organizations, and even the world, differently. 

From a brand perspective, consumers are changing. We see the rise of technology happening extremely quickly. AI has appeared out of nowhere and has taken over every single conversation. This also comes with a generation shift; millennials think about technology differently, how we communicate, and it’s so different than how GenZ folks were brought up. Their expectations are different, and it’s important to think about what tools they use, how do we collaborate, what value can we get from these experiences. 

When it comes to communities, it also shifts the conversation about how we are interacting - that is, what value are we creating together. Fundamentally, we want to think about new toolsets that allow us to tap in that way. These changes are happening undeniably, so what can we do about that and what does it mean for communities? 

Thinking about these generational shifts, particularly for GenZ, when they think about brands, they think about going to the latent relationships than to the co-creative relationships. More specifically, they’re looking for aligned incentives. They want their experience in the community to be marked and valuable. They want to contribute to something that is larger than themselves, and they also want to share in that experience. When we’re thinking about it through a community lens, how can we create an experience where there is perceived value, both from the organization perspective and the member perspective?

There are so many new tools that exist and very high expectations from the people, so what can we provide them within the toolsets such that it empowers them to get that value? In the space of creating together, it’s important to be clear to communicate that alongside the toolset. 

Now pertaining to Web3, there are a lot of emerging ideas and tools coming together, but it’s still quite fresh. A lot of it is still in the prototyping space, which is exciting for community builders. Mathew then provides a few examples, first providing a bit of a history lesson on the different fundamentals: 

• Web1: Essentially the initial days of the internet. We’d log onto a static page, there’d be something to read, but there was limited interaction. 
• Web2: Looking for more than just the read and write options, like social media. 
• Web3: The reading, the writing, and the owning aspect. What you contribute to the platform, you own and you can derive value from that. It’s not a one sided relationship where the platforms can get the value, but you can take ownership for the contributions.
• Blockchain: This is a distributed chain of records, or a ledger, that marks all of the transactions or interactions that happen in a single block. This way, you have an entire history or archive of what has happened in that community space or within a set of actions. This allows us to think better about the information that is being shared within the communities. 

Once we’re in the community space, what are some of the tools that are exciting and can be utilized as community builders? Web3 enables us to think about ownership and identity differently; you own your contributions and shape how you show up in these spaces. You can also own the governance of your data, choosing how and where your contributions show up. 

Within this, there are tokens and NFTs. Communities have been using tokens which helps them fractionalize community aspects. For example, you have a share. There is a community initiative where if they contribute they can get tokens. As people contribute to the community, the value typically rises if you’re doing a good job, so your initial contribution is gaining in value. NFTs, on the other hand, are non-fungible, something that only happens once. If I were to create an NFT of your house, there is only one of them, and you can wrap this physical thing into an NFT and sell it or trade it. With that, you can create different NFT aspects in your own community - that could mean wrapping different experiences in your community to make it personal. Each NFT could create a different journey or experience for your members. 

However, who is actually doing something and what does that mean for your community? Looking at Reddit as an example, they put themselves on blockchain; they wanted to give blockchain tokens in different subreddits, and you can earn social tokens through actions. It creates a mini digital economy in that area. You can sell them, use them for voting rights, which then you can use to help decide on certain guidelines in the community. You have a lot of agency enabled through this process. It has a lot of intrinsic value which creates a different type of value in that community. As you build your identity in the space, you can take what you’ve done on Reddit and do it somewhere else, meaning if you leave the platform, it’s still yours. 

Another example is with Starbucks. At Starbucks, they’ve taken a  bit of a different approach and looked at learning journeys. How can they use NFTs and tokens to make sure that you have a unique experience within the community through the NFTs, that through unlocking an NFT, you have unique benefits - maybe you get flown to a coffee farm, or get an experience with a barista online, and this has all been coded through the NFTs. Then, you can sell the NFT which provides additional intrinsic value to the community members. 

You want to create value so people come to the community. It should start with community and not be a PR stunt. All of these experiences aren’t complicated. They incorporate the Web3 into a Web2 experience. If you do any of these experiences, it just happens in the background. It’s all seamless. 

Next, there are communities built as DAOs (decentralized autonomous organization), meaning their community is built on the blockchain. Using all of the above technologies, they are a community from the ground up trying to use tools to empower themselves to create different things. It’s interesting to see how people are thinking about governance, value sharing, and on the flip side, they’re creating products and fulfilling the flywheel of dual value and creating things together. 

When thinking about all of these, community managers are essential, because we understand people, how we communicate, what’s important, and how to forge relationships. As pretty as technology is, it boils down to the people to facilitate something worth building together, that is, the community members and the community teams. Community teams are really at the wheel - it’s an exciting space and there are a lot of things you can do to tap into it, but it’s important to remember that it’s the people who are the north star. 

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