Episode 0027: Community vs Culture

Show Notes Host: Dan Hugo Summary: Many will say they are Building Community. What does that even mean? If the effort requires provision of free victuals, perhaps you are building a bread line. Consider instead, enabling the growth and flourishing of culture, an Innovation Culture for example, that exists between free lunches and cocktails. Community Building Find a common need, want, gap, and decide how to encourage people to come together around that commonality (common, commune, community…), often with snacks, food, drinks, entertainment… something to distract from the asks that will likely go unanswered. The effort is often driven by a select, motivated few. In the Greater Vegas area, this will often lead to that select few getting little assistance, less support from local government and businesses (unless you are adorned with the Halo Effect), but with all of the expectations placed upon them as responsible parties. Here it is often a thankless undertaking, which is unfortunate. Encouraging Culture Shift Starting with Young People, we can make an earnest attempt at elevating the impetus to Innovate (does not need to be Tech, could be food, drink, art, science, anything) and Collaborate. A cultural shift may take a long time, and such a shift begins with people. Culture, unlike Community, is not so focused. While a Community might focus on getting Access to Capital for Tech Unicorns, a Culture of Innovation enables people to come up with ideas, pursue them, and assemble the notion of creating a Tech Unicorn. Or perhaps a new restaurant concept, or art installation, or media production, or… It Takes an Ecosystem Communities form within a healthy, enabling Ecosystem Culture envelopes a healthy, enabling Ecosystem and exists in a form of symbiosis Culture and Ecosystem are horizontal, Community is vertical