When Community Wasn’t Cool

I have always been interested in computers. From the day I saw my first Vic-20, to those awful bulky CBM machines in elementary school, through my first Commodore 128, until now – computers have been part of my life for what seems forever.

Not just computers, the “social” aspect of computers. From my first sign-on to a Bulletin Board System (BBS) to being one of the youngest hosts on QuantumLink, to hosting events for AOL, to coordinating the online chat with the creators of The Matrix – I was community before community was cool.

The community boom really began in the late 1990s, when The Ultimate Bulletin Board (UBB) took hold and pounded competitor THREADS into the ground. During this time I was not only the community liaison between AOL and Warner Bros. (yes, THE Warner Bros.), I helped form the community department at the motion picture studio.

We had bulletin boards, chat areas both on the Internet and secluded on AOL, plus newsletters, games, and more. One of the highlights was actually one of my last things at WB – the creation of the Platform 9 3/4 for the original Harry Potter web site.

Companies everywhere were starting up community departments. The mantra was (and some still argue is:) Content, Community and Commerce. The three C-s to an effective web presence. Then boom – the dot com busts of the early 2000′s. And I was one of those hit.

Those who had “Director of Community,” “Community Manager” or similar titles on their resumes were doomed. Companies could no longer afford community directors and the like… so over time, the “community experts” diversified,and pretty much went their own ways.

Now here we are again – community is cool again. But almost like other fads that left and came back, the old guard remains almost in obscurity. The new flamboyant drivers of the community / social media movement are quick to dismiss those with more experience, yet complain when things don’t go their way.

I hate the overused analogy of “when we were young we had to walk uphill both ways to school in a blizzard, without shoes, carrying our books…” but to those enjoying success in community and social media… please remember: There are some of us that remember the old days of community, and who still have the battle scars to prove it.

What have you done for the good of the entire online “community” – or is it all take and no give? What will be the “legacy” of the creators of Facebook, MySpace, etc. Will your sites die when you do? Or are you making a real effort to affect the world?