Communities are places where we, as aspiring software engineers, go to grow. Whether it’s 48-hour long hackathons or going over some code in the lobby, programmers depend on communities to propel themselves and their ideas forward. As powerful as they are, communities work within a dynamic framework of living individuals – it cannot be generated, but harnessed. Well, at least according to Harvard. Like most powerful things, corporations have tried to leverage the power of community – often creating fake motives to better serve their agenda. Proponents of the Bazaar model of software development, like Eric Raymond, have duly noted that a community that is not driven from within is bound to perish.

Sticky-ness

The Harvard Study talks about the cohesion aspect in great detail and it would be futile for me to parrot it here. However, I will certainly offer my reflections on the study. Communities of Practice grow and expand spontaneously; the supervisors are there to enable it’s flow and direction, not steer it. From my personal experience, steering a community towards a direction results in members leaving these communities. In the best circumstances, these members go off to form their own community of practice; in the worst case, they lose interest.

Interest. Passion. Drive. These are the forces that bring communities together and anyone in a position of influence needs to make sure that these are sustained. A rigid structure, then, is its enemy. As a main character in The Silent Patient states, “I will stop doing it once it feels like a chore”. More than anything, this mentality represents the self-moderating nature of such communities. When a particular problem becomes an iceberg and starts blocking the community’s development, it must learn to steer itself out of danger. A leader’s task, then, is to ensure that it does not need a leader.

Break

Not much needs to be said about how such communities thrive in the real world. The study goes deeper into the mental states that need to be nurtured in order for the community to achieve something worthwhile. However, I think Patrick Masson’s understanding of community – personal, project, and professional development – is enough to garner a self-sustaining environment.

Nonetheless, there is an extra dimension we must consider when thinking about communities. How does it handle dissent? A community, in my opinion, is as strong as its dissentients. Often we find that pariahs from these communities often form their own, and nurture a sense of guidelines as well. It is not inconceivable to believe that these offshoots could become more popular than the seed communities themselves. It is necessary, then, to consider all aspects of healthy dissent in communities and allow people who find their personal fulfillment lacking to form their own sources of sustenance. If not, it becomes Communities in Theory.