I had lunch with a couple of people at the co-working place. One of the guys mentioned that the city is small, everyone around him is just one step away: You know my colleague, you are the neighbor of my cousin. We were part of a small world. While we were strangers, we had connections. These connections were not direct, as, before that lunch, we had not talked with each other. But we had indirect connections. Communities try to recreate this small world effect with a group of strangers.
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Small worlds is a technical term to describe a specific type of community (network) structure. Communities, with this, I mean the relationships and connections you have, form a structure. This structure can be like a chain, similar to the kids' game telephone, like a ring, or any other shape you can imagine. In some communities, information travels slowly; it kind of gets stuck in a part of the community and can't break free and reach another subgroup. In other communities, information travels at a very high speed, quickly getting to everyone.
In a small-world network, information such as resources, tips, event information, knowledge is spread at an ideal speed. This is because it has two features:
Clusters are essential for knowledge sharing. It is thanks to this high level of interaction that people become familiar with each other. This is important as it establishes trust. But if there are only clusters, there would be no innovation, no cross-pollination. Just the same thing. Over and over again.
People who build bridges by being part of different clusters help knowledge to be spread across the community. In slightly technical term, they make the community less significant by decreasing the distance between members.
This concept of small worlds began with Stanley Milgram's experiment. A more modern version of this is Kevin Bacon's 6 degrees of separation. The idea is the same: The world is smaller than it seems if we look for bridge builders connecting seemingly disconnected groups.
While the purpose of every community is different, communities have a vibe of togetherness. People become members of these communities because they share the community's vision or values or want to access the resources available to community members. A community is like this living, breathing thing that - ideally - takes a life of its own and becomes something more significant than its individual members.
This can only work if the community grows beyond the vision, expertise, and time of those who have initial created the community. A community that is sustained solely through the activities of the community founders will die once these founders step aside. If you'd draw this community, you'll see a classic star network with the founding team at the center. You remove the center, and all break apart: The community is dead.
