Community Building pt. 1

A few months ago I got a new job as Senior Course Producer at Foundr Magazine. What that means? I build courses. You see them everywhere now: Masterclass, Skillshare, Udemy, Mind Valley, the list grows every day. Not only these big players, but a lot of “online personalities” aka Gurus have courses they’re selling you too. Why? Because of that MRR (monthly recurring revenue) baby! They want that MRR. Everyone wants it. If you can spend the time and money to build something once, and then just have it generate sales forever, it’s a no-brainer.

• The problem of course comes from building crappy learning environments.

So this ongoing writing project will start by breaking down the work into a few pieces:

• Doing the research on what’s out there now that’s actually working;

  • “Working” being defined here as producing successful student learning outcomes, aka, students learn stuff, and enjoy the process;

• Reflecting on this research; and

• Sharing this research via bloggin’.

I’m going to start by delving into one of the biggest deficiencies in online learning right now--community building. Like most companies doing online ed right now, we're not doing it well--we send students to dedicated Facebook groups where they can congregate and socialize and ask moderators questions they’re having. Now obviously Facebook is a popular place, and I'm probably not representative of our student body--but Facebook is pretty much the last place on earth I'd want to go as part of a learning experience. But even if I loved Facebook, we're still sending students away from Foundr towards something else.

• I think a core piece that I want to research and reflect on here is community building, both via best practices our teachers (and me) can implement to make students feel seen and heard, AND the tech piece, so that we can build something within Foundr that makes students feel like they're in a supportive learning environment, where they can ask questions to experts, reflect on what they're learning with other students on similar journeys, and have a bit of socialization that's part of their education, which I think is something many of us crave and find value in as we're learning something new.

  • In fact you could take this writing entry as a great example of the above

    • I'm trying to not just do research in my cave, but write for an external audience. Because deep down there's a need for some socialization here.

I'm tempted now to include some links to software that's being developed, but that's too easy. First, let's design what we're looking for internally. What am I actually trying to accomplish when I say “building community”?

• To be continued…