[Podcast] Networks and Transformational Communities - With Bill Johnston and Dr. Lauren Vargas
How we got into “Community”, Season 2 so far, and the end of the Social Boom
On this episode of the Cohere Podcast, Bill and Lauren review highlights from Season 2 guests, look back on formative roles in their respective careers and dig into the topic of transformational communities.
The plan for this season of the Cohere podcast is for Lauren and me to use the podcast as a means to learn and make meaning in public. Our plan is to do a series of 3 interviews, followed by an interstitial episode to review and discuss the preceding series. This is our first interstitial session, and is a long-form conversation between myself and Lauren - and we cover a lot of ground!
We begin with a look back at our respective early career experiences that led us into community development - Lauren at the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (part of the Gov 2.0 movement), and my first large role at TechRepublic.com.
We then review and discuss the first four episodes of the podcast from this season:
Episode 1 - where we tee up the concepts of network science and the potential value this discipline brings to community practitioners
Episode 2 - we interview Gail Ann Williams, and discuss her long-standing relationship with The WELL, one of the longest-running commercial online communities
Episode 3 - we interviewed Carrie Melissa Jones, in what Lauren describes as a "masterclass in community leadership"
Episode 4 - Jim Cashel returns to update us on "The Great Connecting" and the implications of bringing the next 3 billion people online
We end the episode by discussing my recent post about the end of the Social Boom and the coming era of transformational communities.
Additional sources referenced in the show:
Books
"Network Science" - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
”Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm” - Christian Madsbjerg
"Change" - Damon Centola
”Exponential Organizations” - Salim Ismail
”Exponential” - Azeem Azaar
Posts
Exponential View - Azeem Azaar’s blog & newsletter
Exiting the Social Boom and the Entering the Era of Transformational Communities - Bill Johnston
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