All of last week I was dying to make cupcakes. I’m a frosting fanatic, and cupcakes are my favorite form of satisfying my frosting fix. I wasn’t born with the cooking gene, so my cupcake contrivances are usually of the box variety; just add water and frost with the faux butter cream canned frosting. Friday morning I decided to make my dreams of cupcakes come to fruition, but I was determined to bake the best darn cupcakes ever. I found this recipe on foodnetwork.com and set about on a baking mission that far surpassed my cooking prowess.

At 1:30am PST Monday morning 2/25/08 my cupcake baking experience took on a whole new meaning. The process of baking, when compared to store bought, frozen, or just add water alternatives, is the more arduous choice, but the end result is something less familiar, more imaginative, and a product of real labor and love.

The recipe for creating a more enriched community is like baking, sometimes you need to start from scratch but the extra effort will eventually result in something unique, more satisfying, and ultimately more rewarding.

Baking Your Community

We’re living in an interesting time; a time when community and social media have become buzzworthy buzzwords, and everyone from Dunkin’ Donuts to Coke is anxious to have a piece of the community pie. The rapid rate of adoption is certainly exciting, but I think some of the hype is creating a quick-to-market community approach that could potentially back fire. Of course there are a plethora of amazing and free tools available (Ning, WordPress, Twitter) that make it easy to create community-like environments in 10 minutes or less, but without a real and distinct purpose a community can fade over night. A community doesn’t come to life by just adding water; it takes a myriad of ingredients that start with commitment and passion to create something of value.

Community Ingredients

Commitment – Communities, especially brand communities, are comprised of people who have a relationship with a product or service. That relationship is either defined by a actual purchase or product usage. People can’t have or maintain meaningful relationships with inanimate objects. People have relationships with people, and relationships are defined by the level of commitment of each party. A community cannot grow and thrive unless the company desirous of stimulating community is committed to doing so. The commitment entails more than just tacking on a blog to a corporate website and posting once a week. The commitment is the promise that your company will attempt to be human at all times, will be honest and worthy of trust, spontaneous and willing to try new things, and most importantly loyal. The commitment requires acknowledgment of new and active community members, the ability to listen, and the ability to communicate effectively. Unless your prepared to commit than you’re not ready for the next step, the community step. Stepping back to my baking analogy, if you’re doing it just to get cupcakes (instant community), you’re missing the value of baking.

Passion – Most relationships will die without passion, and communities are no different. Communities require the intensity, drive, and stimulus that only genuine passion about a product or service can sustain. Passion is tricky, because although it can be reignited, it can’t be created without a real spark. This means that a community that lacks a concrete purpose or motivation will fail to make people care, and if people don’t care then you don’t have a community. Where there is passion, however, there can always be stimulus to drive community engagement. Passion drives the major social networks and the citizen communities that pop up when people become passionate about a good or bad brand experience.

Lessons Learned from Baking

1. Mistakes are blessings in disguise. I had to remake the frosting three times, but now I know what to do when I read recipes with “soft peaks” and “softball stage” instructions. Yeah I messed up and my hips will probably suffer for the excess attempts at frosting, but the baking process was instructional. Communities are relatively new and the recipe for success will be unique and may require a few missteps, but putting the effort in will ensure that best practices are learned along the way.
2. Get dirty. Not being much of a baker, I didn’t realize how messy baking can be. Eggs, flour, sugar, batter, and more ended up caked on my face, staining my jeans, and adding color to my hair. Being so immersed in my creation, however, was a rewarding experience that I became a part of. Baking became less about the cupcakes and more about the process, and the same logic applies to communities. The process of building a community (which includes the messiness of dealing with internal strife, and the challenge of responding to negative remarks) is the real reward, and the community is the bonus for all your effort.
3. Make it authentic. I’m not saying that cupcakes from a box aren’t real, but they certainly don’t feel authentic and the process seems just a tad bit too easy. Communities aren’t meant to be contrived or forced, but authentic associations of people with a common passion or interest. If you take the just add water approach in an attempt to create a community, chances are you’ll end up with something pretty bland.

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