Building doesn't build network effect, engaging does

Over the past year, I have seen a lot of initiatives to encourage developers to build new projects on Algorand. While having legitimate projects is certainly important for success, it is not enough on its own to ensure victory. To illustrate this point, imagine that five legitimate projects suddenly appeared. If there is no one active around to use them, they cannot thrive. The community needs to be ready when they appear otherwise it can be pretty demotivating if there’s a lack of engagement.

I have noticed that there is currently a low level of engagement and activity within our community. This is not to say that we do not have a community at all, but rather that most people are lurking and not actively participating. I am not an expert in this field, but it seems to me that engagement is crucial for creating a network effect. The official discord has many helpful people, but the general discussions are not very active. From what I’ve learned in the past communities, what needs to happen is active community discussions where people learn about each other and bond. I may be missing something, but I’m not sure there’s such a thing around.

At the moment, the discord is much more similar to stack overflow, with the most common pattern being:

A: How do I do X?
B: Run this command

The activity on reddit and here is also similar, with people mostly lurking resulting in many topics without any engagement. While I think this is normal, there is a great benefit if we start doing a little more. It doesn’t take much to write your opinion on something and hit the reply button. If we take 5 minutes every other day, and then transition to taking 5 minutes every day, we have doubled our engagement. But there is more - the more comments there are, the more likely other people are to have something to add to the discussion and this is key. When we take the time to engage with others, it encourages them to do the same. As more and more people join in, it forms a virtuous circle that benefits everyone. A similar effect happens on Twitter - if we increase our engagement by becoming a little more active, things can start to spiral because the discussion spreads. It’s not just about tweets and replies, likes and retweets function similarly.

We don’t want to spam reddit or twitter, but meaningful comments can provide a huge boost to community engagement. I am not suggesting creating fake engagement, but rather that those of us who believe in Algorand would bring great benefits by slightly increasing our level of participation. We’re good at different things. If writing is not your thing, you can still contribute in other ways including painting or even playing around with the latest AI technologies like DALL-E 2 and ChatGPT which are providing us with new ways to produce engaging material for the community.

I don’t think this is an Algorand Foundation issue, it’s the “someone else will do it” mindset which is a part of every community member to some extent. I am confident that we can significantly boost our community involvement and content by putting in just a little extra effort. We all know it’s much easier to talk than to do things so I’ll start off. While some may see it as silly, I believe memes are a very unique, memorable and engaging way to share a message. I will begin by sharing a few. Please feel free to share them with others in any way you see fit.

I’ll use this thread to periodically post new memes. I’ll try to make at least one each week.

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Here’s my first batch.

meme4

meme1

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Hi, nice post! I think you’re right that more community engagement would be better here. I like memes too, a picture says a thousand words!

Here’s another one!

Appreciate and agree with your thoughtful suggestions here!

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This is based on no real world tech adoption ever. The web first got the tech, then projects, then the users. Can you imagine marketing “The Internet” and then a bunch of people get dial-up modems, connect and then just stare at a blank screen? Or how about marketing the iPhone but it has no apps, you just get it and then maybe down the line some app developers will build something because the iPhone has millions of users?

  1. Platform
  2. Projects
  3. Users

In that order.

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With regards to Community activity, I think it is down to having many different options available so some people are more active on Twitter, others Discord etc. Some are more comfortable providing answers than points for discussion. However, I do agree that more can be done engagement wise.
My understanding is:
3. Users engage with 2. Projects who engage with 1. Platform

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The activity on reddit and here is also similar, with people mostly lurking resulting in many topics without any engagement.

Reddit is nothing but an echo chamber where any kind of constructive criticism gets downvoted and flamed on Algorand-related subreddits.

I don’t think this is an Algorand Foundation issue, it’s the “someone else will do it” mindset which is a part of every community member to some extent.

Actually, this IS a leadership problem. If you keep the community happy, it grows and people will engage more naturally. If you treat it badly, there’s going to be more uncertainty and less engagement. Simple as that.

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I wanted to follow up on this with the Choice Coin Transparency Report.

I reached out to the Foundation and just heard back. They have prepared the Transparency Report!

I kindly ask you not to shill your project in this topic.

That’s interesting, my experience with that subreddit has been quite different. In fact, I’ve found the community there to be quite grounded and level-headed when it comes to discussions about crypto. Can you provide any specific examples that illustrate your point?

If community building and growth were truly a centralized leadership issue, then Bitcoin would have no community at all. The only issue is that certain actions from a centralized entity can decrease community engagement, but ultimately, it is up to us to maintain and nurture the community.

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Ok. This will be my last reply here. There is a difference between shilling and providing open information about OSS development, which is I what I did by posting a link to the Choice Coin Transparency Report. In fact, while shilling degrades value for the network, advocacy for OSS development is of vital importance to Algorand’s success.

Thanks.

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That’s interesting, my experience with that subreddit has been quite different. In fact, I’ve found the community there to be quite grounded and level-headed when it comes to discussions about crypto. Can you provide any specific examples that illustrate your point?

Any kind of criticism I directed towards Algorand in the past 3 months was met with downvotes and mockery. Also, all of the statements I made turned out to be true in the end. Only recently the community started to be more receptive to criticism.

If community building and growth were truly a centralized leadership issue, then Bitcoin would have no community at all. The only issue is that certain actions from a centralized entity can decrease community engagement, but ultimately, it is up to us to maintain and nurture the community.

Bitcoin and Algorand are not comparable in this case. Bitcoin was designed to be a community-driven and decentralized effort since it’s inception, while the decisions related to the Algorand blockchain are mostly made by corporate entities like Algorand Inc. and the Algorand Foundation - the same entities that are constantly selling their ALGO while making questionable business decisions and keeping more than 98% of their holders underwater. I think the fundamental difference between Bitcoin and Algorand should be more than obvious now.

Again, if you’re a blockchain, especially a more centralized one like Algorand, a portion of your efforts should be directed towards making the community happy. Once you do that, the community will start growing and engaging more naturally and they’ll turn into a living marketing and promotion machine. If you treat them like liquidity, they become uncertain and uncomfortable and they’ll hold back on the engagement.

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Silvio good

Silvio bad

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I’ll start by saying that I am not a developer and know very little about building applications on the ALGO blockchain. I am, however, a holder of ALGO coin (Since 2021) and have made some additional financial investments in Lofty.ai and some farming opportunities through TinyMany.
Recently, I figured out how to be part of Governance #5 and joined the Algo community to learn more about how I can contribute to the success of ALGO.

Barring the large price swings of ALGO over the past couple of years, I have discovered a few real-world benefits to using blockchain technology, specifically ALGO, in everyday life.

  1. Daily dividends in real estate investments at a fraction of the cost of non-blockchain architectures.
  2. Transparent and equitable voting: Both on individual properties owned through Lofty and through ALGO Governance
  3. Very fast Pera wallet connection to TinyMan and easy transaction validations through the app

My journey into ALGO was slow at first and mostly passive. However, after reading ‘The Genius of Algorand: Technical Elegance and the DEFI revolution’, I started to understand better the inherent benefits of ALGO over other L1 protocols.
Now I am seeking to expand not only my education within the ALGO ecosystem but my contributions, both financially and in time. What is the next step for someone in my position? How can I help? @omniwarp

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Hi, nice post! I really liked The Genius of Algorand too. I think next steps and how you can help depends on your skillset, capabilities, and appetite.

A main non-technical problem right now is wider adoption and scalable use cases. Things are still early right now, but growing and developing partnerships converging decentralized and centralized organizations would be a big help. It requires mostly interpersonal skills and industry knowledge. For example, how do we go from using blockchain voting technology for on-chain governance, to using blockchain voting technology for corporate boards or government elections? Another example, how do we get Amazon or other online retailers to accept Algo or stable assets on Algorand as payment for goods and services?

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There’s plenty of ways to contribute. The most obvious one is to be active here, on reddit and other communication channels. Bringing new people in the ecosystem is another one. You can introduce your friends to Algorand by sending them a few coins to demonstrate how it works or onboard strangers by organizing local meetups.

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Thanks for the response and feedback @omniwarp and @bhaney44

I’ve been advocating ALGO to friends who are interested in crypto and blockchain technology for quite some time now and will continue doing so as it also helps me with understanding common questions and becoming better at explaining the benefits of ALGO over other technologies. I’m sure someday companies will be looking for consultants to help with implementing ALGO into their tech stack.