Stetoscope

A community could be defined as a group of people that shares :
> a place : a place, a website, a house, anything but a common place
> a conversation even silent monks are in a spiritual conversation
> common rules : even if they are not written anywhere
> a langage : a community develop its own codes, its own system of signs

However, even if a sociologist, a monk, a hippie or a community manager would not disagree on this open definition that does not mean they the community concept would be the same in their heads.

The sociologist is anchored in a discribing and theorizing structures and the forces that animate a community. The community manager is one of the force. He wants to make its community grows the quickest and the most robustly possible. One is a man of consistency and theory, the other is a man of movement and strategy.

I think, that this representation is a bit basic. Indeed a community manager must keep both concpetions in mind. The first to identify a target : define a social group, understand its rules and anticipate its inner dynamic. The second to settle a plan to become the essential media of a specific community.

The melt of the both sides make it interesting.