Do good community leaders hang around with other good community leaders?
Why is hanging around others who do the same thing you do necessary?
When we talk about the London Coworking Assembly, we talk about community leaders.
Everyone most active in the London Coworking Assembly is a community.
They are not just running a coworking space; they have a freelancer community, a podcast, an event, something based around activism or some other informal community.
They’re all people who are helping other people get somewhere.
Last week, when we had our London Coworking Assembly Forum and Bar Camp, we were at Urban MBA, which is a community in itself.
Most people running a business based around a community thing came to that.
We sat around the table, and people broke into small groups.
We talked about their challenges.
Then, one person talked about their challenge.
Then, one person shared their challenge, and the group gave questions and solutions to Stuart, who shared his challenge.
Stuart walked away with about 18 things to do in his business; the exercise took us about half an hour to complete.
If he had Googled that, read about it, listened to a podcast, and tried and tested it, all essential things to do, it would have taken him ages to get that feedback and information.
So now he has 18 actions to apply to his business in the next month, all about running a London coworking space from other people who run a London coworking space.
If he only does a quarter of them, it will make a difference, and he’s already winning.
That is why you need to hang around with people doing the same thing as you.
Good community leaders hang around with other good community leaders.