Hey yenizens!

I’m still very much marinating on our interview with one of our own, Toni Cowan-Brown and the #podstack (podcast tech stack) that she shared — there have already been a handful of you who mentioned that you’re going to use some of these tools to put together your own!

Yaaaaas! I love it.

To infinity & community,

— john

Here are eleven (11!!) things that I found interesting recently:

In China, “social credit” is on the rise:

For now, these credit scores are in private hands, and much of the online writing seems innocent. But as social credit plays an ever-bigger role in Chinese lives both on and offline, the foundation for greater surveillance is also developing. 

The impact on community leadership, management, and even tooling is going to be very, very interesting.

Sometimes, I just want to yell “DUH!” as loud as I can:

Stress and overload in the workplace are increasing worldwide and are often considered a cause of burnout. Indeed, a new study shows that work stress and burnout are mutually reinforcing.

However, contrary to popular belief, burnout has a much greater impact on work stress than vice versa. “This means that the more severe a person’s burnout becomes, the more stressed they will feel at work, such as being under time pressure, for example,” said Professor Christian Dormann of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).

Employees suffering from burnout should be timely provided with adequate support in order to break the vicious circle between work stress and burnout.

We didn’t need a study to know that!

I teach my kids that lying is bad:

Zoom has agreed to upgrade its security practices in a tentative settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges that Zoom lied to users for years by claiming it offered end-to-end encryption.

And I have serious issues with doing business with organizations that have clear and obvious systemic issues. I really do hope one of the newer services, like Meet Butter can take their place.

On the need for diversity:

Until people start treating this kind of diversity of thoughts, race, color, backgrounds, experience as something that can lead to the absolute best outcome, then that company will be without a doubt selling themselves short.

Kelsey Hightower

Diverse or die.

What is Funkwhale?

It’s a community-driven project that lets you listen and share music and audio within a decentralized, open network.

I think there’s a future in audio-centric networks — I’m just not sure how exactly the communities will be shaped and/or formed. I can’t wait to see it all happen.

A fun tweetstorm, history lesson, and reminder that things (and life) change fast — now’s the time for… … … whatever it is you’re thinking about doing. Do it sooner rather than later.

When building something new, look beyond what’s immediately around you — this amazing thread on actionable things to think (and do) for developing communities and a “sense of belonging” is strong:

Wes Kao @wes_kao

1/ To build something new... Look beyond what’s immediately around you. When building the altMBA, Seth and I didn’t look at edtech. That was too narrow. We studied what makes ppl feel *zealous, committed & becomes part of their identity* Here are groups I analyzed (THREAD)

June 24th 2020

4 Retweets46 Likes

Wes also has some great thoughts on designing online courses with 96% completion rates and analysis on course communities as well — there are so many people out there who are so much smarter than me…

The evolution and growth of community has always connected closely with the rise of the tentpole technologies and platforms of each major era of cloud. The question for community builders is… what does this enable us to do that we once could not and what is the trade-off that we’re making?

There’s always a cost.

China’s first “online economy” university opens in Putuo:

These colleges will offer training for podcast hosts based on content on the Himalaya platform, as well as professional education for livestreaming sales and the cultivation of online personalities.

via Shine.cn

(⊙＿⊙’) — I have… questions (about the future of education).

Why is Telsa getting into alcohol? Because, the power of brand, social, and a community that will buy.

It really does make you think about what we’re all doing and how we’re approaching community formation, management, and growth / attraction.

Thanks Sam.

Need a list of community frameworks to help you build your next one? Rosie’s got a thread that you should bookmark (and add to!)

Have a good one folks!