SFM Labs - Community in the digital age - Value, behavior, and communication
(originally aired Dec 14th, 2021)
A quick disclaimer upfront: All information given in this presentation is researched and intended to be educational and illustrative to the specific topic as always. Every owner has to do their due diligence, as the owner's decisions and responsibility about any investment lie with themselves.
I. Community and Value
1. What is a community?
A community is a group of people with common interests living or existing in a particular area, body, or entity. In businesses, self-organized networks (groups of people which collaborate amongst the same ideas and principles) often form. Within these formed communities fan projects are developed, investments are discussed, a collaboration of ideas are formed, information and thoughts are shared freely within the existing theme of the community.
There is a sub definition for unreal and real community. An unreal community is a community that forms but doesn't have a straightforward realm of ideas that everyone has agreed on. A real community is a community that agrees on ideas, values, and their aim focuses to reach the targets which were set to transform the community from unreal to real. Basically, it is a community that knows where it is heading and why they gather at one spot or area.
2. Old vs. New - the origins of communities
Back in the day, one of the first and smallest real communities recorded was in the London Coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries in which the community met in very small groups to talk, discuss, and care for the daily thoughts and hassles in the life of the citizens. Nowadays, a business community meets practice and criteria which are set and formed, rather stiff than loose. Open communities outside of businesses - for interest and other matters - are more open, but still aim for a more strict, distinct target. This transition mostly happened in the 19th century from then on there were only a few small unaffiliated communities.
3. Different types and aims of communities
There are five different types :
Interest - Communities of people who share the same interest or passion.
Action - Communities of people trying to bring about change.
Place - Communities of people brought together by geographic boundaries.
Practice - Communities of people in the same profession or undertake the same activities.
Circumstance - Communities of people brought together by external events/situations.
90% of communities or projects are formed after the idea of interest, as this is the most common one amongst the possibilities to form a community. For cryptocurrencies, interest groups are the most used communities out there, which makes sense as the interest in the particular cryptocurrency or investment is the main drive for a community to exist.
4. Why communities are important and why the world wouldn't function without them
Without communities, there wouldn't be interaction or engagement in different businesses, topics, etc. The interaction with subjects and the vibrancy that results comes from communities and is driven, enhanced, and improved by them. Rather, it is indispensable that there are communities for certain activities because, without these, they would not attract attention or great incentives, such as sports or clubs.
The world would not function in 95% of all activities if there were no communities to help motivate, inform, teach, and discuss. It is essential because on the ground of a community a process can be created.
5. How do communities work in the digital age
In the digital age, communities are bigger and more powerful than ever. Everyone has the opportunity to quickly find a place for their hobby, club, or vocation on the Internet.
This also means that the availability is given at any time, people can interact with it every second and can always influence it unbound from any point in the world. Compared to the past, this definitely offers freedom, impartiality, and almost endless possibilities.
6. Communities and the impact on crypto
Cryptocurrencies are - like any investment - a high-risk asset investment. Anyone who invests in them is hoping for a profit. Communities help to keep a cool head or in the worst case, go to the barricades and vent frustration with their community members. Many currencies are born solely by communities and only exist because the drive of the community gets people talking.
Nevertheless, communities are indispensable for cryptocurrencies, otherwise, there would be no growth, no mouth-to-mouth propaganda, and no rising markets, as is the case with any other type of investment.
II. Behavior
1. What is a company's code of conduct?
A company's code of conduct is a policy that outlines principles and standards that all employees and third parties acting on behalf of the company must follow. The code of conduct reviews the organization's mission and values and ties these ideals to professional behavior standards.
2. Why is it important for communities?
The Code of Conduct is just as transferable to communities as it is to companies. Communities must have rules of conduct, instructions, and goals in order to function since anarchy and lack of direction will only lead to the disintegration of a community because it is not pulling in the same direction. It is therefore particularly important that the goal is clearly defined in a community, or that the direction is indicated, so that - even in the case of doubt - the community members can move together in one direction.
3. Different behaviors of communities
Behavior in a community is based on the purpose, the meaning of the community. The attitude is defined by the set of principles, for example, in a community for a soccer club the motivation is set to cheer for one's own team at all times, while in a community for books the motivation is to gain knowledge and to impart knowledge to others. The motivation is different, because in a book club the motivation is on a very stable level, while in a soccer club it can be much higher during special games, tournaments, events. The direction of the goal determines the impetus of motivation and indicates ways and means to contribute and live out one's own desire.
4. Different behavior of leaders and members
Leaders and members have different behaviors that occur in a community. Among other things, it has to do with position, the field of activity, responsibility, and long presence. The different aspects are clearly separated and everyone in a community should know who should set the tone in case of doubt and who should exchange and pass on the right attitude among each other.
5. What behavior should a leader have?
A leader must be someone you can trust. He must have the gift to serve the community not only in knowledge but also in trust and the ability to act neutrally yet righteously. Transparency and open argumentation, but the ability to criticize and optimize processes are important, because without them the community, which should follow the good example of a leader, will not grow.
6. What behavior should a member have?
Members in the community must ensure that questions are clarified among themselves, doubts are cleared up and security is given. Every member has the duty to deal with his interests in the community and to educate himself, but may ask questions and take the lead as assistance. Because the member must be able to turn to someone so that he can grow for his own aspirations and his own abilities. This is the only way to show others that it is worthwhile to develop motivation and commitment because without this a community cannot grow.
7. How will behavior develop?
Events in a community and interactions with the respective field of interest can promote harmful behavior. Good events and innovations bring motivation, joy, and enthusiasm. While problems bring frustration, despair, and anger. The important aspect here is the community's reaction. If the community allows itself to be steered too strongly by one or the other, the gradient or the rise on the respective side will become difficult. Balance and rational thinking is the most important point here, emotions are usually a hindrance.
8. What does a thrive of different behaviors mean for crypto communities?
Crypto communities have the purpose of joining together for the investment with others and to stimulate the different people, who sometimes have invested more or sometimes less, together for the same currency. As said before, emotions are a hindrance in communities (and of course investments), as they can also influence decisions, especially in monetary investments. Therefore, the extent to which the community can use communication to fix bad
times and praise good times is crucial here.
III. Communication
1. Different levels and types of communication
Communications are available on many, different levels. There is communication among the respective members, the leaders, the members and leaders, and the outside world. Each of these areas has its reason for existence and must be maintained differently, otherwise one of the parties may be unhappy and other parts of a community may follow in the same behavior and ultimately destroy a community.
Communication can take place by voice, text, video, documentary, podcast, or otherwise. There are many ways to transmit communication and give the right approach to each party. The mix is the best solution, because you can reach many, if not all units of a community.
2. Which type of communication should a leader use?
The leaders have the possibility to choose a different, partly mixed communication. On the one hand, they can present and communicate clear values and results in the case of news and important information, or veiled riddles and small spoilers in the case of new developments and future prospects, and statements and definitions in the case of arguments.
3. Which type of communication should a member use?
Different leaders are listened to by different members and receive approval, whether it is the one leader who conveys information very calmly and cautiously or the other leader who conveys the latest news with motivation, hype and enthusiasm. All in all, there are advantages and disadvantages for each side, such as too much commitment or too little joy in the delivery of news, but these are recorded and evaluated here by the respective members, so that the leaders can measure themselves against them, critically evaluate and improve. Growth and improvement of one's own skills is also necessary for leaders, while mistakes accepted and should be reviewed as leaders are also human, but it requires a certain strength to be able to admit this to oneself and to advance to the next level of leadership.
4. Which level of communication should a community aim for?
Members should always be interested in researching information and keeping themselves up to date in order to make valuable contributions to the community. If you don't know something it's not a big deal, there are leaders who can help you fill in the gaps. But it's important that members are self-driven, otherwise it quickly ends up being a community with a mass of people just waiting to be fed information. This is prevented by videos, texts, articles and websites, so that members can make good use of the communications that are provided. Because a community can only grow if everyone makes a contribution - even if it only means updating a page and then reading through the latest tweets.
5. What conflicts can occure and what problems can arise in communication ?
Conflicts in communities are given by communication. If everyone chose the same level of communication, there would be no problems, but that is utopia. instead, it is important to recognize the problems and address them. Solving communication problems can vary from simple misunderstood sentences to poorly expressed and incorrect phrases or even negative statements, but it is important not to choose emotions as a guide for communication. If this does happen,
it is important to reflect on it and consider what can be done better next time. Because there is nothing worse than recognizing bad communication but not changing it.
6. What will happen to a community with false communication and how can it be handled?
Poor or miscommunication can cause members or even leaders to feel compelled to lose their belief in the common cause. If you don't pull together because you don't know where you stand, it's hard to keep motivation high. Therefore, in times of fear, doubt or uncertainty, it is important to never forget the reason you are in the community you are in. Because that's the most important point of why you joined in the first place, and that's why it's important to reflect even in bad times and address the problems so that they can be solved - because there's a solution for everything. Always.
7. What does communication mean for a crypto community?
Cryptocurrencies need to value communication. Information and news are just as important as hype and mystery. It is important to find a balance that keeps members engaged and provides leaders with enough information to maintain trust over the long term. It is important to look at investments not only at the current state of events, but also at the future, which the members usually forget and leaders do not address often enough. This is the only way to create good communities that are also long-lasting and do not allow themselves to be distracted by fear, uncertainty and doubt.
IV. FUD
1. What is FUD?
Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (shortened as FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations or politics to influence perception by giving out negative and dubious or false information and a manifestation of the appeal to fear.
2. Why does FUD exist?
FUD exists to scare people in a community and weaken or destroy their morals or beliefs with false information, fear or lies. Most of the time, this comes from other communities that have banded together for this very purpose and have the intention of using this attitude to push others out of their areas. In investment, this means that others try either to destroy the investment or to talk others down about the investment they would also like to have, in order to create fluctuations and uncertainty so that they themselves can buy at a favorable price.
3. How does communication and behavior help FUD?
Knowledge is power. Knowledge of a subject, one's own community, and belief in the future of one's own project helps to reassure others with one's own strong behavior - even in the face of doubt - that this is not something to be heeded. Communication is important here among each other, because ideally one should not pay attention to the FUD, not even comment on it or deal with it on very short notice. Drama is not helpful at all and cannot benefit anyone who clearly believes in their goal and community.
4. How does FUD go with a community and how can FUD be avoided or debunked?
The community needs to address FUD, but not to focus its thoughts completely on it. it is important to know what is being proclaimed, but not to make it the main topic of the next few days, otherwise, it will take on too much importance. Simply dealing with or ignoring the individual positions here is the quickest way. Even if there is something to the FUD and some aspects are true, this does not mean that the community and the project are completely destroyed. It is important to always understand that there can be bad news, but it never means that everything is lost. Because here, too, you have to put your emotions aside and solve the problems with common sense and ratio.
V. The SafeMoon Army
1. What community is the SafeMoon Army?
The SafeMoon Army is a community of interest that has come together to change the world and bring evolution with a cryptocurrency called SafeMoon, both physical in nature and virtual for other cryptocurrencies.
The goal is to use the power together as a community to spread positivity and be open to all, whether someone is into SafeMoon, Bitcoin, XRP, or Solana. SafeMoon wants to be open to everyone and show everyone that community and collaboration is the most important thing if you want to survive in the Defi - World. That's why SafeMoon won the community award for the best community in crypto currency 2021 this year, and that just with 9 months
of existence.
2. How we handle FUD and should proceed with it
We do not take FUD as an argument, but see it as an indication of those who do not know the project and who lack knowledge. Our goal is to show anyone (with knowledge) that FUD in itself has no right to exist. If after that someone still claims that it is necessary or not true, then we have to let them believe it. Because it is our goal to include everyone in the SafeMoon Army, whether another holder or those new to the crypto world, you can't convince everyone. Those who realize the truth too late, when what we believe in has come to fruition - the flight to the moon, will be the ones missing out.
3. What we can learn from each stage of progress moving forward with SafeMoon
We are still very young in our history, which also means that we still have a lot to do and we have already achieved so much in such a short time. There is no doubt that great things are ahead of us. And with every step, new FUD will arise, which we can counter with knowledge and facts.
4. What we can do better in the upcoming weeks
Transparency is given, but we have to convince new holders of the same motivation we already have. That's the only way we can grow and show everyone that what we believe in really does matter.
5. What the SafeMoon Army should aim for
Calm, serenity, reflection, and reason. We can all get upset, angry, or emotional at any time as long as we know why we are investing: for a better future, financial freedom, and the evolution of crypto and the world.
VI. Closure
Today I have described Community, its values and behavior, as well as the approach to keeping it healthy. This was then also shown with the example of the SafeMoon Army but applies to all cryptocurrencies. Because we are together in the Defi area and must show the world together why cryptocurrencies are the future. And we can only do that if we stick to honest values instead of tearing each other apart with lies. Because this does no one any good, neither for those who spread these claims nor for those who have to fight against them. We should invest our energy and our passion in something that helps us - our investment. Because the future is ours, and we should never forget that.