A guide to curation in community: Notes apps are where ideas go to die. And that's good.

A guide to curation in community: Notes apps are where ideas go to die. And that's good.

In the world of community building, the act of curation holds immense value. As a community builder, your role is to serve as an expert of your people and understand their needs and interests. By curating relevant information and resources, you provide them with a source filled with hand-picked content that they can trust and rely on.

But what about the value for you, the community builder? The act of curation is a powerful tool for learning and gaining a deeper understanding of the community you serve. Through the process of curating, you become aware of trends and valuable insights that you can then pass on to your community.

Before you even begin building your community, you embark on a journey of community discovery. This involves researching the ecosystem, understanding who your members are, the conversations they're having, and the content they're sharing. This initial research sets the stage for effective curation.

When it comes to curating, it's important to have a discerning eye. Not everything is worth saving, and you must ask yourself whether something holds value before saving it. By making this decision, you ensure that the content you curate is truly valuable and relevant to your community.

Continued curation is essential to ensure that you never run out of interesting questions to ask, content to write, and events to create. However, it's important to maintain some structure in your curation process. While tags and categories can be helpful, too many of them can lead to chaos and counterproductivity. The true power of curation lies in the ability to connect the dots and provide your community with a curated selection of content that is meaningful and valuable.

Now let's shift our focus to the concept of notes apps and their role in our lives. Many of us save notes, links, ideas, and thoughts as a form of insurance for the future. We feel a sense of safety and security knowing that we have these valuable resources at our disposal, even if we rarely revisit them.

Interestingly, we don't write things down to remember them. We write them down to forget. This concept may seem paradoxical, but it holds true. By documenting our thoughts and ideas, we free up mental space and allow ourselves to let go. Notes apps, bookmarking tools, and other similar resources serve as insurance for our ideas, letting us forget while providing a sense of comfort.

However, not all of our thoughts and findings hold significant value. We often write them down and never give them a second thought. Yet, we ascribe value to these ideas because they took time to think up and discover. This fear of losing our ideas stems from loss aversion, a concept explained by Daniel Kahneman in his book, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Loss aversion is our tendency to perceive threats as more urgent than opportunities, ingrained in our DNA as a survival mechanism.

To combat the strain of trying to remember everything, we need to forget. But in order to feel safe forgetting, we must first feel that our memories were not in vain and that they can be accessed if needed. This is where the role of notes apps and similar tools comes into play. They provide us with the mental safety net to let go and forget.

However, it's important to recognize that our ideas and discoveries aren't always worth as much as we think. We often blame the tools or techniques for our inability to find value in our notes. We believe that a new app or feature will solve the problem, only to find ourselves falling into the same cycle of forgetting.

In reality, our notes often serve as a record of when we first encountered an idea, rather than a valuable resource in and of themselves. Yet, we continue to seek the next best thing, believing it will provide us with the solution to our curation woes.

So, how can we overcome this cycle and find true value in our curation efforts? Here are three actionable pieces of advice:

1. Focus on quality over quantity: Instead of trying to curate everything, prioritize quality content that truly adds value to your community. Be selective in what you save and share, ensuring that it aligns with your community's needs and interests.

2. Embrace the power of reflection: Take the time to revisit your curated content and reflect on its relevance and impact. This will help you identify patterns and trends, allowing you to better serve your community and make informed decisions about what to curate in the future.

3. Don't be afraid to let go: Remember that not everything needs to be saved. Embrace the concept of forgetting and trust that the content you curate is valuable enough to provide value to your community. Let go of the fear of losing ideas and instead focus on the meaningful connections you can create through curation.

In conclusion, curation in community building holds immense value for both members and community builders. By curating relevant and valuable content, community builders can deepen their understanding of their community and provide them with trusted resources. Notes apps and similar tools serve as a form of insurance for our ideas, allowing us to forget while feeling safe. However, it's important to recognize the true value of our curated content and not fall into the trap of seeking the next best thing. By prioritizing quality, reflecting on our curation efforts, and embracing the power of letting go, we can truly harness the power of curation in community building.