The magic of digital communities

Since the dawn of humanity, humans have found great strength in being a social species. Today, technology enables people to organize into interest groups even when located in different cities or countries.

Since the dawn of humanity, humans have found great strength in being a social species. The reality is that today, "technology facilitates and largely enables people to develop the ability to organize into interest groups even when located in different cities or countries around the world, through what are known as communities," says Mak Gutierrez, representative of Hackers & Founders for Mexico, the world's largest network of entrepreneurs and winner of the Guinness World Record in the previous edition of Campus Party 2016 for the Hackathon with the most completed projects.

These communities can be defined as groups of individuals united by a common interest, such as a passion for technology or a shared vision on a particular topic. For example, there are communities of entrepreneurs, programmers in different languages, social causes, designers, among other topics. One of the most important characteristics of these communities is that they take place through physical, digital, or mixed meetings. Simply searching in Facebook groups, Linkedin, or platforms like Meetup, Eventbrite, or Boletia reveals the enormous number of events organized around specific topics. The main objective of communities is to enable concrete and real exchange of knowledge and skills for the creation of something. As Mak explained, "communities generate value in collective learning," allowing individuals to find peers with the same passions, creating closeness with those who possess greater knowledge in a particular area, and achieving synergies through these encounters that produce discoveries and innovations in many fields. A classic example of what can be achieved through communities is the creation of the first Apple personal computer, which was conceived in a computer club and later developed by Steve Wozniak. Ultimately, communities allow their members to become specialists in a specific area of interest and have access to experts for advice or to refine ideas. Moving to a slightly broader scale where collaboration outweighs competition. According to Mak, "collaborating is the best way to do business beyond the belief that if someone else succeeds, I have to fail; it's not a zero-sum game." However, there are still many companies missing out on opportunities to join communities because they believe that major innovations will come from within the organization or fear having their ideas stolen.

External innovation: However, we see a new group of companies opening up to external innovation, creating incubators, events with entrepreneurs, or even competitions to develop solutions, such as "Hackathons." "To create and maintain a community, one must first have a long-term vision because changes and results are not immediate. Likewise, anyone aspiring to be a leader of a community should have an interest in developing a specific area of knowledge and, above all, focus on creating value and value creation situations within the community," explains Mak. Finally, it is essential to understand that a community is not necessarily a business, but the established network of contacts can be capitalized on. In a technological economy that allows us to socialize with the world, Latinos can have a significant competitive advantage by having a great capacity for socializing, capitalizing on this for greater innovation, leveraging the magic of communities.