Christopher Allen over at Life With Alacrity, who also happens to be my instructor, wrote a great series called “Community by the Numbers” which I’ve summarized here. I thought the information was a perfect fit.

If a community is too small you’ll often have insufficient critical mass to sustain it. Conversely, if it’s too large you can end up with a community that’s too noisy, too cliquey, or otherwise problematic. These optimal and sub-optimal community sizes appear in strata, like discrete layers of rock. For a community to advance from one strata to the next often takes immense energy.
~Christopher Allen, Community by the Numbers, Part One: Group Thresholds

Each strata is study supported, but that isn’t the point. The point is that we must break free of our traditional notions and plan ways to accommodate community growth. This specifically includes the resources necessary to provide the energy necessary. Too often I’ve assumed steady community growth and health. Pay attention, sweet spot 7 people falls apart at 13. 50 people begins to fall apart at 90, 150 is a strongly passionate and connected group. Communities don’t just grow, they require division into smaller groups to create intimacy. Are you facilitating that? The greatest opportunity here is that as we organize and promote ourselves online, the offline world is a great arena to create smaller more successful and intimate groups.

With this bifurcation of personal and group community limits, we have to briefly stop and ask a few questions. How do they relate? What can personal limits tell us about efficient community creation? Does founding a group upon a personal circle make its growth easier or harder? Conversely, what type of communities lead naturally to the creation of intimate circles?
~Christopher Allen, Community by the Numbers, Part II: Personal Circles

Christopher speaks of personal circles of support (3-5), sympathy (10-15), trust (40-200), emotional (“just short of 300″), and familiarity (depends on willingness to take risks). First off, this brings the personal reflective awareness of my social capabilities and capacities. I am not superhuman, I have limits. The maintenance and aspirations of my personal circles should be humbled by the realities of their/my capacities.

To me the differences between personal limits and group limits point out two opportunities:

• If we can harness true personal attributes in traditional group settings, we begin to open more diverse opportunities and roles for different successful group sizes.
• We against must challenge the strength in numbers assumption. It is truly strength in connections and defined layers.

You first measure whether it’s an all-participant community or one that matches an existing power law, and then you use the corrected community number to truly measure which of the group thresholds may apply to it.
~Christopher Allen, Community by the Numbers, Part III: Power Laws

I’m sure I’ve mentioned the 90-9-1 power law before. If I haven’t, I am now I love thinking about this law. It gives such a quick read on any community. Click the numbers for more information. This means concerns about group size applies to the more active participants in a community the 10% or even 1% depending on your goals.

Shifts in thinking:

• You must know the nature of your community and a sense of who the participants actually are. It is no longer just a community.
• Focus on identifying and organizing the active members of your community.

How have you changed your thinking about communities?