[NOTE--This is my third post in as many days on the topic of online communities. There will be several more. I am growing concerned with the issues of how traditional marketers and brand managers are approaching social media. I think there is a huge opportunity for social media to become a new, more efficient marketplace, one, in which buyers and sellers can find each other without the noise and cost of outmoded traditional practices. I am hopeful that others will join this conversation. If you choose to do so, I am using the tag: 'community conversations' and I encourage you to do so. as well."]
Words are important to me. I try hard to choose mine wisely. When words are misused they can lead to misunderstandings. Lately, people who watch an online conversation but do not contribute to it have been labeled as "lurkers."
According to Dictionary.com, to "lurk is to lie or wait in concealment, as a person in ambush..." Definition 2 is to "go furtively; slink; steal." This is not what is going on and I think many of the people using this term do not realize the negative implications it connotes.
In my physical community, I have neighbors with whom I never speak. I don't see them at the restaurants I frequent. Never run accross them at my Starbuck's; don't see them at our summer block party. They don't stand at silly hours in a dog park, a pick up bag tied to the leash.
But still, they are neighbors. They are part of my community. Occasionally, we see each other on the street and we smile slightly and nod--also slightly. A few years ago, when there was a controversial City Hall meeting I spoke out. As is my style, I did it with passion. A few neighbors who had become active with me sat in the front of the room, they gave me looks of encouragement and applauded. They shared my passion.
The rest of the room was filled with other community members. I didn't recognize most of them. Didn't attach their homes to their faces. Did not know how they voted. Yet, they were equal parts of my community. They paid their taxes and voted. They would vote on the issue I was hollering about. They didn't get known as I did at that time. They didn't get interviewed in the local paper as I did, but they had the same say as me on the vote.
My side lost that vote, and I went back to being a quieter member of my physical community. Next year, there would be a different issue, bringing out passions in other people. Perhaps one would go to the front of the room and speak and enjoy some fleeting community prominence.
Communities are filled with people who are mostly quiet most of the time. That is their right. They contribute to the community just by being there, just by baring witness and more important, when they wish, they can be counted and they can be heard. At some moment, they may feel the passion that brings them to speak, as EA Spouse did several years ago, or as the guy with the camera phone did when a hole appeared on his Alaska Airlines flight.
These people are not lurkers. They are just quiet members of particular communities. They go along. They give us vociferous members audience. Sometimes, they use email or Twitter Direct to quietly share an opinion or two, often politely disagreeing, sometimes with a good deal of knowledge on the subject.
Then one day, something happens. A subject matter where one of them has great passion or knowledge. He or she steps to the front of the room and they are heard.
These people are not lurkers. They are valuable members of the community. I value the ones who have made themselves known to me. I think of them as neighbors.
