Building a Sense of Community with Emojis?

Can Emojis Build a Community?






"Mrs. Hankins, please, please, please tell me what the teachers are going to be this year?  I just can't wait!"


I must have received this request at least 100 times leading up to our annual Halloween parade at Mortensen on Tuesday!  

Each year two key staff  members (Susan Corbett and Deb Brown) come up with the idea for our annual theme.  Thank you ladies!  Here are some of the recent themes from years' past:

Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, Minions, Lego Characters, The Up Movie, Poke`mon

I really love this year's theme of Emojis!  The children were very excited to see all of their teachers and staff members dressed according to our theme.  It has become a tradition at Mortensen to keep the theme a secret until the "big reveal" at 2:00 on Halloween just in time for our annual parade and parties.  

This tradition among others has helped us create a sense of community among and between staff members, students, and their families.  I consider the creation and cultivation of "COMMUNITY" to be one of the major parts of my position at the school.  It is interesting to me that the business world is now also realizing the power of "community creation" for companies and for departments within large corporations.



Community Blogger, David Spinks from TheCommunityManager.Com and "What Spinks Thinks" has written the following blog post on the Power of Communities:

I have posted some reflections about the sense of community at Mortensen in red throughout this article.

My entire life, I’ve always been fascinated by the power of communities.

More recently I’ve started to wonder about why it is that humans come together in such a unique way.

Why do people participate in communities?

I have often used the phrase "We are doing life together" with my elementary school staffs over the years to describe our work and learning together.

What is it that makes a community exist? They don’t just sprout up for no reason. There must be psychological justifications that explain what it is that brings people together.

Looking at research conducted to date, there’s one theory that has held up against the test of time and a great deal of research.

In 1986, social psychologists McMillan & Chavis formed this theory that has become the most widely accepted understanding of how communities work.

They called it the “Sense of Community”.

They described their theory in one sentence:

“Sense of community is a feeling that members have of belonging, a feeling that members matter to one another and to the group, and a shared faith that members’ needs will be met through their commitment to be together (McMillan, 1976).

I like the emphasis upon meeting each others' needs within our community.

They go on to describe the four factors that contribute to a sense of community.

Let’s dig in a bit into what they believed served as the psychological justification for the existence of communities and talk about how you can apply each factor to make your community as healthy as possible.

As you read them, think about the most healthy, successful community that you’re a part of. Do they have these factors?

The four factors are:

1. Membership

Membership is the feeling of belonging or of sharing a sense of personal relatedness.

It includes five attributes:

1. Boundaries – How do people become members and what are the boundaries keeping others out
2. Emotional safety – By building boundaries and including the right people, you create trust and a feeling of safety
3. A sense of belonging and identification – Members must feel like they fit in and that this is “their community”
4. Personal investment – If members contribute or make sacrifices to the community, it enhances their sense of community
5. A common symbol system – Sharing a symbol like a sports team jersey or gang colors creates a sense of community

I like #5 - it is why it is always so important to me that we have theme for the year under which all of our work is anchored, a graphic symbol of our work (ie: logo), and predictable traditions like the Halloween costumes, the songs on the morning announcements, annual events to look forward to, etc.

So it’s important to not just invite anyone and everyone to your community. Think about what you want your community to be about and who would make your community better. Make sure that anyone who joins is going to be a good fit.

By setting boundaries to getting into a community, you make members feel special and create a higher level of trust.

Then think about what else you can do to make users proud to be a member using things like symbols. Think power user programs, logos and branding.

2. Influence

The second element is influence, or a sense of mattering. It has to work both ways, with members feeling like they have influence over the community and the community having influence over the members.

Influence also speaks to the concept of giving first before asking for anything. The theory states that:

“People who acknowledge that others’ needs, values, and opinions matter to them are often the most influential group members, while those who always push to influence, try to dominate others, and ignore the wishes and opinions of others are often the least powerful members.”

Create an environment in your community where members feel like they have a say in what happens.

Each member should know that someone is listening, no matter what, even if it’s just the community manager.

And for a community to have influence over its members, it simply has to become a place that they care about. It has to provide them with value that they don’t want to lose.

At Mortensen we often talk about how grateful we are that we GET to come together each day and to be with each other as we accomplish our work.  We do not take this privilege lightly - we know that it is not a "given."  We appreciate it so much that we are willing to work together to make sure that this sense of community is not undermined or damaged by outside forces.

3. Integration and Fulfillment of Needs

This essentially means that by joining a community a member gets what they hoped to get by joining.

It reinforces the idea that your community, like any other product, needs to solve a problem for its members in order to make it worth their time and contribution.

A reward might be something specific like an answer to a question or networking. Or it could be something a bit more intangible like a sense of belonging, a support network, thoughtful conversations, inspiration, etc.

Members need to feel rewarded in some way for their participation in the community in order to continue to contribute.

This is why it’s really important to talk to your users and get a really good idea of who they are. Then you can understand their needs and how the community can best serve them.

It is heartwarming to me to see how my staff members care for each other.  They divide up the work so that no one person is saddled with too much at a time.  They cover for each other when someone needs to leave to attend to a family matter.  They take each others' children so that teachers can participate in professional learning or conduct individual assessments on students.  They have no problem helping a colleague because they know that the same will be done for them without question or hesitation.

4. Shared Emotional Connection

All healthy communities have a story.  Members will have a history of experiences together and the belief that there will be more experiences together in the future.

McMillan & Chavis provide an example:

“This is the feeling one sees in farmers’ faces as they talk about their home place, their land, and their families; it is the sense of family that persons of Jewish faith feel when they read The Source by James Michener (1965).”

These experiences form a long lasting, emotion connection. That’s why a community that goes through a crises often comes out much stronger because they’ve now shared a difficult situation, forging a strong emotional bond amongst members.

This factor is believed to be the “definitive element for true community”.

What kinds of experiences can you manufacture for the members of your community? Events? Something unique that they won’t forget? Maybe it’s just a good, honest debate where people get heated but end up stronger afterward.

Does your community have these 4 factors? Now that you understand why people participate in communities, how can you take this knowledge and apply it to what you’re building?


When members of a community have been with each other for many years like so many of my staff members have been, it is inevitable that they will face hardships together.  We have experienced deaths of family members together, deaths of our students' family members, and unfortunately the deaths of current and former students themselves.  Recently we have been faced with severe budget cuts where we have had to reduce staff positions - this is always so hard, but it never ceases to amaze me how we are able to withstand hardships and come out with an even stronger sense of community.  This is the measure of a healthy community focused upon a shared mission, vision, and commitment to accomplish our tasks together!  Thank you Mortensen Community for the honor of working, learning, and living together with you - I do not take it for granted!


Here is some information about the Community Manager blog site:

The Community Manager is the home for all community management-related tips, news and case studies.
Community Management has become one of the most sought after positions among the digitally savvy, and companies of all sizes have quickly adopted it.  Its place in business is equal parts integral and confusing, and is a term that can define a myriad of job functions.
With over 100 writers contributing to the site, we’re proud to bring together the voices of the community industry’s leading professionals from brands like Apple, TED, Airbnb, Huffington Post, eModeration and many many more.
Our goal is to bring clarity to the role and help community managers build healthy, thriving communities that will improve the lives of the members of their communities.

Now - I know that you will be wondering all year long - what will their theme be next year?  I can't tell you until 2:00 on Halloween 2018!


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