What size do you consider “critical mass” for an active community centred around a niche hobby/topic? Asking for a friend…
2 thoughts on “”
It depends I think. Critical mass towards what? Local agency? Go mainstream from a niche? Self sustainment of the group? What are your underlying assumptions? If it’s about self sustaining a group, also have a look at some guidelines I wrote a decade ago on what makes a community of practice work (based on Etienne Wenger‘s work). My rule of thumb for ‘stable’ groups is about 8 people (say 5-12, but 12 is better for ‘learning’ groups and likely too big for coordinating ‘doing’ groups), and then an ‘uncomfortable’ zone up to 25 or so, where I feel there’s a new equilibrium from 25 to 35 or so (3 times ~8, the uncomfortable zone is more like 2 times ~8, with a risk of splitting in half) Assuming you’re after a self sustaining group for a niche hobby, I’d say 25-35 people. Depending on a multitude of factors in practice, like frequency of interaction, geographic dispersal, all the stuff in the slides linked above. Replied to a post by Chris M.
What size do you consider “critical mass” for an active community centred around a niche hobby/topic?
It depends I think. Critical mass towards what? Local agency? Go mainstream from a niche? Self sustainment of the group? What are your underlying assumptions?
If it’s about self sustaining a group, also have a look at some guidelines I wrote a decade ago on what makes a community of practice work (based on Etienne Wenger‘s work).
My rule of thumb for ‘stable’ groups is about 8 people (say 5-12, but 12 is better for ‘learning’ groups and likely too big for coordinating ‘doing’ groups), and then an ‘uncomfortable’ zone up to 25 or so, where I feel there’s a new equilibrium from 25 to 35 or so (3 times ~8, the uncomfortable zone is more like 2 times ~8, with a risk of splitting in half)
Assuming you’re after a self sustaining group for a niche hobby, I’d say 25-35 people. Depending on a multitude of factors in practice, like frequency of interaction, geographic dispersal, all the stuff in the slides linked above.
Replied to a post by Chris M.
Andy mentioned this note on andysylvester.com.