I am absolutely addicted to @StephenCaggiano’s daily #UsGuys #NightShift Clock in on video on Twitter. Check it out below. It will only take few seconds.
StephenCaggiano Stephen J. Caggiano http://twitvid.com/CZK28 - #UsGuys #Nightshift Clock In
You might not be so impressed. #UsGuys doesn’t care! It is a daily group ritual and you are not in this group. People in the #UsGuys community wait for it nightly and Stephen delivers consistently. Sometimes others join in either by tweeting a ‘clock in’ or making their own video, but if Stephen skipped a night, many of us would feel like the whole night was off, just not the same.
What is going on here? Why should you care?
Group rituals are the cement of human community. Are you interested in creating or participating in a cohesive, sticky community that has longevity, loyalty, dedicated resource pooling and a strong sense of identity? Here you go! Ritual practice generates that hard to pinpoint, fundamental attachment to a group of people that will transcend all kinds of adversity!
And look at how easy it is. What Stephen does is not complex, but it is consistent. Variation in the videos is commented upon. Was Stephen at home? Out on the town? Was he in a t-shirt, dress clothes, shirtless? Was his hair a mess, is he sick? Recognizing variation creates insider status. Commenting on those differences illustrates #UsGuys culturally versant status.
This reminds me of the odd South by South West Interactive Conference ritual I stumbled upon. At 3 am every year at SXSW in a hotel lobby, this happens:
No one could tell me what it was about, but the large crowd was dedicated to the experience. “Stick around, you won’t be sorry,” I was told.
Quick Bit of Context:
This is a blog series that addresses how to strengthen our digitally based communities by leveraging the wisdom found in Native American tribal experiences and beyond. This post marks the halfway point in the journey through the Three Pillars; three tool types you can use to increase identification, loyalty and resource pooling for the longevity and cohesion of the group.
A Step Back:
Pillar 2 is Culture / Ritual. Here I am focused on my absolute favorite tribal aspect, Ritual. The term ‘ritual’ often carries a religious connotation, but it is really any sequence of acts done in a set manner, repetitively. Pledging allegiance to the flag before the ball game is a ritual ceremony. We have personal rituals, family rituals, community, religious and cultural rituals. My own Native American tribe gathers multiple times a year for late night stomp dancing around a fire that has burned without interruption for untold years. It is documented that the fire survived the Trail of Tears in the 1800’s until today, under 24 hour supervision. Powerful stuff, no?
Last year, I was surprised to hear from an anthropologist that rituals often develop meaning after they are established. The repetitive action happens first, then comes meaning. We have so many rituals we practice without being intentional about the meaning, yet we wouldn’t skip them without great gnashing of teeth! I would be delighted to hear about rituals you feel strongly about!
So let’s get to some more examples:
1. Gaming
My cousin has been in a guild of between 50 and 80 people on EverQuest for more than a decade. Their guild is extremely dedicated.
Some of their ritual practices:
- They have met on the same nights every week for more than a decade. Some nights are raid nights, others are planning nights.
- At the end of a raid they “buffer” each other which means they give each other various forms of strength for the next log in.
- When someone in the guild has a birthday, they “kill something big,” to quote my cousin.
The people in this guild have been at the hospital for major medical issues before family members showed up. Legal and engineering talents in the guild have offered support to other members when they were in need, free of charge. This guild inspires enormous resource pooling and commitment that translates into “the real world.”
2. The TwitterChat phenomenon
TwitterChats are everywhere on Twitter. I have noticed a common practice on many of the chats. There is a good 7 minutes of greetings and welcomes before the chat gets started. This is the opposite of every meeting ‘How To Guide’ you will find: ‘Get to the point, rock through the agenda, make the meeting relevant and a good use of people’s time.’ But on TwitterChats we like to work the room before we settle in for the agenda. If you cut that short, your chat will feel bumpy and wrong somehow. Dedicating those first several minutes to welcome chatter is culturally versant.
In fact, TwitterChats have a ritual aspect by virtue of the weekly rhythm. People organize their day around a chat time.
I also love how folks do imitations of real world physical gestures in TwitterChat greetings, like “*waving* across the room” to bring another level of real world meet-n-greet to the experience.
3. There are all kinds of rituals on social media communities:
- #FF (whether you like it or not)
- Regular giveaway days, like Luxor Casino’s Facebook Fridays
Take-aways:
Ritual will cement a community feeling like nothing else. Ritual practice is powerful and fun. Things to remember:
- You can’t force culture and you can’t force ritual. Try something. If it doesn’t take, it wasn’t meant to be.
- Keep it simple and extremely consistent
- Allow others to participate, but remember, anything that is reliant on the participation of the group, while the most powerful, is the hardest to get off the ground.
Please share the rituals you have encountered on and offline! Digital tribes are still in their infancy. We are learning together.
