The Community Code - The Book
Community is a system the business designs and stewards. The community creates the value.
That sentence sits at the center of everything I believe about community. It also explains why I wrote this book.
Over the past twenty years, I’ve worked with organizations at every stage, from early startups to public companies. The details were always different, but the conversations had a familiar rhythm. Teams were investing in community, hiring community managers, launching forums, creating ambassador programs, and building customer events. They were doing all the things that looked like community.
What they often lacked was a shared understanding of what community was actually supposed to accomplish.
Without that foundation, every discussion became harder than it needed to be. Success was difficult to measure. Priorities shifted constantly. Community became something everyone supported in theory but struggled to connect to the rest of the business.
Over time, I found myself coming back to the same principles, the same frameworks, and even the same sketches on a whiteboard. Rather than continuing to explain them one conversation at a time, I decided to put them together in a book.
The Community Code is the result.
Inside, I share the approach that’s shaped my work building communities at Evernote, Asana, and other technology companies, along with lessons from advising organizations that were trying to make community part of their go-to-market strategy rather than a standalone function.
You’ll find practical guidance on questions that come up in almost every community program:
What is community, and where are its boundaries?
What role should community play across marketing, customer success, product, and support?
How do you create value for members while creating measurable value for the business?
What should you measure, and what metrics tend to create the wrong incentives?
How do you build something that continues to matter long after launch?
I don’t think community needs more tactics. There are plenty of books, blogs, and conference talks that cover tactics. What I’ve consistently found is that organizations benefit far more from having a clear way to think about community. Once that foundation is in place, the tactical decisions become much easier.
If you’re responsible for community, marketing, customer success, product, or go-to-market strategy, I hope this book helps you make better decisions and avoid a few of the mistakes I’ve watched organizations repeat over the years.
Get the book
The Community Code is available in paperback and digital.
→ Buy The Community Code on Amazon
Keep exploring
The book captures the ideas that have remained consistent throughout my career.
This Substack is where I explore what happens when those ideas meet a changing world. Here I write about community, AI, customer trust, and the way organizations learn from the people they serve. Some essays build directly on concepts from the book. Others examine new questions that didn’t exist when I first sat down to write it.
If you’ve already read The Community Code, I hope you’ll find something here that continues the conversation. And if you’re discovering my work for the first time, welcome. I’m glad you’re here.