Whoever Holds the Camera

Next time the old photo albums come out at a family gathering, try counting the pictures of whoever took them.

There'll be page after page of birthday candles and first days of school, and the person behind all of it barely appears. If you look closely, you might find the corner of a thumb over the lens, or a long shadow stretched across the grass toward everyone else. That's them.

They were at every one of those moments, and spent them making sure everybody else would be remembered.

Every Group Has One

Most groups have someone holding the camera. At work it tends to be whoever organizes the card and the cake, and somehow their own birthday slips by every year. In a community, it's the person who welcomes new members, remembers what someone was working on last month, and points out a small win before it gets buried under everything else.

If you're building a community, that's usually your job, and it's a good one. Putting someone else's progress in the spotlight does more than make them feel good. A newcomer learns more from a small win by someone who started where they are than from any promise you could make.

People Want to See You Too

The catch is that when you spend all your time behind the camera, people stop knowing who you are. They know your announcements and your links. What they don't know is your face, your story, or why you started in the first place, and trust is hard to build with a lens.

Some of what I've shared on this blog wasn't easy to admit. The fear of germs was one. So were the courses I bought faster than I could ever use them. None of that was comfortable to put in the frame, but I've come to think a community holds together because people are willing to be seen trying, much more than because somebody looks like they've got it all figured out.

Go Stand With Everybody

At most family gatherings, sooner or later, somebody says it. “Here, give me that. Go stand with everybody.”

The person who's been taking pictures all day walks over, a little awkward and not sure what to do with their hands, and squeezes in at the end of the row. Those often turn out to be the pictures people treasure most.

A community can work the same way if you make room for it. Hand a conversation over to a member now and then, and give people space to tell their own stories. You might find someone noticing your progress for a change.

When somebody tells you to go stand with everybody, don't wave them off. Years from now, someone will flip through what you built together and be glad to find you in it.