We’ve noticed that a lot of tech events love to see themselves as communities. Yes, it’s not a huge stretch to see why ambitious events have seen an opportunity to brand themselves as communities in building an ever grander positioning for themselves. It’s at least partly to do with elevating yourself above the competition and trying to convince the communities that they are dependent on the events and not the vice versa. But events will never become communities unless it’s the community doing the event. 

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Community is what happens between the events that then enable the community to evolve and grow at each event. Most mainstream events either struggle to match the previous year or peak early on only to gradually lose significance. They follow a typical product management life cycle as opposed to product owner flywheel. Communities must be driven with an entrepreneurial mindset or they will disappear if ever have existed in the first place.

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It’s vital that we highlight other alternatives to building business events and in our case that means community driven events. Because it really is where you can push beyond being just another event. It’s where events can drive ecosystem growth. It is also true that many communities dream of having events, but don’t realise how much hard work it takes. This is also the reason why most communities are unable to match mainstream event producers. But the price for communities willing to do the hard work is worth every penny. 

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Community driven events are so much fun and in cases where communities actually focus on putting together a professional event for the wider ecosystem, it will be the best time and money spent whether you are an attendee, partner or speaker. The secret sauce of community driven events is serendipity. Basically unique things happen when the right people and businesses meet in the right place at the right time. 

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Serendipity is the sole domain of community managers who know its ingredients and its manufacturing process. Things that might seem random to members and attendees are actually nudged by the community managers. The greatest reward of a community manager is, however, when that nudge creates an outcome that is so surprising that no one could have ever planned for. 

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Nordic Fintech Summit is not your ordinary event, but it’s also a place for the community and ecosystem to learn, connect, grow and party together. Make sure you don’t miss this spring’s highlight and the experience of what it means to be connected at the Nordic’s premier fintech fest. And make sure you keep following our blog also next week to find out what the priceless surprise we got was as we are nudging together all pieces of the event.  

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