THE AIM OF COMMUNITIES
The urge for companies and other organisations to start working with communities is the apparent success communities seem to have in other areas like social networks. In my opinion the importance of communities is a trait of a cultural movement that originates somewhere in the 17th century, that made people more and more autonomous and mature, and a technological innovation that found its apotheosis in the internet, that made people more and more empowered. This ‘empowered consumer’ claims its position and wants to have influence on the world he consumes. He now thinks for himself about what is good and what is not, and has the power to claim his part in the creation and production processes.

There is a mismatch between the two explanations of the importance of communities, at least in the approach. The former recognizes communities as instrumental: people like communities, so we, as a company, will do communities. But if the latter analysis is right people do not just like communities, just to be part of it, they see it for themselves as instrumental to become empowered and to create, or in other words, to be in control. Companies thus confuse the aim of communities as being a community and still want to hold on to the same old strategy of being in absolute control of creation and production. Meanwhile consumers do not just apathetically await their change to become part of the creative process, but will look for it somewhere else. That kind of explains a lot why company communities generally stay empty.

RE-DISIGN OF THE AIM AND PROCESS
So what to do? According to Andre Bouwman the key profession of the coming decades will become design. Not just design as in making nice tables and chairs, but as in aligning products, technology and institutions with the need, desire and behaviour of the consumer. There is a great task in finding ways for companies and institutions to deal with communities, or better, the empowered consumer. There is more to it then designing nice products or services. Design will be in charge of re-organizing companies and institutions, as the empowered consumer does not only ask for new products, but also new ways of creation, in which it demands to participate.

The empowered consumer wants something different than smart business models that deal with new circumstances in an ingenious way. They recognize companies that hold on to old strategies and reject them. Companies and organisations that offer membership instead of participation do not understand the underlying cultural shift that ignited the rise of communities in the first place and do not need a mere re-design of their websites, they need a re-disign of the aims and processes of the company itself. But according to Bouwman this does not ask for some business expert. It are the qualities of the traditional designer that are needed to understand the features of this re-design.