A couple of weeks ago the 11:FS team had Samsung in the office filming myself and Andy Davis, Co founder of 10x10 talking about building a business community, and how technology can help bridge the gap when it comes to outreach and productivity.

It got me thinking, what makes up a community isn’t just the people who are the first to fly your flag and wear your t-shirts. A real business community is a culmination of all the players who are influencing a purpose whether that be positively or negatively.

Let’s double click.

No one can succeed alone.

In a world where human nature and individual interests ensures that change is avoided at all costs unless absolutely necessary, the ability to succeed in selling a dream or a vision, especially one that changes the very fabric of an industry that many fight to protect, is critical to making the shift in people's thinking to move the whole industry forwards.

At 11:FS our vision is about changing the fabric of financial services. This is to benefit the overcharged, underserved and overwhelmed around the world who deserve better. Who deserve to benefit from all of the technological advances we have seen over the last decade to be able to receive the services of much better banking. And not just banking but all types of financial services also. We all deserve better.

How do you create such an inflexion point? How do you bring about such a dramatic change? Fear? Education? Help? Incentivisation?

One thing that is for certain is that you don't do it on your own. Especially when you are a business that in 2016 was just 4 people like 11:FS was. Our competitors had more money, more people, more relationships and more reach than we did. It was an impossible mission.

Our vision at 11:FS is much greater than us. Fabric level change of what it means to be financial services making everyone better off regardless of how much money they have. We want to ensure they get more and make more of what they have. So how do you spread those words to places where people have similar thoughts? How can you touch those who need to hear the messages but are not quite there yet?

You don't do it with coffees and pleasantries. You do it en masse and through those who have similar thoughts and seek similar changes to the industry that they are knowledgeable of.

You do it with people, not to people. You do it with the community. A community of insiders who want and will drive to make this magnitude of change happen; A community of Fintech Insiders.

What is a great community?

So, what does a great community look like?

Dialog

Engagement

Communication

How do you reach them?

How do you engage with people en masse and around the world?

Content marketing

Research

Podcasts

Social media

All this is dependent on connectivity. Having the right technology giving you access to millions of people globally 24/7 is where on-the-go devices come into their own. In a world where your mobile phone, your watch or your tablet can notify you of content and conversations that are curated especially for you is where the internet has dialled up community reach in a big way. A good example of this would be when I was out in Singapore a few weeks back. My agenda was back-to-back but I had my shiny new Samsung Fold phone (I can’t stop talking about it sorry!) in my back pocket and I have to say it was the first time I felt like I didn’t even need my laptop to stay on top of things. The bigger screen made it super easy to properly engage with things or have meetings on the fly rather than doing everything surface level. One pocket sized thing that allows me to connect and document minute by minute if I wanted to.

So whatever your device of choice, 6.6 billion people in the world are available online. That’s 6.6 billion people at your fingertips to interact with and add value to their lives.

Infecting your enemies with love.

Beyond people being hard to change the views of then companies are even harder. One thing sure to change a business’s view though is losing work. At 11:FS we have won work from some of the biggest players around the world. Players who perpetuate the old world. Those who benefit from the status quo. Over the years we’ve caught wind of a few organisations who have either plagiarised our content or held internal meetings to discuss their ‘how we win over 11:FS’ strategies. That really happens and it is super flattering. To some people this would be a red alert, but actually it’s both incredibly flattering and in a weird way a huge support to what we’re trying to achieve. If our competitors are aligning to our thinking then really, they are furiously in agreement with the fact that our mission is the right one.

• When people use our content or come up with strategies aligned to us then we have done our part in bringing change.

  Money vs. Purpose.

• Delivering something bigger than you.

• The purpose of 11:FS is bigger than just the revenue, it's about changing the fabric.