The Power of Personal Networks

When we’re given news of something personal and monumental, it’s easy to feel as if it affects only us, or sometimes…us and maybe our immediate family. Whether it’s a new and scary diagnosis or a job loss, or relationship issue, or something that falls into the category of an individual struggle, we often frame it in precisely this way: an individual struggle.

In reality?

Not so much.

The struggle in question will definitely have a strong impact on us as individuals; as people with fears and worries entering a new reality, but we’re not just singular individuals in this world; we’re part of a community, even if we don’t comprehend that right away. 

But we need to find (or create!) that community, that network made up of other apprehensive individuals. Together, we can share and lighten the load of those burdens that make us feel that we are alone in this.

Maybe that new reality is pretty scary. Hiking up a hill is a less-scary prospect when someone who’s done it before joins us to encourage our progress: “You can do it! I did it, and it was hard, especially the first time I pulled on those hiking boots and laced them up. And I was out of breath at first too! And I didn’t know what to bring with me. But it got easier for me, and it’ll get easier for you, too. I promise. Let’s go!”

But how do we find that person with experience and the equanimity borne of that experience? How does the person who’s been through the same trials and emerged wiser and calmer and more assured find others that they can help?

Through community. This is the power of community.

This is the power of finding those someones, those people who’ve faced the same struggles and want to share what you’ve learned and help you succeed too, is the power we can find in community.

So how do we find them? And how do we find people that we can lift up once we know it gets easier? 

Because that’s part of the cycle, isn’t it? It’s the ideal. It’s what we do when we learn something amazing; we share it! 

Being able to share what we’ve learned is what makes tough experiences even more valuable.

When I began working in the tech sector at Dell, I benefited greatly from an environment that encouraged the best facets of community-building. I found myself immersed in the process, learning about how it all worked. There was a lot to absorb, from opening walls between corporate america and the consumer, to allow access, product ideation, all to create a mutual and positive exchange. 

How did we share with other teams, truly listen to and absorb the concerns and suggestions of our customers around the world, and implement those ideas for everyone’s benefit? Through community.

Of course, human beings have been building community since the dawn of time, but our society isn’t limited any longer to our immediate family and to our tribe; the world is bigger today, and our reach is so much greater. We can do so much…if we can just find one another.

So where are we today? For one thing, we could use more thematic communities across social media to help with emotional and mental health, as well as shared realities following an unexpected life change. Nothing makes us feel more empowered than knowing that we’re not alone in our feelings and concerns.

This is why I’m launching ScolioGoGo. When my daughter was first diagnosed with scoliosis, her doctor gave her a traditional corrective brace to help the curve of her spine from progressing as she grew. And that was it. “Here’s your brace. Have a nice day!”

Unspoken: “And that’s all we’re going to do. Don’t let the door hit ya where the brace fit ya!” 

And that was it. We didn’t have the tools (besides a brace!) to help our daughter as she learned to grapple with her new reality. We really didn’t know anybody else – or any other families – dealing with the same things at the same time, or anybody who’d been through these experiences before us.

When I did find someone who had some understanding of the diagnosis, something they said stuck with me: things never really advance in terms of sharing knowledge, because scoliosis patients eventually get better, and people move through this time and then…move on. Either the brace works, or the patient has surgery. 

Time and time again, when sitting in community support groups, and on Facebook, I found that families with new diagnoses were often asking the same simple questions and expressing similar concerns. What would it be like if we could take those simple questions, make the answers very searchable, and allow the wisdom of those who’d been through this experience to be saved and easily shared?

We decided that we wanted to support people who had just received a diagnosis, but also, we wanted to push the conversation around scoliosis forward, by involving caregivers in supporting each other, depending on where they are on their scoliosis journey.

We also wanted to talk with and learn from researchers and caregivers, who can help support these conversations as true experts. Are there other options for braces? What’s out there for pain management? What tools exist for emotional help as we send our kids to school in these very robust and different kinds of braces? Can physical therapy help? When is surgery an option?

That’s a huge part of our endeavor; not only intra-community conversation and rapport, but bringing together ideas about how to support patients even more.

We’re also studying how new technology can help us communicate with each other to provide this support. Maybe AI can help us aggregate solid information to make conversations about cures and products easier to find. 

ScolioGoGo is also our opportunity to share what we’ve learned and to connect other people with scoliosis and their families, so we can learn more together, lighten that load, and lend a hand for that hike. Because now we’re the ones whose turn it is to help others get up the hill.

No matter what we’re dealing with individually, there are many out there who share our feelings and burdens, and many who are eager to contribute to the group’s knowledge base and share how they’ve learned to cope and thrive.

Social communities online like ScolioGoGo are the way we make it work, together. Community networks offer access to education and new information, to find options, ideas, and to make plans. They’re a platform for learning, and more importantly, for caring.

Whether it’s on a local, national, or global scale, people coming together is how we move from individuals with individual struggles to a true community. And that’s what we’re building. 

Together.