Over the last two and a half years, I've undertaken a most amazing "community" journey. It started with my dipping a toe into the world of social media while I was still at Fidelity Investments and has now migrated into my full immersion in the world of community and social networks in my current job at Mzinga.

As someone that has always worked hard at staying ahead of the technology curve, I've always loved figuring out "what's next." What I didn't anticipate in my new world was how radically the new world of social media and community would change my life both personally and professionally. One only needs to look back a few years to remember the "old way" of obtaining information i.e contact a friend or colleague or search on the Web. Both were good but with friends, you didn't get the breadth of information number of inputs you get from the Web -- conversly, the Web gave you great breadth but fell down when it came to knowing your likes and dislikes.

Then along came community and social media. Now I can have breadth and personal filters all at the same time. Even better, I can build my community as big or small as I'd like. So far, I'm finding that I can manage communication with groups somewhere between 150-200 big. Those groups are different for personal and professional needs although the two circles overlap a fair amount.

Getting back to the title of this post, here are just a few things I've learned from my community over the past few months. I could probably add 10,000 more things to this list but for your sake, I won't. Here goes:

Professionally

• Blogging tips from the masters like Jeremiah Owyang, Mike Arrington, Tara Hunt and Robert Scoble (via podcasts and their blogs)
• How to engage your community from Sean O'Driscoll (via a podcast)
• Several great lists of Web 2.0/Community events for 2008 (via Twitter and my RSS)
• How to be a better marketer (via Community 2.0 thanks to Francois Gossieaux, numerous blogs and podcasting w/ Shel Israel, Peter Hirshberg and Ross Mayfield)
• Links to helpful research, articles and blogs (via Twitter - too many folks to name but for starters, Rachel Happe, Jeremiah, Mukund, Nate Ritter and many more.)
• New and useful Web 2.0 tools (via Twitter, directly from F2F work network of Jim Storer, Dave Wilkins, Heather Strout, Isaac Hazard, and Derek Showerman and blogs like Engadget, TechCrunch, Scobleizer and Micropersuasion)
• How to build a community business case (via Office 2.0, webinars w/ Don Tapscott, Mukund Mohan, Diane Davidson, Josh Hilliker and of course through numerous blogs including those of Jake McKee, Dave Winer and Doc Searls, and finally podcasting w/ people like Alph Bingham, Dave Summers, Dean Whitney, Thor Muller, Richard Anson, Kelly Thompson, Steve Swasey, James Geshwiler, Angie Hicks, Chris Larsen)
• New contacts (Facebook, Twitter, Community 2.0, Office 2.0 and Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfasts)
• How to crowdsource (We Are Smarter community, my webinar w/ Jeff Howe, and podcasts w/ Anil Rathi and Jasmine Antonick)
• Examples of companies that are using community to change the way they do business (Wikinomics site and of course the We Are Smarter community)
• A wider group of people to provide feedback on my blog posts and listen to my podcasts/webinars (via Facebook, Twitter, my blog RSS feeds and my fellow Mzinga-ers)

Personally

• 10 great new band recommendations from my friends on Twitter: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Artic Monkeys, Metric, Mavis Staples, Kimya Dawson, Hot Chip, Wintersleep, Starsailor, Sharon Jones, Regina Spektor, Keane, Galactic, Interpol, The Juno Soundtrack and Josh Ritter. (thanks to: @georgedearing, @sylc, @jeffglasson, @tomhumbarger, @tastybit, @jgee, @melgallant, @jbruin,
• Movie reviews (via Twitter and Netflix)
• Great restaurants, tourist sites and places to buy wine (via Yelp)
• New friends (Facebook, Twitter, Community 2.0, Office 2.0 and Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfasts)
• Places to get better sports news/updates and interesting viewpoints I hadn't ever considered (my personal blog, FB and Twitter - particular thanks to @adamcohen and @jstorerj)
• Haiku competitions on Twitter (via Twitter -- see the post for competition one and competition two for list of players)

What has community taught you? Feel free to comment below.