A system and method for associating users with a micro-community that is relevant to an object reference. The object reference is anything that can be perceived either physically or conceptually, such as a location, a document, a calendar entry, a document, a news feed, a biometric key, an image, a news feed, etc. A micro-community engine identifies users who are associated explicitly with the object reference as well as people who would be interested in the object implicitly and associates them with a micro-community. The micro-community engine provides an intuitive and flexible means for communication between members of the micro-community.