Join the next class: http://masterclass.indyhall.org This is the first lesson of the Community Builder Masterclass, attended by community builders in 8 different countries, 8 different US states, and 20 different cities around the world.
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Community Builder Masterclass Warmup Lesson
1. Community Builder
Masterclass
~ Version 2.0 ~
Lesson 0: Warmup
masterclass.indyhall.org
Last Updated Sunday, October 7, 2012
2. Welcome
2
Imagine this scene:
You've spent weeks & months hunting and
g a t h e r i n g f o r p e o p l e to s t a r t yo u r
community, hosting events and building a
mailing list. You've been putting in so much
work to help the community form, only to
run out of steam.
You still don't have the makings of a
community. Member prospects are wishy
washy, people's attendance is sporadic, and
you’re left to dream up ways to hopefully
spur more interaction & participation.
Exhausted, you can’t help but ask yourself:
You don’t want to be
this guy.
"Where did I go wrong?"
3. Welcome
3
Or maybe this sounds more familiar:
You’ve worked hard to organize a fantastic
group of people. The energy level feels like a
high... but only as long as you set a pace by
beating that drum.
You’re starting to get worried about what
happens if you skipped a beat. Can that energy
stay high? Will it keep growing without you?
You are doing everything you can to keep up
but you’re fast-approaching your own personal
capacity. How did things go from feeling so
great to feeling so stressful?
Wanting what’s best for the group, you wonder:
"How could I do more?"
4. Welcome
4
Relax, you're not the first person to have found yourself in
this place.
Communities are challenging to build and grow because they are, by nature, not in your control.
Communities are more like organisms than machines.
Which begs the question,
“How am I supposed to ‘build’ something that isn't in my control?”
The honest answer is that you don’t.
The truth is that your role in your community isn’t what you’ve thought it is.
Unlike a house, building a community is an evolutionary, iterative process. In the place of walls,
which typically don’t move much once you’ve built them, the main structure of a community is the
connections and relationships between people, which are constantly changing.
If you could plan for anything, it’s constant change and growth.
Your problem is that you have a business or organization that depends on community. Maybe you
have a website or a space to fill with a community. Maybe you have a personal or corporate mission
to achieve that depends on a community. Maybe you have a cause or a problem that needs
community support.
5. Welcome
5
When you build communities on your goal, your end game
becomes the community’s blueprint. You approach it as if you
“In organizations, real power
were building a house. Building a house from a blueprint is a
and energy is generated
system you're likely familiar with: you plan & you execute. There
through relationships. The
are only two outcomes of setting out to build a house: you
patterns of relationships
succeed or you fail.
and the capacities to form
them are more important
Masterful Community Building is a different system. This new
than tasks, functions, roles,
system is more like planting a garden than building a house. Like
and positions.”
a garden, communities need to be built for constant change and
-Margaret J. Wheatley
growth. And while you can "mastermind" a garden until you are
blue in the face, it's the plants that do the all-important
execution, not you. A growing garden can produce countless
outcomes, each one a slightly different shade of successful.
You plant the seeds. You make sure that the soil is fertile.
You make sure that they're fed and watered.
But it’s the plants that do the growing.
6. Welcome
6
Why Look for Inspiration in Nature?
We’re clever creatures when it comes to problem solving,
something that our brains are uniquely wired for compared to
our relatives in the animal kingdom.
But our cleverness is no match for nature itself, which has been
hard at work for a LOT longer than we have, and has seen far
more problems and solutions than we can fathom.
As a result, nature’s solutions are less clever, but more effective
& sustainable. Nature’s solutions tend to be responsive &
designed to evolve. Sometimes, nature even lets “bad” things
happen long enough to become good things.
Nature doesn’t have a bruised ego or hurt feelings when its
solutions need more work, because nature is a system.
In this course, you’ll learn how to build a community that is a
living & breathing system, like the ones found in nature.
With a system at the foundation, your community can also be
effective & sustainable, responsive and designed to evolve.
7. Welcome
7
Meet the Four Perspectives
Perspective 1: Perspective 2: Perspective 3: Perspective 4:
You, the member You, the storyteller You, the organizer You, the facilitator
The four lessons in this course correspond to the four key perspectives that you're going to learn to
use while becoming a Master Community Builder.
The process for using the Master Community Builder perspectives is set in this specific order because
each perspective builds on the results from using the perspectives before it.
Your personal strengths will draw you closer the perspective you're most comfortable with. At the
same time, there's going to be at least one perspective that you're inclined to avoid like the plague.
Buckle your seat belts, you’ll be leaving your comfort zones very shortly!
Your success will come from practicing & using all of the perspectives in the correct order.
8. Welcome
8
Each Perspective Produces a Result You, the member
It helps to think of the perspectives as “lenses” that
1 Understanding the people you are
already connected to
you can switch between, a bit like going to the eye Looking for real Unfulfilled Needs
doctor to get tested for a prescription.
You, the storyteller
Each lens provides a new focus level, and with each 2 Turning Unfulfilled Needs into
focus level, you gain the clarity to produce a new achievable common goals
Sharing Campfire Stories
result.
You, the organizer
These results come from effectively practicing each 3 Helping people stay focused on
common goals
perspective. The system for combining these results
Designing for & supporting a
is what produces consistently successful - and
spectrum of participation
consistently unique - communities along with the
ability to scale far beyond your own capacity.
You, the facilitator
4 Removing roadblocks from the
community’s growth
9. Welcome
9
One System, ∞ Outcomes, Consistent Success
There’s an inherent challenge in learning something emergent
and organic like community building. It seems impossible that
so many different communities could be built with just one set
of techniques.
What’s important to remember now that what you’re learning is
not a blueprint. You’re learning a system, which means that the
outputs will be unique and vary based on the inputs.
Every community is unique because its inputs are unique.
A related reminder is, “garbage in, garbage out.”
The system you’ll learn in the Community Builder Masterclass is
designed to help you avoid putting garbage in, but that’s
ultimately up to you to do the work.
This system is built to give you the confidence of having
consistent, repeatable, and scalable successes in your
community building efforts.
10. Welcome
10
Good Community Building is Habit Forming
Did you know that an average of 40% of the decisions you make
daily aren’t actually decisions, they’re habits? Habits are
“automatic decisions” that our brains are wired to make in order
to make us efficient. It’s an important part of how we survive.
We all know about bad habits like eating junk food and biting
our fingernails. Have you ever stopped to think about your bad
habits related to community building?
The system you’ll learn in this course will help you create good
new habits, and replace broken old habits.
This book is on the Masterclass
Recommend Reading List
All habits, good and bad, follow this pattern:
bit.ly/community-builder-reading
Cue Routine Reward
Even if you don’t buy this
A trigger, internal or An action or The thing you get at class, buy this book.
external to you series of actions the end of the routine
bit.ly/power-of-habit
The important thing to remember about creating and changing
habits is that you put the effort into changing the routine which
runs between your cue and your reward.
11. Welcome
11
There’s only one way to actually embed a routine in your brain as a habit,
and that is practice. You need repeated and focused practice of the right “Change is easy.
routine in between your cue and your reward. Improvement is far
more difficult”
Your cues and rewards are personal to you, so I can’t tell you what they - Dr. Ferdinand Porsche
are - but I can help you find them. Once you are aware of the cues and
rewards, you can practice the new routines that you’ll learn in this course
using the workbook exercises - and then you can take that practice out
into the real world and build amazing communities.
But that means that this isn’t a “kick back, read the lessons, do the
homework, chat with classmates” kind of class. It’s rigorous, challenging,
and sometimes frustrating. But it works.
“Honestly, I didn't really know what to expect coming into the class, but...
it's given me a totally different view on literally everything I'm doing.”
- Conrad Decker, September 2012 Alum
Just knowing the process isn’t enough when you’re in the heat of
community building. You need to put in the practice, and build the new
habits in order to kick ass. It’s not magic. Conrad put in a ton of work.
You can too.
12. Welcome
12
Kicking Ass In This Course
This course structure and format may be a bit different than you’ve
ever seen before, so we wanted to provide some recommendations for
getting the most out of our 30 days together.
1. Take Notes
Don't just read the lessons - print them out and take notes. Highlight.
Mark them up! Many PDFs have a wide right margin specially to give
you room to take notes.
And when you're done marking them up, snap them into a 3 ring
binder for easy reference later. Get friendly with double-sided printing
to save paper!
It might sound like a strange thing to insist upon, but the act of
physically highlighting (with a marker, not a mouse) and writing
margin notes will help you study. Your brain processes your own
handwriting differently than you process printed text.
As someone who hates his own handwriting, trust me, I wouldn’t
recommend this if it didn’t work.
13. Welcome
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2. Do the Workbooks Along With The Class
On the first day of week one you’ll receive the core course material - 4
weeks of lessons and workbooks.
You may read ahead if you wish, but I strongly encourage you to do the
workbook exercises during the week of the assignments. This course
follows a process, and like any process if you do one of the early steps
incorrectly it can send a ripple effect through your work.
You might encounter a lesson or a workbook and think, “this doesn’t apply
to me.” Resist this urge. Each workbook in this class builds upon the
previous one, and skipping a workbook because you think you already
know the answer, or not doing the workbook completely, is only going to
hurt you in lessons to come.
Like taking notes, I'll recommend doing the homework on printed out
workbook sheets, and for all of the same reasons.
You might also have breakthrough realizations that there aren't specific to
the workbook questions. Note them quickly before you forget them - or
even better, share them on the Google Group with the rest of the class
during Show and Tell!
14. Welcome
14
3. Share With the Class - Wednesdays are “Show and Tell”
This course is not a lecture. No points are awarded for attendance; the value you get
out of the course is proportional to what you put into it. I want you to think of this
class as a learning community that you're playing an active part in building. At ANY
time, you can send an email to the Google Group with an idea or a question.
But if you need a cue to share, Wednesdays are for “Show and Tell.”
Every Wednesday you are encouraged to share something with the class. It could be
something you’ve learned and written in your notes. It could be a link to an article or
video that you think your classmates would enjoy. It doesn’t even have to be about
course material, it can be anything you want to share with your classmates.
Don’t stress yourself out about impressing anybody - your participation is all we
need to be impressed. Show and Tell is for sharing about yourself, your work, and
your life.
And the education continues: After our 30 days together, you’ll be invited into an
Alumni email list to continue this kind of discussion with other alumni. Also, as an
alumni, you are invited to retake as many future sessions of the Masterclass as you
like for no additional charge.
Once registered, you’re a Coworking Masterclass student for life!
15. Welcome
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4. Practice Looking for Signal in the Noise
There’s a “hidden” lesson in the Masterclass: listening.
Listening is the most powerful talent shared by successful
community builder. Being a Master Community Builder means
not only listening when it’s convenient, but always listening for
nuggets of gold. Even - and especially - when the noise levels
are high and the signal isn’t as obvious.
Depending on what you’re used to, this course is designed to
generate quite a bit of additional discussion. It may be tempting
ignore the discussion and only focus on the lessons,
workbooks, and your own coaching. This approach ensures that
you will miss the most valuable parts of the class.
You may need to set aside time for the mailing list, but whatever
you do, do not avoid it.
Only you know your email habits, so you’ll need to adjust
accordingly. If you need help keeping up, please ask! We’re
email pros, so we can teach you some tips to help you stay
involved.
16. Sweet.
Before we go any further, I want to
welcome you to the Community
Building Masterclass.
Any questions?
Drop an email on the discussion list
or email masterclass@indyhall.org
17. Changelog
17
October 7, 2012 - Version 2.0
• Improved/updated all artwork
• Tons of copy edits for clarity
• Introduced the Results Roadmap
• Introduced “The System”
• Introduced Habits & Practice mini-lesson
• Added Student Quote
• Updated “Kicking Ass” section
• Added read-ahead, but don’t work ahead recommendation
• Added Show & Tell Wednesdays
• Added signal-finding mini-assignment