We are at the start of the year when things are renewed and exciting. There’s potential all around us — a fresh start to create something great. 

But, sometimes that excitement turns to overwhelm when we actually start to dig into what needs to be done. We want to make our communities better. We want to raise up our people. We want our shared spaces to be a place members can thrive. Wanting is easy. Getting to what we want though? Not so easy.

In part, that’s why I’ve updated and re-released Structure’s Community Planning Templates. 

To help you prepare your community for 2022 (and beyond) we’ve expanded our Community Strategy and Planning templates with additional guidance on facilitation plus access to 3 MURAL templates to guide community working sessions. You have until January 14 to download them.

I hope you find them useful.

If you’d like to talk about community strategy, community trends, or if we are just long overdue for a catch-up, please feel free to schedule a time to connect here.

Onward!

Bill

Our shared digital spaces have become an essential part of life during the last 2 COVID-restricted years. And while these spaces have connected us during some of our most challenging moments, social media platforms, in particular, have played a role in exacerbating societal division and negatively impacting mental health.

The good news is we’ve seen explosive growth in small group interactions and in platform alternatives to Facebook. The key question: how do we avoid dragging the negative aspects of the legacy social platforms into the new experiences we are trying to create?

It’s difficult to go online right now and not trip over the latest hot take on the Metaverse. But, with all the hype, there is a core set of interesting technologies and trends that community builders should be paying attention to - in particular because however the “metaverse” evolves, it signals disruption to current community-building methods, tools, policies, and - most importantly - member needs, motivations, and behaviors.

Rather than overwhelm you with all the hot takes, I want to point you to a clear-eyed and balanced view from Matthew Ball.

In addition to this newsletter and the Cohere podcast, I also run a mastermind group for community leaders at large brands, a coop network for community consultants, and have regular small group events to explore topics at the intersection of community practice and emerging technologies. If you are interested in learning more about any of these groups / events, please send me a note.