It was pretty amazing to put all of those nagging questions up on the wall and see them in physical form
The first thing you see on the HUB Bay Area website –
“We’re Humans Taking Collaborative Action For A Better World.”
The HUB is a co-working space for changemakers, and my role there is as the Host of the space. I’m fairly new to the social enterprise world, so when I got referred to Eugene for his Changemaker Bootcamp it was a no-brainer for me. Since starting the job, I’ve been thinking a lot about why community and collaboration is so important at the HUB and wondering what having an engaged community looks like in action. I’m hoping this bootcamp will help me start to answer those big picture questions. In the first week alone, I got to throw all my questions up on the wall (see above) – even questions I didn’t realize I’d had before – which was a pretty powerful sight.
We have recently convened a small group of members and staff at the HUB to try to answer these same questions about community and collaboration, so I am hoping to be able to directly apply the skills I’m learning through the workshop to enhance the work of our Community Building group. I think the larger goal of both this HUB working group and my participation in this workshop is to learn how to more effectively support people in building a community that will help further collaborative initiatives.
Beyond the big picture question and goal I have set, one of my other key questions that I’d like to explore is whether you need to physically be in the same place to feel part of a community and join in a collaboration. At the HUB, our membership base has grown to about 900 members in the Bay Area, so I think that understanding ways that I could help spark collaborations virtually would be a great asset to my work.
Through all of this, I’m hoping to use my empathy superpowers to connect with other people and understand their needs which will allow me to connect them with others. At a basic level, I think this is how community building and collaboration can grow – through individuals connecting each other across a large web. I hope to use the time in this bootcamp to really delve deeper into the larger questions that I have and learn tools I can use to help activate and support a web of people day to day.
Thanks for this wonderful introductory blog post, Marie! Your superpower will take you very far in your role at The Hub and beyond.
I’m wondering about your question, “Do you need to physically be in the same place to feel part of a community and join in a collaboration?” Given what we worked on yesterday, how would you reframe it? And what would your gut answer be?
Aha – good catch…Generative questions are the key. I think I’d reframe it as “How can one best support and spark community and collaboration virtually?” I think my gut reaction to my non-generative question is – no, of course you can do those things virtually. I think the real question I have is the one I just created – what is the support I could offer?