- COMMUNITY COACH
- Posts
- Storytelling for communities
Storytelling for communities
Plus the ultimate virtual office (better than Zoom), onboarding lessons, an awesome community application form and reviving a dead community
Carmen Taubman
July 26, 2024
Welcome to the Community Coach newsletter, a value packed read
for community builders who believe many in the industry are underpaid for the value they bring to businesses.
📚 Community 101: Storytelling
🤖 Roam: a tool to level up your slack/ zoom/ teams
🎱 Lessons on onboarding from Lee Kuan Yew (former leader of Singapore)
🔥 Indie Parliament community application form is 🔥
👋 Answering your questions: “I have a dead community and have no idea what to do?”
Community 101: Storytelling
In a bustling village surrounded by mountains, there was a wise elder named Maia who was known for her remarkable ability to bring people together.
The village had long struggled with disconnection and discontent among its inhabitants, both in their day-to-day interactions and within their fledgling online community.
Seeing the discord, Maia decided to teach the villagers the art of storytelling. She gathered everyone around the great oak in the village square and shared tales of old, each story rich with characters who faced challenges, learned lessons, and grew together.
The villagers, captivated by Maia’s narratives, began to see the power of stories to capture attention and stir emotions.
Inspired by Maia, the villagers started sharing their own stories, both in person and online.
They spoke of their daily lives, their dreams, and their struggles, weaving a tapestry of shared experiences that resonated with everyone.
Through these stories, the villagers found common ground, their bonds deepening with each narrative thread.
The community blossomed, transforming from a place of mere announcements to a vibrant hub of connection and support.
By mastering storytelling, the villagers not only grabbed each other’s attention but also developed a sense of belonging and unity, creating a community with meaningful bonds and mutual understanding.
How many stories are you telling in your community?
How many stories are being told in your community now?
How can you encourage more stories to be shared?
Roam: the new virtual office platform
If you have a community that needs to work closely together on projects or you want to build your own “virtual office” for your community, you should definitely be checking out Roam.
On a side note: The demo is probably one of the most interesting interactive platform demos I’ve experienced in a long time. At first I thought the experience was odd, but the story of a guy trying to take over the company becomes incredibly entertaining and you end up spending way more time than usual on a company demo!
Roam gives you the ability to create different rooms to drop in/ drop out just like a real office - “the office of tomorrow” is how they describe it.
One of the interesting features is the ability for people to create custom “shelves” in their offices to display their personality, interests and other useful info about themselves (similar to how someone decorates their physical office).
They also had a seamless experience for you to be able to drop into a “theatre” and hear a presentation - but what was really unique about this experience is you could “whisper” discreetly during the presentation to people in the audience. It was seamless and so close to feeling like that person was sitting right next to me in the room.
You can host events/presentations seamlessly in Roam.
A lesson on onboarding from Lee Kuan Yew
Elon Musk recently admired the brilliance of the former leader of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
This extract has incredible learnings for community builders too - the importance of creating an onboarding experience so magical that others question why they aren’t there too.
What an onboarding goal for community builders to have!
He was brilliant
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
2:03 PM • Jul 18, 2024
Communities on the rise:
Indie Parliament
I enjoy looking at communities during all their phases of growth, including the early stages.
I stumbled on a community called Indie Parliament, run by Idril Orden.
Highly impressed with this community application form as it includes:
Core values and mission at the beginning of the form
Who the community is for/ who it is not for
Pain points/ challenges
Simple form that is well thought out and not too long to complete
Covers most of the basis of what a community builder would need to add value to the member and other community strategies (I would add timezone/region/ country to the form however for potential future events)
If you’re looking for some inspiration for your own application process I recommend taking a look at their form below.
Answering your questions
?
“I have a dead community and I’m not sure what to do next?”.
I’ve been having more conversations with people dealing with taking over a community that is dead (or watching it slowly die) and unsure what to do next.
If this is you, check out my latest blog post where I talk about this in more detail.
Got a question for me? DM me on Twitter and ask away. Your question may be answered in a future newsletter (and I’ll reply to everyone who asks).
Until next time,
Carmen
Community Coach
If you enjoy reading this newsletter, please share the link to subscribe (link below).
Reply