☻ GROUP HUG explores COMMUNITY CRAFT (aka the magic of bringing people together and easing the things that keep us apart.)
🌀 THIS EXISTS FOR THE HEART-FIRST COMMUNITY PRACTITIONERS
…and those intrigued by the ooey gooey that binds any group of people together. Maybe you’re even in a role where you support a group of people in some way. Or maybe you’re just looking to build durable, resilient friendships.
GROUP HUG is focused on mysterious, magical, unpredictable human funk that makes being in community with other people a wonderful or awful thing!
You can see what I mean by checking out some recent posts:
While I love a good tool or tactic (and will share some!), I’ve also been in a position – whether I’ve been supporting a community or just trying to make some new friends – where I’ve used the ‘right’ framework or the ‘perfect’ prompt, checked all the boxes, yoinked out all the best practices…and yet!
Something doesn’t click. There is a gap.
It’s like:
WHAT WE ARE TOLD WILL HELP US BUILD COMMUNITY ________________ OUR ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF BUILDING/NOT BUILDING COMMUNITY
And why wouldn’t there be a gap? That’s that ‘unpredictable human funk’ mentioned earlier. It’s funk because it’s random. It can’t be controlled or planned for.
It’s also because (at least where I live in the western part of the world) we have less and less opportunities to practice being together which has left us underdeveloped in the skills needed to build a durable sense of community.
It takes heart-first, sensitive, ego-light community practitioners (aka all of us) to peer one layer deeper, listen harder, and try something else.
This is for you if you love some nuance, picking apart the invisible but tangible, becoming a better friend and helper, and/or being an amateur sociologist.
💜 BY COMMUNITY I MEAN
whatever is already coming to mind for you! You’re probably right on. Other examples could be: families, volunteers, friends, clubs, members (of museums! of Elks Lodges!), teams (at work! on a football field!), classes, unions, friends, co-ops, etc.
☁️ IT MIGHT MEANDER AROUND THESE THEMES
facilitation, friendship, experience design, group identity, community “health”, power dynamics, communicating, communications (different from the previous word, hit subscribe to find out how 😎), groupthink (lol), resource making, emotional skillbuilding, cool resources and stories out in the big wide world, etc etc.
🪞 P.S. HI, I’M ELISE
My silly little life has been dedicated to bringing people together – in museums, zombie proms, DIY basement shows, libraries, amateur dance classes for adults and a VIP pet rock club in the 5th grade.
Currently I am a community and experience designer at IDEO in the Play Lab where I was thrilled that “designing rituals and experiences to deepen belonging” would be part of my daily duties, and co-organize with the Radical Adventure Riders and Bradley Street Bicycle Co-op in New Haven. Thank you for indulging me.
