The Community Builder Show

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Earlier in 2020, Travis got the opportunity to connect with Co-Founder of Late Checkout, Greg Isenberg. Listen in as Greg shared some of his thoughts in addition to: Episode Highlights: There's a shortage of startup founders and people working on startups to fulfill market needs We're entering an Entrepreneurial Renaissance that will go down as one of the most interesting periods of all time If you can clone yourself or if you have deep insight into a particular community, you can most likely build a startup around it And you could probably make at least seven figures from it Meetup story about https://twitter.com/heif (Scott Heiferman) and Meetup Crawls From a Startup point of view, your ability to create something that speaks to that community and gets them to try it is high. There's a thirst and hunger right now for new products Facebook started off as a tool for college students - the book of faces, literally and eventually they added social networking and all the additional features we now know Utility precedes community in a lot of senses How to identify a potential community of people to serve and build a tool for Uber Drivers, Lyft Drivers, and the Gig Economy (DoorDash, Seamless, etc.) "Hey this is a group for Uber Drivers, Lyft Drivers, and the Gig Economy (DoorDash, Seamless, etc.)" Understand what they need - maybe they need an analytics tool that shows them how to make more money, or maybe what they really need is a map of drivers around them, or a part line, or a clubhouse area, etc How do you serve your community? The purpose of a server is to attend to the needs and wants of a particular community of people and your job is to deliver that value to the community you serve When it comes to community-oriented products, it's about distilling the needs and wants of a particular community in a really succinct way that makes people feel at home Every product that is mainstream started with a small group of people Uber example Reddit Example In B2B, don't forget you're still working with people Make sure you speak in plain English in a way people understand What keeps Greg up at night His ambitions Being best in class Greg shared insights about his substack and what he does at Late Checkout Greg's key traits of a successful community and his process Step 0 - Where do you have a fundamental advantage over other people? What types of communities do you know better than anyone else? Canadian app for people who are from Canada and live in the US Questions about naturalization, getting citizenship, and there are probably other people who may have questions Where do they have those questions? What are the most common questions? Step 1 - Start with research and identify a few communities and you're going to select one to go deep with. Deep like a week doing research, and coming up with a hypothesis - where is this? Where is there an opportunity to help people? How do we serve these people? Step 2 - Observing and looking at the data Many data sources including: Trending SubReddits, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok Twitter, Meetup, Spotify, Clubhouse or LinkedIn Go deep on one of the above platforms to really understand where people are and what their needs are Step 3 - Develop experiments with the goal of obtaining feedback If Greg were to rewrite Lean Startup today, he would add a community lense to it add steps around the research and bringing in the community and speaking to moderators, on Reddit, speaking to moderators on Facebook, and co-building the product together Step 4 - Design sprint and then a community design sprint Step 5 - Determine if your startup can hit product-market fit or not 2 Favorite Points: If you have a key insight into a particular community, you could probably build a startup around it, and you could probably make at least seven figures from it. The purpose of a server is to attend to the needs and wants of a particular community of people and your job is

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Special episode that is an experiment with my friend Blake Hudson. This is a on the spot coaching session that he took me through to share how he helps people develop self awareness, accountability, and ultimately, how they coach themselves to success. This is an experiment so, not sure exactly where this will land, but hope you find this helpful. Blake Hudson Bio: College recruiter, business owner, politician?! Blake’s career background may be varied, but all his prior pursuits carried one uniting theme: a desire to help people find fulfillment in who they are and what they do. Cue Victory Lap, a company which espouses a similar mission and is responsible for jumpstarting Blake’s sales career. Blake’s first interaction with Victory Lap was as a student! During the VL sales bootcamp, Blake realized that the skills he had developed in his previous roles would also serve him well in his sales career. Empowered by the bootcamp, Blake landed an SDR role at a Chicago fintech company, where he continued to hone his sales craft. When the unique opportunity arose, Blake returned to Victory Lap—this time, as an Admissions Director. When Blake isn’t in the downtown office, you’ll find him at the nearest basketball court, Barnes & Noble, or hanging out with his best friend — Annie.

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On this episode, Travis sit's down with Athlete Transition Specialist and former NFL wide receiver, Justin Brown. In this episode, Justin shares his signature DIVE message with us: DEFINE Define who you are as a person, student then in your gift and talent. INVEST Invest in themselves personally, academically and in their talents and gifts VALUE Add value through acts of service in their communities ( home, school, extracurricular activities; programs and teams ) EXECUTE Execute by surrounding yourselves in communities in school and outside of school that will hold you accountable to the definition that you made for yourself, ultimately forcing you to hold yourself accountable to the standards you set for yourself.

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This is an unreleased episode that Danielle and I recorded in 2019 - oh how time flies! Listen in to learn what Danielle is all about and how to take ownership of your life. About Danielle Danielle Gertner is a functional fitness coach, speaker and trainer teaching people to own their excuses and unleash their fullest potential. Driven to inspire people everywhere to take ownership over their excuses and unleash their fullest potential, in 2016, Danielle Gertner founded Gertner Grind, a platform that challenges the mainstream approach to wellness and inspires people to see the world as their gym. She was tired of trying to fit the idea of wellness that society had created so she decided to go on a journey to make wellness fit her world, no matter what that world looked like at the time. This sparked her passion for guiding others along the way to build a powerful foundation for their own lifelong transformation. Over the last four years, Danielle's passion to impact has only continued to evolve and today, she travels the world as an functional fitness coach, serving hundreds of people through her online transformation programs, customized workshops and retreats. Danielle believes that in order to live the life you have always imagined for yourself, you need to do only one thing - own your shit. And so she is on a mission to own her shit so unapologetically that anyone who comes across her message are inspired to as well. Danielle has worked with high school and college students, athletes, business professionals and those that fall somewhere in between. Danielle has also had the pleasure of sharing her message alongside brands such as Under Armour, PopSugar, Voyage MIA, GoSesh, RedCon1 and many more. The best way to summarize her coaching philosophy? Work to own your truths loud and proud. Once you do that, the world is yours. Danielle Gertner https://www.daniellegertner.com/ instagram - https://www.instagram.com/daniellegertner/ (@daniellegertner) facebook - linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgertner/ (@dgertner)

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During this episode of The Community Builder Show, Travis sits down with Jason Harris, President and CEO of Mekanism Inc., a San Francisco-based creative agency and the Author The Soulful Art of Persuasion. Learn about his 4 principles for success, how he’s leading his team through adversity, and even what he’s doing to stay connected with his friends. This is one you won’t want to miss. Jason Harris Short Bio Jason Harris is the co-founder and CEO of the award-winning creative agency Mekanism and co-founder of the Creative Alliance. Harris works closely with brands through a blend of soul and science to create provocative campaigns that engage audiences. Iconic brands include Peloton, Ben & Jerry's, MolsonCoors, OkCupid and the United Nations. Under his leadership, Mekanism has been named the #6 Most Effective Independent Advertising Agency in the US by the Effie 2020 Index. Mekanism has also been named to Ad Age's Agency A-list and twice to their Best Places to Work. Harris has been named in the Top 10 Most Influential Social Impact Leaders, as well as the 4A's list of "100 People Who Make Advertising Great." His methods are studied in cases at Harvard Business School. Episode Highlights Principle 1: Original Be Yourself - Everyone Else Is Taken: Don’t be afraid of wearing your personal idiosyncrasies on your sleeve. Collect role models and draw inspiration from their uniqueness. And stick to your core values Learn to Be a Great Storyteller: If you want to make your point of view real to an audience or someone else, you need to be able to transport them emotionally through narrative Never Be Closing: Let go of short-term transactional thinking and focus on building meaningful relationships Principle 2: Generous Give Something Away in Every Interaction: Whenever you cross paths with someone, your goal should be to leave them just a little better off than they were. Whatever you give, make sure it’s genuine as you are laying the groundwork for collaboration Practice Positivity: Cultivate your sense of gratitude for the good things in your life, recognize that every interaction could result in something great Take Others Seriously by Showing Respect: Keep your promises, be as present as possible, and admit your mistakes quickly and sincerely Principle 3: Empathetic Make It About Them: Develop a natural curiosity about others, listen and learn more than you judge, and seek to understand others more deeply Seek Out Collaborations: Find value in joining forces with people from diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise See Commonalities, Not Differences: Seek out the common ground and what you share with, approaching each individual as an equal Principle 4: Soulful Live Skillfully: Hunt out new skills and keep learning to develop passions that create a life defined by proficiency Be an Inspiration: Strive to be inspirational in your daily life by preaching less and acting more, finding a cause to fight for, and reaching out to those who inspire you My Notes on Jason’s 4 Principles Be Original Beliefs, what you value in life Have a point of view Be yourself, everyone else is taken Be Generous Give things away without expecting anything in return Builds trust and helps keep business flowing Jason had a ball hog mentality and knew it wasn’t right Over time, developed the idea of mindfully being a generous person Try to give something to everyone you come in contact with Advice or an article to let people know you’re thinking about them Be Empathetic Collaboration Connecting with people Working on ideas together How do you become a collaborative business person Be Soulful Trying to give something back that’s bigger than yourself Examples for agency owners Positive persuasion vs negative persuasion b2b marketers, sales, people,

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Travis talks with Partner & Chief Social Officer at Mekanism, Brendan Gahan about how live streaming is having an impact in building communities, the shift taking place in influencer communities, his thoughts on consumer behavior, and more.

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Travis talks with Ediva Zanker, about her Grit Boxing journey. Ediva shares how her boxing story started at Syracuse University, the Grit experience, what inspired her to create her community, mentors, and more. Ediva Zanker is a boxer and a business owner. She co-founded a boutique boxing gym in Union Square, NYC called https://www.gritbxng.com/ (GRIT BXNG). GRIT is a 50-minute high intensity full-body sweaty and fun workout that incorporates treadmills, aquabag water filled punching bags and weights in an immersive and dynamic state of the art luxury studio. She is the head of UX for the fitness studio.

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For some that aren’t familiar, H4B Chelsea is the biggest healthcare network at the Havas Group. Havas Group is the largest global advertising and communications group in the world.

There is so much stigma around pharma, especially in advertising. Eric’s heard it described as “selling out,” “where creativity goes to die,” or “a place for those who can’t hack it.”

Eric’s worked with and learned from some of the industry’s best. There are some amazing folks in pharma, but, he believes there needs to be more.

Join us and Eric shares his story and his thoughts around how to change the narrative are design in the healthcare industry.

Episode Highlights:

How do we get fresh new thinking into an old space so that we can have a more equitable future
Being healthy has to be cool
Know and appreciate the power and the value of surprise
How can we take a hundred-year-old organization that moves about a mile an hour and use this new technology that will have a profound impact
You don’t need to adapt tomorrow, but we can pick the technologies that will have the most profound impact on you based on a better understanding of your consumer on the ground.

Quotes:

“Healthcare is an industry where the best design is often one that you feel but don’t see.” – Eric Hu
“Healthcare in its final form is completely invisible and holistic way of approaching your health as a human being and not as a byproduct of their marketing scheme.” – Eric Hu
“Influencers will always be able to tell our story better than we ever can because they fundamentally are closer to their audience.” – Eric Hu

Links:

Eric Hu: Linkedin Instagram

Travis King: Linkedin

communitybuildershow.com

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Travis King talks with childhood friend, Chet Walters about life in the south, his football coaching journey, and what a passion for the outdoors can turn into if you put in the work.

Episode Highlights: The difference between the people who live up north vs those who live in the south How a different upbringing can fundamentally change who you are How to take a journeyman's approach What to do when you want to try new things How to turn 2 passions in your work Learn to value quality relationships Quarter Back Training System WayPoint TV is the Bleacher Report for outdoor content Waypoint focuses on hunters, anglers, rock climbers, and more in the adventures space Streaming Network Podcasts Social Channels

2 Favorite Points: Take a Journeyman's Approach to Life Value Quality Relationships

Tweetable Quotes: "The more quality relationships you can have, the more worthwhile everything is.” – Chet Walters "The mentality, the way of life, and the people in the South are totally different than what we're used to from where we're from, in the Northeast.” – Chet Walters "Up north people, are dialed into their phone, or they're looking straight down at where they're walking here. Down here, people say hello. They excuse themselves out of your way. They acknowledge you. ” – Chet Walters

Links: - Travis King: https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisandreking/ (Linkedin) - communitybuildershow.com - Chet Walters: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles6walters (Linkedin )https://twitter.com/ChetWalters11 (Twitter )https://www.instagram.com/chet_walters/ (Instagram) - https://qbiqsystem.com/ (QB IQ System) - https://www.waypointtv.com/all (Waypoint TV) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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One of the most powerful and effective channels you can be on today is Voice. It also happens to be the channel that's most underutilized by marketers today. Join me as I learn from Voice Consultants, Kam Taitt and Rob Krusz.

Episode Highlights: Not every single professional athlete is marketable. How a collective passion for tech evolved into getting involved with voice Voice data Voice is the next frontier for us to tell stories on Fundamental Frameworks and Truths of Storytelling - the 7 basic plots - it’s virtually impossible to tell stories outside What’s different about voice Cognitive effect - Around the campsite and someone says “Let me tell you a story” People are ready to be educated when hearing something on voice. Voice is the connector of making us human again. We see voice as real estate The idea of fighting the feed and having an ownable space to interact with your audience Voice is a new way to use technology to engage with their target audience Humans are habitual by Maurice and voice is a great way to Integrating daily briefings into the lives of their consumers - have been seeing great traction Men’s Fashion - Custom Tailors - inspired by the Milan version and buys it from Bonobos Have a notification waiting and say from Kam’s Tailor that the winter collection is ready and can send links to your phone for your to review. What the yellow flashing lights on Alexa means in some cases How to drive traffic to their voice asset - integrate it into your existing owned channels Letting the community know the skills is getting ready to be launched

Links: Travis King: http://linkedin.com/in/travisandreking (Linkedin) http://communitybuildershow.com/ (communitybuildershow.com) Kam Tait - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamtaitt/ (LinkedIn) Rob Krusz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-krusz-1092295/ (Linkedin) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Travis King talks with the Founder of LW Branding, Lauren Walsh about how not every single athlete is marketable, common misconceptions about what personal branding is, impact, not being afraid to lose friends and more.

Episode Highlights: Not every single professional athlete is marketable. Your Personal Brand is who you are. You have to be able to humanize yourself and let people in. Let them know what the things are that make you normal outside your sport. There should be a healthy balance between the parents and some form of a mentor. Have very clear open conversations with the kids and share insight about the repercussions. What can you do to add value and positivity to the world? Go do something new and go Live. Terrell Owens even made his own workout equipment. Twice a day Group Yoga Meditations in Chicago. The biggest thing is not letting money get to you. It's when you realize that you have the power and a purpose on this earth to change people's lives. If all you do is impact one person's life, then what you did was with it. So many things like your work ethic, healthy habits, and even connections can be transitioned into the "real world". Don't be afraid to lose friends.

3 Favorite Points: Your Personal Brand is WHO you are Ask yourself "what can I do to add value and positivity to the world?" Don't be afraid to lose friends.

Tweetable Quotes: “You have to be able to humanize yourself and let people in. Let them know what the things are that make you normal outside your sport.” – Lauren Walsh “It's when you realize that you have the power and a purpose on this earth to change people's lives.” – Lauren Walsh “Don't be afraid to lose friends." – Lauren Walsh

Links: ● Travis King: http://linkedin.com/in/travisandreking (Linkedin) ● http://communitybuildershow.com (communitybuildershow.com) ● Lauren Walsh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lwbranding/ (Linkedin) https://twitter.com/LaurenWalsh_ (Twitter) https://www.instagram.com/laurenewalsh/ (Instagram) ● https://www.lwbranding.com/ (lwbranding.com) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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Morgan J. Ingram is the Director of Sales Execution and Evolution and JBarrows Sales Training. This is a throwback episode from 2018..

On this episode Morgan shares:

How to leverage a podcast to hone your craft
Who his people are (hint it rhymes with Growth)
The importance of community - especially in sales
Talks about life outside of sales
The more value you put into the community, the stronger it grows
and more..

Links:

Morgan J. Ingram: LinkedIn:

SDR Chronicles

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About Angie: Angie Thurston is sounding a call for the soul. Moved by the plight of isolation and despair, she is dedicated to connecting the inner life of spirit to the outer life of action for social change. Angie is the co-creator of the Formation Project, a startup designed for spiritual deepening among people who don’t live in the same place or share a set of religious beliefs.

A spiritual nerd to the core, Angie spends as much time as possible meditating, reading the Urantia Book, and volunteering at Recovery Café DC. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Divinity School, where she is a Ministry Innovation Fellow. Angie lives in Alexandria, VA with her husband Vipin Thekk.

In this episode of the Community Builder Show, she joins me to discuss: The Formation Project human connection common ground brand identity divinity school and more

Where to connect with Angie: https://sacred.design/ (Sacred Design) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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About Scott Dodds: Designs, executes, and delivers effective customer engagement and self-service programs, including: Hybrid/multi-channel support to engage where customers are. Online communities for peer support, advocacy and voice of the customer initiatives. Knowledge/self-service experiences to guide customers to the best, fastest answer. Drives customer retention and faster product adoption, increased NPS and CSAT scores, as well as improved case prevention and time to resolve. Has lead cross-functional teams, direct reports, and multi-partner relationships.

Specialties: Customer Advocacy, Customer Self-Service, Community Management, E-Commerce, Social Media, Social CRM, Program Management, Project Management, Change Management, Readiness Planning & Risk Management

On this episode, Travis and Scott talk about: online communities business development product management customer success project management and more..

Where to connect with Scott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottdodds/ (LinkedIn) https://twitter.com/scottdodds (Twitter) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

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During the 23rd episode of the Community Builder Podcast, host Travis King, life-long student, and community researcher talks to Luciane Serifovic, Founder & CEO of Luxian International Reality. Luxian International Realty designs remarkable and luxurious real estate experiences for high net worth sports and entertainment clients. She brings a “have it all” philosophy to her clients and agents which means securing the homes or investments of their dreams, enjoying their friends and families, and having healthy and sustainable lifestyles. In this episode, Luciane shares what was it like growing up in Rio Di Janeiro, what matters most to her in her life, what she’s learned so far in her real estate journey, and more.

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Since 1998 Birgit Pauli-Haack has worked with nonprofits as a web developer, a technology strategist, a trainer and community organizer. She founded Pauli Systems, LC in 2002, now a team of six. It is a 100% distributed company. Since 2010, her team has used WordPress to build new nonprofit sites and applications. In her spare time, Birgit serves as a deputy with the WordPress Global Community team, as a WordPress Meetup organizer and a Tech4Good organizer.

In this episode, Travis and Birgit talk:

How Her Story Started
Community Experiences and Nonprofits
Tech Communities
Wordpress
Diversity
Social Learning
What Really Matters

Transcript provided by Pauli Systems

Where to connect with Birgit:

Twitter

Pauli Systems

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Hey Community Builder Podcast Community,

Excited about this episode I did with Dan Sullivan. We had a great conversation and some real life podcast hurdles to work through in order to get this episode done. I welcome you to embrace the process with a love/love relationship. Understand that it will make you a stronger person by dealing with challenges head on. The Obstacle is the way. Hope you enjoy this gem.

Travis

Travis's Show Notes

How and why did you start this community?
Works full-time @ NJ Tech Council -> a statewide organization that helps support the ecosystem of innovators and entrepreneurs who propel the future that's been around for 20+ years
Dan asked himself the question "how can we help inspire and energize the new jersey communities?, how can that be done?"
Identify markets with potential and then pick a city -> Jersey City (dead zone)
Dan got an idea -> Let's create a Meetup. Let's find a way to do this and create a community. -> A community completely from scratch.
Being new to the Meetup platform -> A very daunting task in and of itself
Required before starting: a vigilant mind, someone that believes in themselves, and is ready to learn things along the way
1 year later -> Dan's completely transformed
One of the rewards + benefits/positives of being in the role of being a community organizer.
Organizer = THE Community CORE
What's the ROI of being a community organizer?
Image of the Community
Dan's Community Organizer superpowers:
relationship building
networking
lack of fear to reach out to people -> that's what gets the ball rolling, a really slow roll.
Connected to some key people -> the Mayor's Office + the person who ran their innovation department
Taking a community from being unknown to known
Plans to take the community in a thoughtful new direction + support from the Mayor's Office (happy to help you connect with other people) -> that's how it starts
1st event -> 30 people and standards have since grown
Created an environment for people to connect, network, and build community. -> seeing and feeling this experience in real life feels like planting the seeds of a tree
Progress update: 1 year later -> 1 member to 1,500 members
As of 8/9/18 -> already hosting over 1,000 people at community programs and events
Free event on Thursday nights in your city about stuff you like
Whats happening now and what can you do to transform? (enter football analogy) -> leads to Dan creating innovative programs -> exploring the bizarre, differences in culture, cutting edge ideas, controversial ideas like sex tech, cannabis, entrepreneurship, and women in tech.
Hosted 2 sex tech programs attendance over 100 people both times -> people found it very interesting
The exploration of sex in society -> Mission in the industry is to break down the barrier that the media has created
A community of people who were trying to get their startups of the ground funding and were laughed out of the room -> fast forward 1 year later, millions of dollars are coming in.
Outlets blocking content for brands: KickStarter, Facebook advertising
Trojan could get their ads out but not a company like unbound box or dame products.
Stepping aside and and letting a new leader come in
Community video thanking Dan on his efforts
This moment - a complete surprise
Hosted a blockchain and going away event / handing over the keys
Went out and took initiative to ask people to give feedback on their experience
Realize when you're saying you're leaving, people get shocked and scared
Strategic Partners -> how much impact the community partners made in the community -> Gives leaders and community organizers the confidence and inspiration to inspire other people to get started
How Partners impact a community
Having the ability to quickly find where a business will find value and prove it
Venue, speaking, community -> biggest struggles
Conversations with business owners, co-working space, founders, people in government -> always have to be reminded they have to be a good corporate citizen and a member of the community
How important do you think this community initiative is to your city?
How cool would it be to be a part of this mission?
We heard about your program and we want to be a part of it. -> I saw what you created, come host an event at our space
Listen first, then try to do some action and hear what people what from you or what they want to get out of it -> quickly figure out how to deliver on that
Diversity of a community with different points of views
Being completely transparent is key -> Fortunately, it's something you learn as you grow as a human being. You learn to be honest with people and open up to learning more about what people do in their spare time.
Connect on a different level when you open up and expose past lives to people. Example, Dan used to be in the music industry -> goes to a meetup and meets another person in tech who also came from the music industry -> connection on a different level, which leads to stronger overall connection
How gatherings he's hosted helped people breakthrough the first level of connection and ability to share truths?
Human error -> people get uncomfortable by nature
The culture he built -> exceed expectations and making the event a fun and subversive experience people want to attend -> you will see results
Always in events, he would always say "someones got to have a question". He's hosting events on tons of topics he knows nothing about, so he's curious by nature.
We only put out the good news and sometimes it can be skewed and we tend to turn things in our favor, by human nature
Please don't monetize IG LIVE!!
Tech fails -> microphone wasn't working before this episode!! -> embrace the failures
People are in the realm of listening to folks like Garyvee (maybe)
How to relate to what Garyvee says -> the intent behind what he says versus how he's communicating his message
Unleash your truths to the world -> nobody is really great at doing that
When you can be honest and vulnerable with people -> superpowers emerge and you can get to the 1st, 2nd, 3rd level of connections

Key Takeaway & Dan's keys to being a great leader and community organizer:

Be transparent
Be an expert listener
Have the grit to go get it

Inside we're all children -> successful people are children at play 24/7/365 -> they are having fun

Happiest when exposing your truths versus hiding them in a hidden box, which will later burst out in another form when it actually does come out

Dan welcomes everyone listening to whole heartedly join him and looking for resources -> connect with Dan!

dan@njtch.org

Dan Sullivan - LinkedIn

NJ Tech Councile - Website

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On this episode, learn how Jana Boruta built the Global Hashicorp Developer Community from scratch.

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Hey Podcast Community,

This episode was a long time in the making. I sit down with Oli Barrett who's #1 love in life is helping get ideas started and making useful connections.

Oli Barrett Bio:

Oli Barrett is a serial founder who enjoys making useful connections between people and ideas. He created Tenner, the UK’s largest schools enterprise challenge, in which over 250,000 pupils have made money and made a difference in a month, starting with just ten pounds. He co-founded Volunteer It Yourself (VIY), the social venture, which has helped thousands of young people to fix their own youth clubs. He is also the founder of TOTS (Turn on the Subtitles), the children’s literacy campaign. His first job was at Walt Disney World in Florida, and his first experience in television was working on the launch of Bob the Builder. He co-founded The Rainmakers (an innovation and incubation company) in 2004, which continues to operate out of San Francisco. From 2008, he co-created and led eleven international trade missions (including WebMission and the Clean and Cool Mission), to help companies succeed overseas. In 2011, he co-founded StartUp Britain, launched by the British Prime Minister and funded by the private sector. The campaign led to the creation of PitchUp Britain (with John Lewis and Sainsbury’s) and PopUp Britain, with the opening of shops around the UK. Oli hosts The Lens podcast with Business in the Community, which pairs senior leaders with future leaders, to discuss the future of work. He is a regular conference and awards host, for events across education, technology and entrepreneurship. He is on the advisory boards of Tech London Advocates, One Million Mentors and Troubadour Theatres, and is a Fellow of impact incubator and business builder Zinc. His latest venture, The Connector Unit, founded in 2016, forges valuable and creative connections across a range of sectors and industries.

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Sherry Orel, President and CEO of Scentered, about business growth, mindfulness, and holding yourself accountable.

Episode Highlights:

After 14 years in branding, she knew she was ready to try something new and not return to a large company but to be more entrepreneurial.
Sherry found herself asking how she wanted to spend the next 10 years of her life and how she wanted to feel during that time.
She knew she wanted to take an existing idea that had built a foundation and scale it significantly, and she knew she wanted to do something that would help people.
Scentered developed essential oil blends in a solid format to make it easier to travel with and to incorporate into a daily routine.
Being a “disrupter” is part of her personality, so that aspect of entrepreneurialism appealed to her.
She differentiated Scentered’s value proposition in the aromatherapy market as being a positive part of your regular wellness routine instead of being used to solve a problem like stress or insomnia.
Scentered thinks about every aspect of their packaging and business practice sustainably—not just recyclability but the overall reuse value of every element of the packaging even if it makes it more costly to produce.
They launched a corporate wellbeing program to partner with companies that are prioritizing their employee happiness and wellness.
Being “centered” means different things to different people, but some ideas that come up pretty universally are mindfulness and purpose.
Scentered is about the choice to take a mindful moment.
Using your calendar to hold yourself accountable and plan your success and what you want to get done by being mindful and intentional about how you spend your time.
Approach decisions and problems with a “calculated fearlessness.”
Women often unintentionally put themselves in a position of not pursuing an opportunity because they think they may not want it, but it is not impolite to walk away from an opportunity, it is simply perceived as more masculine.
Often, the least effective departments in an organization are failing because leadership is not empowering their team or making them feel safe to fail.

3 Key Points:

Approaching career choices by asking how you want to feel and what you care about, you’ll end up doing something where you are more impactful and effective.
Changing your frame of mind around an activity you hate can, over time, completely change it into something you appreciate and enjoy doing.
Take the time to check in with yourself about your intentions and purpose in order to be mindful about how you spend your time and energy.

Tweetable Quotes:

“It’s not just about, I have a conference call with such-and-such and that one meeting is on my calendar, it’s about where’s the white space, what’s in my email box, what are some things that I know I need to do and focus on?” –Sherry Orel
“Putting yourself in a position where you’re getting the offer and saying no is a much stronger position of power and opportunity than unknowingly putting yourself in the position where you didn’t have to say no because you really didn’t pursue it.” –Sherry Orel

Resources Mentioned:

www.scentered.com
Sherry Orel: Twitter
Sherry Orel: LinkedIn
Travis King: Linkedin

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Hey Podcast Community - this is a very special conversation I had with the amazing Monica Adams.

One of my favorite pieces from this episode was when we discussed how we can bring people together through their fears. I find this topic so fascinating because if we really think about it, most of us have had moments where we were afraid to take a step in a new direction. What if we came together, shared are TRUTHs, and see what happens?

Thank you for listening! If you found an ounce of value from this conversation with Monica Adams, please leave us a review. It really helps out the podcast and helps more amazing episodes like this get heard by more people.

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On this episode, Travis sits down with Luke Kish. Luke Kish is a 26 year old entrepreneur. He has built a 65,000 member sales organization that produced 25MM+ in sales of nutrition products. Has done over $1MM in Ecommerce. And this year is at a run rate for his biggest year ever with his online businesses. Luke is very curious, loves to read, explore the way things work, especially humans and the process of creation, and is in love with the game of business.

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Jayson Gaignard, Connector of Fascinating Entrepreneurs, Founder and Talent Scout at MMT.Community, Host at CommunityMade.com, and Author about getting connected, staying connected, prioritizing your networking, and the value of mastermind meetups.

Episode Highlights:

● Jayson Gaignard shares where he is from and his upbringing.

● What was the moment when he first got started?

● How have his events expanded and grown?

● What do some of the underdogs that have attended MMT looked like?

● How does Jayson deal with relationships that are at different tiers than he

is?

● Be brutally honest instead of trying to ‘fake it until you make it.’

● How does he stay connected with so many people throughout the year?

● Jayson describes what Dunbar’s Numbers are and how they apply to

relationship building.

● It doesn’t matter how many people you can count. It is about how many

people you can count on.

● First nurture your core group, then your connectors, and then your

community.

● How did it feel to take the first advice that he took from his first mentor?

● Become so good that those above you can’t ignore you.

● What is a topic that he is incredibly interested in that he hasn’t shared with

people?

● What is the biggest misconception about Jayson Gaignard?

3 Key Points:

You stand for something or you stand for nothing.
The stronger the uncommon commonality that people share, the deeper the

bond.

Jayson usually surrounds himself with people that are two or three steps ahead of him.

Tweetable Quotes:

● “You go from survival to sustainability, from sustainability to success, and then success to significance.” – Jayson Gaignard

● “We’ve had just over 17,000 entrepreneurs apply for a community that is capped at 150 people annually.” – Jayson Gaignard

● “Our 2019 event is sold out a year in advance. Our 2020 event, when we go to announce, it will be sold out rather soon as well. All the success, the core of it, comes from the curation of the community.” – Jayson Gaignard

Resources Mentioned:

● Travis King: Linkedin

● communitybuildershow.com

● Jayson Gaignard: Linkedin Twitter

● jaysongaignard.com

● mmt.community

● CommunityMade.com

● Book: “Mastermind Dinners: Build Lifelong Relationships by Connecting Experts, Influencers, and Linchpins” by Jayson Gaignard

● Book: “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk!” by Al Ries

● Book: “Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time” by Keith Ferrazzi, Tahl Raz

eetFishMedia.com

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Richard Mulholland, a highly regarded speaker and guest lecturer, about the pitfalls of legacy thinking, knitting communities, public speaking, goal setting, victory conditions and more.

Episode Highlights:

Richard considers the identifiers of speaker, founder, and entrepreneur to be the same thing because they’re all connected.
If you’re a speaker, you speak about things you know because of your work not as a speaker.
He wrote a book about his experience founding a company
You can’t solve problems with legacy thinking; you can’t create new knowledge with existing knowledge.
Richard tries to provide outside perspectives to solve problems, because you can’t learn from inside a bubble and currently most startups use the same vocabulary for success even in hugely variable industries.
In building community within the board game world, Richard looked at the knitting community.
He founded Missing Link, a presentation company, when he was 22, not because he loved presentations, but because he hated them so much and saw an opportunity to fix them.
Missing Link scaled by writing presentations for corporations by distilling the core information the corporation wants to communicate, and coaching speakers to personalize that information to their own speaking style.
We’re taught that being first is the best, but it’s actually a huge disadvantage because being second means you have a model to work off of—the first person is running a marathon, and then you can come in with a sprint.
Richard’s strategy is to help create a shared goal he calls the victory condition, which is where you want the organization to be and by when, and then gives freedom to achieve that goal however they see fit.
People don’t have to fly in formation; different departments need different information to reach the same goal, and what matters is that everyone ends up at the same place at the same time.

3 Key Points:

Innovating requires unlearning.
Presenting is not about speaking, it is about the writing.
The best strategy for startup success is to set people on their individual paths to a shared goal.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Business is what I do now, but it’s certainly not what I hope to be defined by.” –Richard Mulholland
“Based on the world as it looks today, and the condition of victory that we share, how would we best get there?” –Richard Mulholland

Resources Mentioned:

Richard Mulholland: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin
Legacide by Richard Mulholland
https://www.msnglnk.com/
https://www.talkdrawer.com/
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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Travis sits down with traveler, social media strategist and community builder Nicolette Orlemans.

Intro: Background + community origin story Topic 1: What was it like growing up? How did you get started? I grew up in a bilingual household in the Netherlands with a Polish mom and a Dutch dad. My parents inspired wanderlust in me as a child, as we traveled often (they started traveling with me when I was a baby). In 2000, we moved to the US for my dad’s work, and started expat life.

Travel has always been something I feel grateful to be able to do, and I really enjoy connecting with others who travel. It’s endlessly fascinating to me that, as people, we go to similar destinations, but have vastly different, unique experiences. That’s the beauty of travel and exploring local culture in our own way. I love being able to talk to others about their travels and experiences.

Topic 2: Let’s talk about what community means to you. To me, community means a place where people can talk freely. It’s a space where people share stories, become inspired, feel supported, share advice, ask questions, and rely on each other’s feedback.

I don’t think community has to be a homogenous thing–meaning that people can have differences in opinion and perspectives–but it should be a place where people feel comfortable talking to each other no matter the differences.

Topic 3: Let’s talk about the different tribes that you support. Who are the members? Why does this circle exist and what is your mission? How do you work together to achieve your mission? I especially love connecting with travelers, no matter how often they travel. Travelers tend to be very open-minded, and share interesting perspectives on not just the destinations they visit, but also on how they personally grow from visiting different places and learning from diverse cultures.

In 2014, I started participating more in Twitter chats, online real-time conversations happening over a unified hashtag at set dates/times. Twitter chats allow people to connect with others, and share their perspectives. As people respond with the associated hashtag, others can connect with them and ask questions or start conversations.

On November 13, 2014, I launched my very own travel Twitter chat focused on the intersection of culture and travel. I aspired to create conversations among people about cultural immersion, and what helps people get to know local culture on a deeper level.

Today, the chat is still happening every Thursday and connecting travelers worldwide in shared conversations. Since the launch of the chat, I’ve expanded into a community website, a Facebook group, and hosted in-person meetups to bring travelers together.

In October 2018, I launched a Kickstarter for Travel Banter, a conversation starter card game inspired by the online conversations my community has had over the years. It’s the “real life” version of the Twitter chats and helps bring people in a fun, meaningful way offline to have conversations around culture and travel.

Topic 4: What are a few lessons you’ve learned from your journey in the online community space? As technology changes, we should embrace that. Technology is constantly evolving and new platforms pop up, though people crave real conversations no matter the platform.

Behind every social media profile is a real person. What excites this person? What stories does this person have to share? How do we connect to each other on a deeper level?

I think it’s important to inspire storytelling both online and offline. We can’t forget that storytelling is at the core of everything we do. We connect with people over shared experiences, and by learning from each other. We hear stories that we can relate to, and we feel inspired to share our own stories.

Topic 5: What community if any do you look up to, and why? There are a few in the travel space that I really admire.

Travel Massive brings travel industry...

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Cecil Phillip, Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. They discuss the misconceptions we have about social media followers, ways to get over your fears of connecting, the importance of meeting people offline in real life, how to find your people, overcoming loneliness and more.

Episode Highlights:

● How did Cecil start joining or becoming a part of communities?

● What tactics can people use to join communities?

● What should you do if you are scared to join communities?

● People still feel nervous to talk in front of others, even when they are experienced in their field.

● How can you overcome loneliness?

● What is the downside of chasing social media followers?

● The current drug of the world is attention.

● Cecil discusses social media and online etiquette.

● What advice does Cecil have for joining a community or starting a community?

3 Key Points:

Be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Find your offline/online balance by meeting up with people in real life.
How many of your social media friends can you actually call and talk to?

Tweetable Quotes:

● “Once you start to be around similar people, obviously conversations are going to start. People are going to start talking to you. You are going to start talking to people, particularly if you are the speaker.” – Cecil Phillip

● (Sharing knowledge) “What is it worth if nobody else knows I have this gold?” – Cecil Phillip

● “Don’t stay in a place where people don’t make you feel valued.” – Cecil Phillip

Resources Mentioned:

● Travis King: Linkedin

● communitybuildershow.com

● Cecil Phillip: Linkedin Twitter

● cecilphillip.com

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Fran Hauser, author of The Myth of the Nice Girl, about her career, supporting female-founded startups, and the Nice Girl Army.

Episode Highlights:

Fran created the Nice Girl Army by connecting a group of women she had previously mentored so they could help to amplify the message of her book.
This grew into mentoring, networking sessions, parties, and workshops.
A challenge of running the community is Fran wishing she had the time and energy to invest in bringing the Nice Girl Army together to connect in person.
Because they’re forced to connect online more often than in person, a technical challenge is determining the most effective and efficient platform to facilitate that.
Lastly, Fran questions whether to grow the group and scale it up or if that would dilute the value.
Travis suggests giving these organizing opportunities to eager members as a sort of Nice Girl Army Leadership Team.
Two major models for online communities: first, many autonomous groups that loosely exist under the same umbrella, or a version that’s more tightly controlled by the main creator and brand.
Fran engages with the Nice Girl Army by, for example, doing book giveaways and asking them for suggestions for her Refinery29 column.
Fran and her writing partner are launching a half-day in-person workshop for how to write a book proposal.

3 Key Points:

Think about what the trade-offs are to growing your business and scaling up.
Engage with your community in ways that benefit you and benefit them.
Best practices around community building are not discussed often enough.

Tweetable Quotes:

“We go around the room, and each person introduces themselves and states an offer and an ask. So something that they can offer to the group and an ask that they have, something they need help with.” –Fran Hauser, on her mentor circles

Resources Mentioned:

Fran Hauser: Website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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Hey Everyone,

Happy Memorial Day Weekend! Also happy birthday weekend to myself! As a gift to you all and myself, i decided to put out this fresh episode with George that I had tonight. It's very interesting because I'm at the intersection of Enterprise B2B technology and the future of community + blockchain, which now that I learned about it a little, is super interesting and I can better understand why there are over 4,000 of these bitcoin groups around the world on Meetup's platform. Okay you'll hear the context of the episode and I hope you enjoy it and share with your friends, or anyone else who might be interested in:

Creativity
Words From the Community
Legend @ Managing and Leading People
Empathy
Resourceful
People Skills
Rare
Bringing out the best in people
Wondrous
How to be an effective and easy to talk to Communicator
Awesome Facilitator
Community Strategy
Community Leadership Coaching
Employee Experience (EX) Design

George, by day, is the Managing Director at Faiā, who helps brands manage communities more wisely. Their mission is to bridge the gap between people and technology, one community at a time. By night, he hosts the It Will Come Show podcast, and is the founder of an accountability mastermind group called The Pack.

George typically work with community-minded organisations, but also has worked with startup founders, SMEs, fintech enterprises, and community influencers.

Love this quote that’s on the It Will Come About Page - “We guide the way by sharing talks with others who are trailblazing their way.”

This agenda is here to serve as a guide. Feel free to adventure away from the script with an emphasis on the topics and ideas you’re most excited to discuss together.

Topic 1: What was it like growing up.. Transition into how you got started to being the Managing Director at Faiā.

Topic 2: What communities did you start and why? What do they look like today?

It Will Come
Faiā
Others?

Topic 3: How do you stay connected and grounded in your world?

Patience→ GaryVee - played it everyday on his way to find the next job

Topic 4: Let’s talk about the different ways you’ve learned from on your journey.

What skills or lessons were self taught?
Conversations
Random meetings and through conversations with people
From others?
Books?

Topic 5: Many positions in his career - George had 13 and I had 21 different jobs/projects so far

Tell me about the experiences that are not on your resume

Topic 6: What community or people if any do you look up to, and why?

Family
International School → always somewhere there and no matter how much has passed by, it’s like no times were passed.
Being in it but not fully in it

Topic 7: Talk to us about some upcoming trends you’re seeing..

Community
Community Strategy
Community Leadership Coaching
Creativity
Empathy

Topic 8: What’s next?

Topic 9: Freestyle - feel free to insert any current challenges you’re facing, what your dream community or initiative would look like, or anything that you’d like to discuss. Maybe more learnings that will relevant for young entrepreneurs?

Will update the show notes in the future and the episode with my new intro music that is being produced at the moment.

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Claire Wasserman about gender dynamics in business, how to effectively network, and the unexpected ways you can impact others.

Episode Highlights:

Even before she began Ladies Get Paid, Claire worked in recruitment and was already thinking about what influenced people to accept a job offer and to stay in that job.
Investing in women is crucial for the overall economy.
Claire created an even with a town hall format for women to discuss what money means to them, with an open forum for women to share their situations rather than attempting to provide generic advice.
She created a Slack group for the women in attendance to continue the conversation, and it grew to a website, to a coaching company.
When you do work to found a company on your own, it’s potentially as valuable as going to business school.
Claire suggests finding your “portal person,” or a person in your network who sits at the intersection of a lot of people you could potentially connect with.
When reaching out to your portal person to ask for something, also think about what you can offer to them.
Consider whether it would be more beneficial to you to learn by working for someone else and get paid rather than immediately starting your own company where the ultimate success or failure depends entirely on your learning curve.
To grow the company, Claire and her business partner started an ambassador program to train women to run similar events in their cities.
Grassroots organizing provides similar tools to grow a community, like toolkits to run events in your own area.
Many women involved with Ladies Get Paid are running for office and starting political-related businesses because they know they have a community of like-minded women behind them; one major example is now-Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

3 Key Points:

A major factor to the success of a startup is avoiding indecision.
Don’t ask to pick someone’s brain, but ask specific questions instead.
Look to political campaigns and grassroots organizing for methods to grow your events related business and community.

Tweetable Quotes:

“What I’m good at is starting something but not necessarily growing it... So I knew I was on the right path, but I needed someone to illuminate the path a little more so I could get there quicker, and that’s when I realized I had to find a partner.” –Claire Wasserman
“A small thing you do can end up having a huge impact on another person, who in turn impacts even more people.” –Claire Wasserman

Resources Mentioned:

Claire Wasserman: Website, Instagram, Linkedin
https://www.ladiesgetpaid.com/
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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On this episode, Travis shares a conversation from an Uber Pool. You'll learn how a simple "How was your week?" is all you need to open a conversation. Also taking uber pool typically takes longer than regular uber, so you'll have more time to connect. Instead of bringing home any potential negative feelings to your loved ones, spend that time growing and deepening your relationships instead of poisoning it with toxins that you brought home with you from work.

This was such a fun conversation and another example to share that might give you the space you need to connect. Trust me, it's not easy making time for yourself, but you need it. And companies like Uber sit at the intersection of our biggest challenge and hopefully this episode can be heard by someone on their team and we can connect. Because I see a huge opportunity to bring user closer together during 15 minute uber pools. Imagine how much progress we can make if 100,000 people a day know they can be vulnerable and share talk through their challenges together on the ride home from work.

Enjoy.

Travis

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with David Spinks, Founder of CMX Media, about how the internet changed the gaming community, repeat interactions, supporting other organizations, and more.

Episode Highlights:

CMX provides education and membership for community professionals in all sorts of professions.
David’s parents were both immigrants so they worked hard to build their new communities around themselves.
He has always loved bringing together different groups of people.
When he struggled with finding community and belonging in real life, he found community online.
You don’t get to choose to belong, other people decide if you belong, and that’s where the struggle is.
To build community, you want to put yourself in situations where you’re having repeat interactions with people over time.
Despite the negative impacts of social media on sense of community, it is also what created David’s sense of community and helped him develop his career.
Travis suggests maybe we’ve simply been using the tools wrong—social media isn’t where we should be all the time, but it is a tool to facilitate real relationships.
In behavioral economics, people operate in either a social interaction or a market interaction, the latter being transactional.
We don’t think about social interactions as transactional and we don’t think about transactions as social interactions, but both are both.
The transactional relationship people have with brands makes it difficult for brands to build authentic community around their product.
Every business needs to be extremely aware of their cash flow, but not make it a central factor in decision-making.
Business is becoming decentralized, with cryptocurrency being the ultimate example.
Every community has people who contribute to value and people who consume value.
The group of people contributing value is typically smaller than those consuming it.
Spotlighting your power users provides an example for your other users of what success on a platform looks like.

3 Key Points:

The ultimate job of a community builder is to know your members and the identities of the people you’re trying to bring together, and to create a space where they feel safe and comfortable.
Most brands have not figured out how to solve the issue of community and social interaction.
Community is how you keep your contributors engaged.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Yes you need cash, yes you need to be sustainable, yes you need gas in the tank, but what you do around that, assuming you have gas in the tank and you’re able to be sustainable and healthy, your road trip is about exploration and creation.” –David Spinks

Resources Mentioned:

www.CMXhub.com
David Spinks: Twitter
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Priya Parker about the difference between a gathering and a community, and the importance of vulnerability.

Episode Highlights:

Priya was born in Zimbabwe to scientist parents and her family moved every 6 months.
Being biracial with an Indian mother and white father, Priya sees her entire life as creating “temporary alternative worlds” to belong to at any given time as she had to float between communities.
We assume that in community building you lose the “I” to the “we,” but in reality the strongest groups maintain both the I and the we.
Priya sees a major key and a minor key in gatherings, with the major key being the majority position, and the minor key being dissenting voices and paradoxical identities and difficult conversations.
Gatherings and community are distinct things, with communities being built at gatherings.
Don’t pursue vulnerability for vulnerability’s sake, it should still be true to the purpose of your gathering and community.
Priya is trained in a practice called sustained dialogue, which is a group practice that says you can transform a conflict by transforming the relationships involved in the conflict.
A failure at training a university in this practice taught her that an exercise that worked in one context won’t necessarily work in another, and that you should always know your audience.
Her husband wrote a book that examines how the idea of changing the world has been co-opted by philanthropy so that no big structural change actually happens at a societal level.

3 Key Points:

Every strong community needs both an “I” and a “we.”
It’s important to find and sit in the heat of hard conversations or other challenges within a gathering or community.
Know the context of the situation you’re entering into and know your audience.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Communities become interesting when they become disputable.” –Priya Parker
“Whenever you have an opportunity where people are willing to take risks for you because they love you, it’s a beautiful thing.” –Priya Parker

Resources Mentioned:

Priya Parker: Website, Twitter, Instagram
http://www.thrivelabs.co/
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Gary Chou, Founder of Orbital, about how to launch new ideas, help others launch theirs, and how he uses behavioral information to inform his work.

Episode Highlights:

Orbital has found a major use case for people who are in between jobs or in-between stages of a new venture.
Access to dialogue about their ideas and new projects is a key component of Orbital.
They created peer-based learning programs for tech employees and recently started their 7th cohort, and almost all of the applicants for this round were referred by alumni.
There’s an assumption that everyone knows what they’re doing, and it makes you feel like the only person who doesn’t, but really no one knows what they’re doing.
Chou found he was making assumptions about what people wanted and needed at work because he previously only had access to his own narrative around work, but his view changed when he suddenly had access to 20-30 narratives around work as part of the VC fund.
Getting the right people in the room is key to an effective community where people engage and share, but it shouldn’t feel like you’re setting people up on a blind date.
Everything Orbital does is on a small scale since Chou decided not to hire anybody else so his energy wouldn’t be split by having to manage employees.
He’s found there are advantages to growing at scale, but there are also advantages to staying small.
All you can control is the space—you can’t control how people behave in the space or when they leave.
You don’t get to bestow the label of “community” upon yourself; it’s something that has to be consciously practiced, and it’s an iterative process.
Moving forward, we won’t be able to get away with the faux-connection enabled by the Internet because people have learned about the surveillance and data collection.
If you don’t acknowledge human behavior and the fact that people may or may not behave in ways you anticipate, then you’ll be slow to innovate.
A fundamental education shift needs to happen in order to confront uncertainty.

3 Key Points:

Community is necessary because the workplace is not an environment for open dialogue, it’s a performative space.
Having access to others in your field opens you up to new narratives and ways of doing things.
The idea of community and connection will need to shift in the coming years due to technology and a movement away from the fake community on social media.

Tweetable Quotes:

“Food & the ritual of eating puts everyone on the same playing field where we're engaged in this ritual we’re both familiar with, so there’s not as much social awkwardness… it puts people in a place where they’re more willing to share things or engage.” – Gary Chou
“The only truth out there is the chaos of the world.” – Gary Chou

Resources Mentioned:

Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com
Gary Chou: Website, Twitter
https://orbital.nyc/

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Kevin Huynh, about building the People & Company community, improving processes, the community life cycle, and a sneak peak at his book, Get Together.

Episode Highlights:

No matter who your organization serves, you can think about them as a community.
Kevin is writing a book about how to cultivate community and is structuring it more like a cookbook than a business book.
There are differences between building transactional and non-transactional communities.
Even for non-transactional communities, money is still a critical resource so you can’t ignore it.
Communities go through life stages, just like people.
People often forget that you can’t apply the same framework to totally different communities.
Kevin looks at community development as an initial spark, stoking the flame, and passing the torch.
One of Kevin’s biggest interests is process improvement, with a focus on empathy.
He acknowledges that for smaller startup communities, it is less about process improvement than it is consulting on process creation.
This isn’t about finding weaknesses, it’s about recognizing that different organizational leaders have different skills and strengths and seeking to fill gaps.
Learning a language can teach you a ton about community and culture.
Kevin has kept the same Word document journal for the past 20 years.
He had early experiences with community from going to various camps as a child, like an engineering camp and a Spanish immersion camp, that influenced his desire to be around people who weren’t in his bubble.
Part of community is sharing energies in person.

3 Key Points:

One requirement, regardless of community size or stage, is the infrastructure for community members to communicate with each other.
As a community grows, there are tons of small lessons to be learned along the way.
Community is about expanding your circle and personal bubble.

Tweetable Quotes:

“If you build the resources flexible enough, people can remix it on their own and share it with others, and hopefully that organism as a whole can support each other, and I think that’s a more healthy, thriving community when that’s happening.” –Kevin Huynh

Resources Mentioned:

www.Kiwimonk.com
Kevin Huynh: Twitter, Instagram
Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com

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Host Travis King of the Community Builder Podcast talks with Jessica Lin, Co-founder of Work-Bench, about building an enterprise tech VC community and meeting the unique needs of the startups they fund.

Episode Highlights:

Work-Bench hosts 200 events per year to support the needs of their community.

To support learning, they not only host events but have developed a resource library and prioritize in-person connections and do some matchmaking.
One of the biggest questions that comes up that’s specific to enterprise tech is sales compensation, and that’s something that the Internet can’t help you with and these in-person dinners help with.
A challenge Jessica faces is how to keep staying ahead of the game and relevant?
Work-Bench is able to stay friendly with other VC funds because enterprise tech is so specific and they aren’t necessarily in competition with startups at other funds.
Within the Work-Bench portfolio, they’re very conscious and careful of who they bring in so there isn’t direct competition within their community.
For events, their strategy was to try absolutely everything to find out what worked and what didn’t.
Work-Bench recently launched their first-ever women in enterprise tech summit with over 250 women in attendance.
It’s very difficult to quantify the value and ROI of the workaround events and community.

3 Key Points:

Even in tech, the best opportunities for learning and information sharing still happen in person.
When you see another fund’s approach to something that you admire and want to emulate, remember that you still need to tailor it to fit your community.
Don’t worry about proving the value of events and community through ROI because the effect is long-term and often not quantifiable.

Tweetable Quotes:

“If you get asked something more than three times, you should probably put it into a blog post.” –Jessica Lin
“I’m always pushing us, like, ‘If we did this three years ago, how can we “yes, and” this?’ How can we make sure we’re taking it to the next level and that we’re responding to what we’re hearing from our founders and our teams?” –Jessica Lin

Resources Mentioned:

Travis King: Linkedin
communitybuildershow.com
Jessica Lin: Linkedin, Twitter
https://www.work-bench.com/

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During the 2nd episode of the Community Builder Podcast, host Travis King, life-long student and community builder, talks to James Carbary, Founder of Sweet Fish Media, an agency for B2B brands. James is also the co-host of the B2B Growth Show, a podcast designed to help business-to-business marketing professionals achieve expansion. James shares strategies to organically create community, and make new friends in the process.

Show Notes:

James Carbary started Sweet Fish Media as a blog-writing shop 3 and a half years ago.
James is a contributor to Entrepreneur and has done B2B Growth dinners for networking.
Sweet Fish Media offers podcasting and they repurpose that audio into additional content.
The process of nurturing relationships that James uses has turned friends into customers.
Listen to your customers for opportunities to ‘wow’ them.
Being around people in real life fills James with excitement.
Meeting people in person helps to expedite relationship building.
B2BGrowthDinners.com is a domain James’ shares to initiate offline community building.
B2B Growth podcast averages about 75,000 downloads a month.
Some of James’ most valuable meet-ups have been small intimate groups, even with just one other person.
We are in the ‘attention economy.’ Everyone is fighting for attention.
Community building is brand building: building trust at scale.
Start with community and allow community to shape your product or service.

3 Key Points:

James Carbary cared more about building relationships with guests of his podcast than growing a listening audience.
If you treat people like friends, you can successfully scale community.
Creating magic moments is contingent on listening.

Tweetable Quotes:

“If I just ask my ideal clients to be a guest on a podcast, they all say ‘yes.’ And then once they’ve all been on a show and we’ve collaborated and created content together, they are much more likely to want to do business with me.” – James Carbary.
“We pivoted from being a blog-writing shop into being a podcast agency.” – James Carbary.
“I think community is friendship.” – James Carbary.
“When I think about friendship, I think, there is no agenda. I genuinely want to be as helpful as I can to my friends. I want my friends to win.” – James Carbary.
“The reason you get into entrepreneurship is for the freedom and the flexibility.” – James Carbary.
(B2B Growth Dinners) “One thing I’m starting to introduce is allowing the people that I’m inviting to bring someone else. And so when they bring someone else, they are obligated to show up because they invited someone else to it.” – James Carbary.

Resources Mentioned:

The Community Builder Podcast
Travis King’s Linkedin
James Carbary
Sweet Fish Media
B2B Growth Show
@JamesCarbary
Itunes to access the podcast

Contact James Carbary on Linkedin, Twitter, or email: James@SweetFishMedia.com

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