After October's month of TheCR Connect sessions, we used the month of November to focus on taking all of our conversations, brainstorming, idea-making, and planning and exploring how we are going to turn them into action.
With the new year right around the corner, we all know how important it is to not only complete projects but also get our community programs (and as well as ourselves) into the optimal position to both be ready for 2021 and have a plan of action for the next 12 months.
So, for the length of November, we explore each stage of this journey: translating ideas to actionable items, exploring how to create documentation for those action items, and hearing how we can bring others into the fold. The following reviews these Roundtable Calls, Network programming, and other conversations...
November in TheCR Network: Roundtable Calls
Our first call of November was not actually a Roundtable Call in the usual case, but part one of a mini workshop we held to explore how we build roadmaps.
On part one of the workshop, "Building A Roadmap Workshop - Introduction & Overview", we heard from @Rachel Happe as she explained the fundamentals of building a roadmap. From what a roadmap is, to the elements of a roadmap, to addressing how to create, share, and communicate a roadmap to different audiences, we used this 30-minute call as an opportunity to get our feet wet before doing a little work on our own...
If you want to listen in on this Roundtable Call, you can find the Roundtable Recording here.
...that work came afterward, but before part two of our Building A Roadmap workshop.
Part two of the mini workshop, "Building A Roadmap Workshop - Questions, Answers, & Challenges", gave us more opportunity to hear from our peers and take part in some roadmap workshopping.
Between the two calls, attendees were asked to complete three pieces of homework (take the Community Score survey, fill out a roadmap survey, and draft a roadmap template) which informed the conversation on this call. Here, members shared their scores and priorities and asked questions, problem-solved, and collaborated on ideas on how to take their ideas from planning into action.
While we did not leave with finished or polished roadmaps, we left with our own directions that we will be moving in and with a little more motivation and gusto behind us, and a reasonable understand of where to start, how to get to our goal, and everything the journey will take.
If you are interested in listening in to this workshop, we encourage you to sign up for The Community Roundtable's external Developing A Community Roadmap Workshop here.
Our next set of calls also focused on planning, but also on reviewing what we learned from the last month as well as what we would like to see from ourselves and TheCR Network in the future.
On "Connect-ing, Reflecting, and Planning", we spoke with members not only about what they thought of and took away from TheCR Connect 2020 but also what they would like to take in the future.
With notes like more inspiration-type sessions and member connection opportunities for the Network, as well as finding more ways to be more accessible to all of our members, we heard you all loud and clear and want to take this time to say that November was also a month for us, TheCR Network team, to think about taking our planning into action.
If you have topics you want to hear about, people you want to hear from (guests or members!), problems you need help with, projects you would like feedback on, answers you want to share, or you are looking for opportunities for professional development, please reach out. Leave a reply to this post, message, Slack, or email me, or make a post over in the relevant group. We want to hear what would make the Network valuable for you, so do not hesitate to tell us.
Our last Roundtable Call of November, "Building Community Leaders, With Community Leaders", had us welcoming in Alicia Bell as our guest speaker. Alicia's work as the News Voices Organizing Manager of Free Press has them focusing on the ongoing aspects of relationship building, co-creating power, and ensuring that there is a two-way feedback loop of constituents informing journalists, not just consuming journalism.
On this call, Alicia talked about how to speak with and build relationships with community members, how and why you collaborate to create power, and how to scale all of this work past the one-on-one relationship building.
We got to explore what we value from our most important connections through a relationship assessment and we also learned about how different community organizers create engagement ladders to building relationship and participation with community members. While digging into these engagement ladders (which build out the paths members can take to engage within a community), we also learned more about different kinds of power as well as how we can move from an extractive form of engagement to something more equitable, where both sides see give and take.
As equitable relationships is the ideal, it may not always be the realistic relationship, so understanding how and why we create different kinds of power structures and engagement are the important pieces in this conversation. Sometimes you do just need someone to fill out a survey or upload a profile picture, and a small reward like a badge, gift card, or coupon may be enough to do that. But when you want people to participate for the long-run and truly be invested in a community project, it needs to be an equitable exchange where people feel and see ownership. That is equitable power.
We can all work to build out more equitable engagement strategies, and this is always going to be ongoing work, so we are never done and can always learn more. Keep thinking, keep talking, keep planning, and then move to action. Then do it all over again :)
If you want to listen in on this Roundtable Call, you can find the Roundtable Recording here.
We heard some great examples and had some great discussions this month, so why not round it out with what we learned about members of TheCR Network overall...
What Did You Think?
For the month of November, we opened a poll to see how we all feel about our work with our community strategies, because, as we said before, now is the time to reflect, plan, and act. So, we asked members: What is one element of your community strategy that you want to work more on?
We know that there are many pieces of community strategies and they are never truly "done", so we wanted to see what you all are focusing on. And you responded...
The poll results show that there is a pretty even split amongst the choices, with the most respondents wanting to focus more on their members and understanding their goals and priorities. Coming in close behind member segments and profiles is determining shared purpose and shared value, creating content & programming for engagement, and designing a roadmap, which are all more complicated, yet foundational elements of community strategy.
This poll is a great marker of where we should focus in 2021, but it is also a great reminder that, no matter how much experience you have in community, you can (and should) always remember to go back to the fundamentals from time to time. Strategies will never be fully complete and we can always be improving and developing each component. While this poll gives a helpful look into where members are prioritizing, you may be in a completely different situation, and that's perfectly fine! Each community has different priorities, different members, and different contexts, so each community will need something different. What matters is that you're exploring the answer to that question.
So, Where Do We Go From Here?
Our goal for November was to take a month of heavy learning, listening, and note-taking and transition all of that work into an action or actionable items. It is important to take time to reflect, think, and plan, but we also need to make sure to actually act on these plans, or all of that work becomes for nought.
So while November was for that journey between planning and action, we are looking forward to leaning heavily into action in the months to come.
So, if any of these conversations or concepts have sparked an idea or recommendation from you, let us know! While we plan our programming calendar, we also leave space for reactive programming, spur-of-the-moment topics, and member involvement, so leave us a note or send us a message and we'll get something together to address your topics of interest.
And if you're not a member of TheCR Network, or if you know someone who isn't a member of TheCR Network, but would love to participate in these conversations, please reach out! We're happy to talk about how you or they can get involved.
If you'd rather do that yourself, you can find out more about how to join TheCR Network here.