Switchboard Hearts Oberlin!

It’s true, we love them.

This last week we visited the place from which all Obie magic originates. It was such a treat to get to know the campus responsible for shaping the Oberlin community during their four years and beyond. As Switchboard’s first institutional customer outside of Oregon, we are so glad we got to include them in the Switchboard Hearts Tour.

Some highlights from our visit:

We hand wrote thank you cards for every current student who was among the first 100 Obies to sign up for Switchboard last May. We stayed up into the wee hours of the night writing and delivered them to their mailstops the next morning. We got to meet one of these students later in the week who thanked us for such a beautiful card.

Each night we posted up in the library cafe and handed out candy, cards and stickers to students interested in Switchboard. Besides being grateful for a study-break sugar kick and free swag, everyone we talked to was genuinely excited by the site. Our favorite response, however, was a student who came up to us and said “Oh Switchboard, I think my dad just tweeted at me about this.” That’s a cool dad!

Other students told us that of all the senior resources they’d heard about, Switchboard was their favorite so far. Another just exclaimed “Oh, f*cking cool!” The folks who stuck around a little longer were kind enough to tell us a little about themselves. For every interest and need they shared, we encouraged them to “Switchboard it!” New asks started popping up in real time.

From the other side of our visit, we had an awesome meeting with Oberlin’s Career Services office. Recognizing that “careers” emerge from experimentation, exploration, and chance as much if not more often than from formal “networking” we began thinking about what keywords the career center should set alerts for. Richard Berman, director of Career Services showed his Oberlin expertise when he suggested setting an alert for “the man,” as in, “I don’t want to work for the man.” More seriously, Richard is captivated by the word “curious.” I’d say reaching out to curious Obies on Switchboard is the perfect way to help!

Since launching just a few months ago, the Oberlin Switchboard now boast 750 helpful Obies and counting. With nearly 300 asks and offers, it can be seen as a kind of mirror, reflecting back the image of an active, passionate, and generous community for all to see. Even more exciting is that the success stories are already rolling in. It’s clear you can count on Obies to help Obies - all you have to do is ask.

After a bittersweet departure, the Switchboard Hearts Tour continues on to New York City. We’ll be throwing a little party to celebrate our members in the Big Apple in the coming weeks so keep your eyes open for an invite! We’re looking forward to meeting you!

An Awesome Reedie I Know: Eleanor Ray '07 + The WasteShed

A community’s Switchboard is only as awesome as the people who use it. 

Because we allow people to use real words (and not checkboxes or form fields) to share the stories around their asks and offers, Switchboard tends to illuminate the incredible things a community is doing and how they got to be doing them better than most tools.

In an effort to share this magic across communities, we’ve decided to highlight some of the awesome Switchboard users that we encountered on our Switchboard Hearts Tour and a little about their journeys.

Our first interview is with Reedie alumnus, Eleanor Ray ‘07. Eleanor opened Chicago’s first operational creative reuse center, The WasteShed this September. She was kind enough to share her space with us for the Reed Switchboard Hearts party earlier this month. Packed to the brim with scraps of fabric, handmade papers, glitter, pompoms and party supplies - all donated, the Wasteshed is a mecca for educators, artists and anyone else who wants to make cool stuff on the cheap. Eleanor offered to tell us more about her shop and how it came to be:

First of all, what is a creative reuse center?

The WasteShed is a creative reuse center based on a nonprofit retail model; the short version of what this means is that we are like a goodwill for art and school stuff. A creative reuse center has numerous positive aspects; it keeps good usable materials out of the landfill, provides a cheap resource for the local creative and educational communities, and establishes a social nexus for people who are interested in creative approaches to everything, from leatherworking to environmental activism.

The advantage of being retail-based is that we can be open to the public, respond to the needs of the community, and cover a lot of our overhead through sales; the advantage of being a nonprofit is that our prices start at 5 cents.

Why did you start the WasteShed?

There is a tremendous shortage of (and demand for) accessible resources for art, education, and environmentalism in Chicago. Creative reuse combines all three; I hope that The WasteShed can become a sort of walk-in switchboard for people who are looking to prevent waste, support educators and artists, make cool stuff, or connect with other people who are doing all those things.

What experiences led you to starting this?

A pretty broad swath of different influences led me here; as an artist I’ve been interested in found and unconventional materials and their properties for a very long time. I’m also interested in making art social and playful, and using it to bring people together to investigate common interests and activities.

I think when I was first introduced to SCRAP by a guy I was dating at Reed, I didn’t really understand what that sort of access to incredible amounts of miscellaneous cheap materials could do to me, but after a while my incessant need to be making something, experimenting and problem solving and prototyping, made me completely dependent on SCRAP. During the many years I was involved with them, I grew fascinated by the multitude of little alternative cultures and economies that fed off of the creative reuse center, and the way that resource subtly enriched and permeated the lives of its participants.

When I left Portland for Chicago in 2012, I found myself in a massive city full of art and schools and trash… but no functional creative reuse center. Phenomenal quantities of good stuff thrown away everywhere, and broke artists, teachers, students, and makers either dumpster diving, trading among themselves informally, or spending small fortunes for new materials at chain stores. Reuse, which in Portland had been a fun pastime I was passionately unserious about, quickly became a complex philosophical mechanism that reframed American history, social justice, developmental psychology, engineering, environmental collapse and resilience structures, design, craft, technology, globalization, art, charity, urban planning, labor, fashion, and cultural mores in all corners of our society.

And it’s that much more interesting of a proposal in the context of a massive, diverse urban area which has many serious challenges, and which doesn’t have the ubiquitous and unquestioned environmental program present in many coastal cities. There was really nothing else I could do.

The ASK:

Eleanor is looking for “creative/educational/environmental Chicagoans to come check out the project and get involved," and has even taken a page out of Switchboard’s book in starting "WasteShed Asks.” If you are looking for something in particular or have materials you can donate to meet someone’s need, get in touch or swing by the shop. 

She warmly accepts donations of any size to help cover startup costs. In exchange, she kindly offers to talk to anyone about reuse until they are absolutely ready to never hear about it again. 

Switchboard Hearts Chicago Reedies!

This weekend we invited Chicago Reedies to join us in a room full of fabric scraps, googly eyes, and glitter (and other amazing odds and ends) to celebrate Reed Switchboard. The unusual setting was provided by Eleanor Ray ‘07, who gladly hosted us in her new creative reuse center, The WasteShed.

Before the party started, we scurried about, whipping up decorations out of things around the shop: balloons, streamers, construction paper, whatever we could find. At party o’clock, Reedies from across the last two decades (and possibly into future ones) joined us for beers, Banh Mi and BBQ wings. Good times were had by all, but especially the youngest of us, who could hardly believe all the treasures in the many bins and buckets.

The Reed Switchboard, now in its third year of existence, is home to more than 3500 helpful Reedies. Equal parts ask and offer, Reed Switchboard’s 2000+ posts yield success after success.

Some recent favorites from the Reed Switchboard success feed:

Greg B. ‘98 helped Joe W ‘09 connect with someone at Lego Foundation, resulting in an informational interview for his dream job!

Vasily is traveling cross-country connecting with Reedies for hosting and hangouts along the way.

Laura ‘14 and Yuka ‘17 both found people to help them improve their driving in Portland.

Kaori ‘15 found more than ten Reedies across multiple generations to help her answer a big question: whether to work or travel after graduation.

These successes and so many more certainly give us a lot to celebrate. 

We heard from attendees that they loved how flexible Reed Switchboard is, allowing mini-reunions like this one to spontaneously happen through a simple “Offer.” More importantly however, they valued Switchboard as an opportunity to connect with other Reedies over shared interests and needs. Where having gone to the same school alone is not always enough to establish a meaningful connection, it is often enough to push an interest-based connection into a more substantial realm. They also talked about how excited they are to engage on their on terms, and expand on the formal meetups and reunions that the college offers.

Our next Reed Switchboard Hearts party is in NYC, and it’s going to be awesome! If you’re in the area, we’d love to see you.

Switchboard Hearts Chicago Wheelwomen!

On a chilly Sunday morning, a group of Wheelwomen gathered for pancakes, mimosas and coffee in Chicago’s Wicker park. One by one the ladies rolled up on their bikes, leaned them against a tree and dug in.

Many of these women orbit around the community of lady cyclists that support BFF Bikes, the newly opened women-centric bike shop in the Bucktown Neighborhood. We were lucky enough to have Vanessa Buccella, one of the co-owners of BFF join us for the party.

It was really exciting to see how much variety this small group represented. These ladies were commuters, racers, gear makers, shop owners and long haulers and they ranged from active Switchboard users, to “lurkers,” to never having heard of the platform before.

Just like on Switchboard, these differences added to a conversation about the thing they all love, bikes. Over the course of the morning, we covered it all. We traded stories from the trenches and how to dress oneself for winter commuting. For my benefit (having come from the Pacific Northwest) we talked a lot about hills and flatlands and how far you have to tour before you escape the cornfields. Other topics included bicycle etiquette, city planning and the pros and cons (and pros) of Divy bikes, Chicago’s bike sharing system.

Most of the women who were on Switchboard already have been quietly watching the awesome things that happen there. However, they all walked away excited to post themselves. While BFF isn’t an exclusively female shop, Vanessa liked the idea of posting her job opportunities on Switchboard because it’s exactly the audience she’s looking for. Awesome women who love to cycle. As for veteran Switchboarders, we were excited to meet Maria Boustead who designs beautiful and functional bags at her company, Po campo. Maria helped fund a successful Kickstarter campaign on Switchboard for a Bike Share bag in May and is currently doing research into the best design for a bike-friendly diaper bag.

Our Chicago Switchboard Hearts party was a huge success. Everyone walked away with pockets full of stickers and swag, bellies full of pancakes, and an excitement to spread the word. That’s it for Wheelwomen parties for this tour - but if you’d like to host your own Wheelwomen meetup, I’d love to chat! Please reach out at aria@switchboardhq.com.

Switchboard Hearts Chicago!

This week we brought the Switchboard Hearts Tour to Chicago to meet with members of the Oberlin, Reed, and Wheelwomen communities. We travelled all over town hatching ideas for new Switchboards, sharing food and drink, and finding the roots of our communities in a new city. We talked with too many lovely people to share them all, so we’ll focus on just a few.

David - Oberlin (’06)

Getting together with David was a double win. We talked not only about the Oberlin Switchboard, but also about the other communities David belongs to. I joined him at his housing cooperative on his night to cook, and we chatted while the tofu fried. Our conversation meandered from Oberlin history to finals week camaraderie to what it’s like to be helpful for your day job. (David does youth programming at a church.)

David shared with me both his enthusiasm and his hesitation about the Oberlin Switchboard. “I care a lot about Obies,” he said. “But I care a lot about other people too.” In light of limitations on time and resources he has to offer, he asked me what he should post about (and how it would change his life). He seemed to like my suggestion to begin with an ask. By the end of the night David and I were thinking together about how Switchboard could help the communities he engages with every day.

Bernadette - Reed Parent

I didn’t know what to expect when going to chat with Bernadette. Most of my questions were geared toward students and alumni, but she had reached out to me and I was excited to meet. I couldn’t have been prepared for how many great lessons I’d learn. A project strategist and speaker, Bernadette has recently been coordinating federal, state, and corporate employees to get big tech projects done. “The key,” she said, “is that you both know you’re leaving. This sets you free to show up and tell them the bad news,” and to organize people to solve problems a way that accounts for all the variables.

I was particularly interested when she said that telling stories is the best way to wrap your head around complicated problems. Narratives help you understand complexity. When I asked her how she developed the skills, she said you really do fake it until you make it sometimes: you walk in and say yes, I can do this—and then figure it out. Great advice for Reedies trying to pursue their dreams on Switchboard.

Sam - Oberlin (’14)

Sam and I met at a busy downtown coffee shop to talk about her experience on the Oberlin Switchboard. I couldn’t have asked for a more satisfying meeting. After graduation, Sam was looking to move to Chicago, and she asked the Oberlin Switchboard to help her find a place to live. She said she was hesitant to reach out after countless failed classifieds postings elsewhere, but she saw that Obies on Switchboard really wanted to help one another and that everyone was getting a response. After taking the leap and posting, she received a number of direct messages suggesting places to check out, places to avoid, and wishing her luck. Even though she ended up finding a place through other means, her initial experience made her confident. “I definitely feel like if I needed something I could go on Switchboard and find what I need.”

I was excited to hear her wishing that Switchboard had been in her life sooner. Ideally, every Oberlin senior would learn about it at the beginning of their senior year. Even though Sam didn’t find the house she was looking for, she said that she found something even more important: a community that cared. “The biggest thing Switchboard helped me with is not being terrified about life.”

Our week in Chicago finished up with parties for the Reed and Wheelwomen Switchboards (more to come on those!), and then we set off for Oberlin where we’re getting to know the community even better. We’re on our way to New York next, so keep your eyes open for opportunities to meet and gather!

3 Traits That Prove You’re an Exceptional Community Builder

I wrote this piece as a guest post on CMX.

At the head of every great community is a leader who motivates and organizes people. They may inspire collective action or wrangle enthusiasts around a passion or purpose.

At Switchboard, a platform for communities, we have watched as three dozen thriving communities got off the ground this last year, from higher education communities to communities serving farmers and women cyclists.

While these communities may appear radically different on the outside, we have noticed that they all have something in common: their leaders share common traits that attract members and make their community successful.

And we’re not alone in seeing this trend. Tina Roth Eisenberg, founder of Creative Mornings, speaks of the lecture series’ hosts as having heart, being resourceful, and “getting shit done.” Those qualities are in turn modeled by the community members.

In this article, we’re going to explore each of these traits, how you can identify them, and how you can improve upon them.

Great Communities Need Great Leaders

Consistently, we’ve seen that for a community to be successful, it needs a stop-at-nothing community builder.  This charismatic organizer raises her hand to say, “There’s work to be done. I’m a trusted member of this community. I’ll lead the way!” and the community follows her lead.

The best leaders are almost invisible, doing their work so seamlessly that no one notices they’re doing the heavy lifting. As Lao Tzu says, “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

You’re probably familiar with the personality traits of great community builders: they are empathetic, perceptive, and committed to the growth of their members. But how do these qualities manifest in the real world? Do you have what it takes to be an exceptional community leader? If you’re hiring a community professional, what is the visible evidence that someone possesses these traits?

Here are the three unique characteristics we have found in great community leaders:

1. They have existing distribution channels and a track-record of related success

The difference between “I want to build a community of poodle enthusiasts” and “I’ve built a community of poodle enthusiasts that I’d like to organize” is the difference between failure and success. In the first instance, someone imagines a community and sees Switchboard, or any platform, as the tool that will magically build it for them.

Platforms don’t build community; people do.

When someone requests a Switchboard, we look at the efforts they’ve already made to leverage existing tools. Have they used Meetup, Google, LinkedIn, or Facebook groups? Do they have a loyal Twitter following? Are they actively engaged with their community already? We often describe these people as “human Switchboards.” They are dedicated networkers who thrive helping people succeed.

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Rick Turoczy is the founder of the Portland Startups Switchboard. Between blogging about the Portland tech scene and co-founding a local incubator, tech conference, and online magazine, he’s the perfect person to get this community off the ground. Indeed, in just a few months, there are over 700 members in his daily active community.

It comes down to this: what distribution methods has the organizer already developed? If he hasn’t taken the time or effort to learn any, then the challenge of simultaneously building a following and building upon a platform will be almost insurmountable. Nothing conveys community-building competency more than being able to say, “I have built a community. Let me show you.”

What can you do to improve your skills in this area?

• Build up an audience in your area of interest online. Research influencers and people already working in this space and connect with them.
• Partner with an existing community builder to leverage an existing network.
• Take responsibility! Volunteer at or take on a leadership role in an organization that promotes the type of community you want to build.

How can you identify if someone has these skills?

• They demonstrate success building a community from scratch.
• They’ve forged partnerships that strengthen an existing community.
• They can articulate how content across different platforms leads to different types of engagement.
• They offer real world examples and outcomes to substantiate claims beyond just the number of likes or retweets content received.

2. They’re great offline organizers

There’s something to be said for community organizers who also know how to pound the pavement and hustle offline: distributing business cards, meeting prospective members, and throwing events and parties. This talent is overlooked and underestimated but a reliable indicator of that organizer’s ability to evangelize in the real world. It takes pluck, courage, and fearlessness.

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This is how the Switchboard for Reed College got off the ground: we spent a weekend handing out 1,000 business cards on campus with the website’s URL. We gave users flowers on Valentine’s day. We sent early supporters holiday cards and we held office hours in the library lobby to spread the word to current students. All of these personal touches meant users had a tactile or emotional memory tied to the site.

Elly Blue, the founder of a Switchboard that connects women cyclists, is a fantastic example of someone whose skills mesh the digital with the analog. In addition to maintaining an active online presence, she travels the country hosting a series of events, sells merchandise, authors books and zines on bikeconomics, made Switchboard business cards to distribute, and co-organized an ice cream social for her Switchboard users.

We see that the leaders at ProductHunt plan brunches for their community, Buffer hosts satellite meetups, Crowdtilt sent 1,000 thank you notes, and there are countless other examples of community builders pounding the pavement if you look outside the startup world to the grassroots movement.

What can you do to improve your skills in this area?

• Challenge yourself to engage with your community offline. One easy way is to take advantage of a holiday. Send community members an unexpected Valentine or New Year’s Card.
• Gather your online community offline. Host a party or meetup, like we did for the Portland startups community. Even better: co-host the event with a community member. Even if only a handful of people show up, they’ll invariably feel more connected to the community and to each other. At Switchboard, for example, our community manager Aria is touring the country meeting up with users in person.
• Seek out an organization recognized for in-person community building and apprentice yourself. For example, in Philadelphia, the Mural Arts Project brings communities together to create public art. In Portland, it’s the City Repair Project. This Creative Mornings talk by their director, Mark Lakeman, is a great place to start. The leaders of these organizations have incredible experience building grassroots communities and these lessons translate to any community, online or off.

How can you identify if someone has these skills?

• Bring them into a social situation and see how they behave. Are they a good listener? Do they ask open-ended questions? Do they create opportunities to strengthen relationships with new people by following up and continuing the conversation?
• It sounds silly, but ask when the last time was that they sent thank you note or postcard.
• Community building starts at home. Do they entertain or throw dinner parties? Have they coordinated trips for friends or family?

3. They get in the trenches to help the community 

The best organizers don’t do it for the fame, glory, or power. They do it because they are, in their hearts,servant leaders. They put the needs of their community first. This means getting down into the trenches and personally offering to meet users’ needs when they can.

Camas Davis’s Meat Collective Switchboard is a place where local farmers and consumers can buy and sell sustainably raised meat and share butchery resources. A while back, Lola, a woman new to the art of butchery, asked for advice on cutting ribs into pieces. Camas offered to let Lola borrow her hacksaw and invited her to stop by for an in-person tutorial.

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The best community organizers chime in on posts. They’ll thank the poster, point them to a resource they might not know about, or offer to help out. They put in the legwork and model behavior.

Camas’ activity exemplifies this type of stewardship. And, as you can see from the comment thread, her community appreciates it. Like a dinner party host, she keeps the conversation going and steps in to, metaphorically, top off the wine.

What can you do to improve your skills in this area?

• Instead of focusing on quantitative metrics such as “likes” or retweets, ask yourself a simple question: “Was this community member’s need met? If not, how can I help meet their need?” One of our Switchboard communities analyzed the number of questions and comments posted on a Facebook group. He realized that more often than not, these posts weren’t being responded to. As a result, community members felt unsupported. That motivated him to start a Switchboard and create a dedicated space for meeting their needs.
• Articulate the vision for the best case interaction for each community member. Imagine they were to leave a Yelp style review of their community. What would they say?
• Interview community members. Take them out to coffee and ask them how they’d strengthen the network. What can be done to make it top-of-mind?

How can you identify if someone has these skills?

• Nothing illustrates this quality more than anecdotal stories. Ask for specific examples of how they’ve helped people in large and small ways, from helping friends move to connecting peers with networking opportunities.
• Examine how they engage with their existing social media channels, beyond just sharing content. Do they frequently reply to requests from their community and proactively make suggestions and connect members that might not know one another?
• Ask to speak with someone in the community who benefitted from their help. What was their approach? How was their follow-up?

Bonus Tip for Aspiring Community Leaders…

Consider building a portfolio that documents your efforts and your community’s successes. An ideal portfolio is both quantitative (“I went from a community of 0 to 700 in three months) and, more importantly, qualitative (“Here are ten stories of how this community’s members connected and helped one another”).

The portfolio should convey creativity (“And so then I organized this crazy thing.”) and adaptability (“The first thing I tried didn’t work, so I did this instead.”). For example, before Switchboard, we tried a Storify page to meet our alumni community’s needs. The system failed, but we could articulate why and learned a lot in the process.

There’s Always Room to Learn New Skills

Even if you’ve been building community for 10+ years, you inevitably still have room to grow. What new initiative or gathering can you try with your community? How can you push the envelope? In what new ways can you experiment and learn?