Bringing Your Community Together Over Shared Experience

A class meets in a circle of blooming cherry trees.

All Reed alumni fondly remembers the cherry blossoms that bloom around campus come spring. There’s a feeling of release that accompanies their arrival—as sunshine returns and breaks through Portland’s grey winter, campus feels more alive. The cherry blossoms are a shared experience that unite Reedies of all ages.

For the first Switchboard, which we built at our alma mater, Reed College, we had to figure out how to convince of hundreds of students, faculty, and staff, and thousands of alumni to become Switchboarders. We started from scratch and without initial support from the administration.

We quickly realized that cultivating community is more than getting people to use a website. One part of community building is reminding people of their shared experience. We found that running an Instagram account to document both our outreach efforts and campus happenings in general was an effective way to bring together both busy students and far-flung alumni.

Our most popular photos, by far, were of the cherry blossoms.

This is a situation many who found their own Switchboards are likely to find themselves in—even if they do have institutional sponsorship, that institution, be it a college or university or other organization, will only have so many resources to spare.

Whether it falls to you to get a Switchboard off the ground, or you have to convince your community that a Switchboard is easy and worth it to support, time is a—perhaps the—limiting factor. Taking and sharing photos of your community—or paying a student an hour a week to do it for you—is a time-efficient way to reach a wide audience.

Especially when your campus is as beautiful as Reed’s.

Laughing All the Way to the Bank

Did you go to Portland Incubator Experiment’s Demo Day on Friday? Were you as amazed as we are by our incredibly talented compatriots and the entire PIE team? Three cheers.

Which bring us to the debrief. Everyone wants to know: “So, what happened next? Did you meet with fancy venture capitalists? Did they write you a check for a million dollars on the spot?” 

Yes. Yes they did.

So after the presentation we headed up to the reception and there was a guy who handed us a generous pour of whiskey, whipped out a term sheet, and said, “name the number.” We did. We threw on a few extra zeros for good measure. And then skipped down to the bank to cash in on our good fortune.*

Now, have you ever seen the doors of the downtown United States National bank in Portland? Here, let me show you in excruciating detail how beautiful they are:

There are eight scenes celebrating domestic welfare, international goodwill, understanding and expression, knowledge and service, progress through direction, growth through the will, and the home makers. Do you think it would be okay to say that these are the verticals we would like to pursue? Would that fly in a pitch? “Here are our markets. They’re ripped directly from the bronze doors of a turn of the century bank.”** 

What came to mind immediately were Ghiberti’s doors of the Baptistry depicting scenes from the Old Testament, created 500 years ago. I’d pass them every day while living in Florence. What you have here, in gray and crazy downtown Portland, rival their Florentine cousins.  I did a double take because I realized that no, I was not standing in front of a divine edifice, but rather a tribute to American capitalism. At a bank. A BANK. (I later learned the artist, Avard Fairbanks, was inspired by Ghiberti.)

And so here’s what I’ve surmised: investing in these eight values it will lead, inevitably, to a return on investment. And not only for the investor, but for everyone who has shared in that prosperity. The builder and planner and scientist and homemaker will walk through those doors and think, “damn straight I belong on the doors.” Could you possibly imagine who would be depicted on these doors were they built today? This is where the laughing came in. Because I stood in front of those doors and laughed so hard I kind of cried. 

I know what you might be thinking. “You are a tech start up. Screw you and your lofty goals.” Here at Switchboard Headquarters it is nearly impossible to separate our product from dreaming about how it could help the people depicted here flourish. How can Switchboard be used by caretakers? How can it be used by scientists, educators, innovators? How can it be used by artists, makers, and the international community? It’s enough to know that at one point in history, the definition of wealth included them, and that investments in tech might bring about that renaissance once again.  

*Fake story. I figured “cash! cash! cash!” would pique your interest more than “behold these bronze doors.” 

**To bring it full circle, the architect of the bank is A.E. Doyle  who designed Reed College, including Eliot Hall from which came the famed Doyle Owl. And Fairbanks’ most famous design is the Dodge Ram symbol, Dodge being a client of Wieden+Kennedy. So, there you go.

Malaise, Kittens, and Why Facebook Isn't a Verb

Photo Credit: Stephan Brunet

Malaise is the new big thing.

We don’t trust Facebook, and it makes us feel anxious. Michelle Goldberg writes, “Twitter is like doing cut-rate cocaine at a boring party where a lot of the guests dislike you.” LinkedIn is “an Escher staircase masquerading as a career ladder,” says Ann Friedman. Louis C.K. has achieved prophet status for his remarks on the negative impact of smartphones.

All of this makes it easy for us to be cynical, but it can be hard to explain how we feel about the depravity of this brave new world or why we feel that way beyond pointing fingers at aforementioned culprits.

I found something while reading Hyperbole and a Half the other day that helped me understand this malaise (you should read the full post for the wonderful illustrations):

I remember being endlessly entertained by the adventures of my toys. Some days they died repeated, violent deaths, other days they traveled to space or discussed my swim lessons and how I absolutely should be allowed in the deep end of the pool, especially since I was such a talented doggy-paddler.

I didn’t understand why it was fun for me, it just was.

But as I grew older, it became harder and harder to access that expansive imaginary space that made my toys fun. I remember looking at them and feeling sort of frustrated and confused that things weren’t the same.

I played out all the same story lines that had been fun before, but the meaning had disappeared…I could no longer connect to my toys in a way that allowed me to participate in the experience.

Depression feels almost exactly like that, except about everything.

I related to that feeling of disconnection and wondered what part existing social media play in feeding that feeling. The sites that we seem to complain about most exist to help us connect with one another. If our complaints have any truth to them, they’re not succeeding—they might even be doing anything but connecting us with one another.

Nobody complains about Kitten War, or webcomics, or poetry. (Or zombo.com.) What lesson does that teach us? That we should only build websites for kittens, comics, and poetry? Probably not.

We visit those websites (use those apps, etc.) because, in the moment of our visiting them, we want to see a kitten, or a comic, or a poem. Facebook operates on the basic premise that people want to connect with one another online. Now we can. But when we connect in the real world, we connect by doing things. We go out for drinks, go hiking, make dinner, dance, play with legos, whatever.

That’s the problem. Facebook isn’t a verb—it’s a noun—but it’s trying to be. Facebook sees that people use verbs to create meaning with other people, that verbs link subject and object, but instead of using verbs like “paint,” or “bee-keep,” or “bungie-jump,” it uses the sterile verb, “connect.” In reality, then, Facebook is just a place. Hanging out on Facebook is functionally equivalent to milling about in a plaza where hundreds of other people are also just milling about.

So let’s get [back] in the habit of building online communities that are focused on doing.

Edifice Rex—Why a New Career Services Office Can Only Do so Much

You may have read this New York Times piece, “How to Get a Job with a Philosophy Degree,” the other week. To summarize it, Wake Forest University has spent $10 million on a new Career Services building that “looks like Google” and hired nearly thirty additional Career Services staff to help students prepare themselves for and find employment—and to help justify the expense of attending college to their parents.

The narrative is similar to many that are unfolding across the country. The economy has changed and is changing. The cost of education is rising and schools must justify their model. And so on.

Usually, when a school decides it isn’t as dedicated to something as it should be, the solution is obvious. Not enough emphasis on the performing arts? Build a new performing arts building and hire faculty. They throw money at the problem.

And that’s what Wake Forest is doing in the article above. Their method has some merit. More staff can help more students with more things: scholarships, resume writing, grant applications, navigating difficult alumni databases, and so on. But there are too many possible career paths for even a few dozen staff to advise students on all of them.

We’ve always maintained that alumni affairs is career services. Schools need to recognize the immense amount of expertise and goodwill that exists in their population of alumni. Thousands of alumni can talk about jobs and life choices that a few dozen career services staff can’t—and they can offer more than just advice. For a student, a connection with an alumnus or alumna is meaningful on its own. But more concretely, alumni can offer mentorship, connections to jobs and internships, and places to stay. They can offer the support of a community. 

When a school spends a lot of money, we view that money as a proxy for devotion to solving a problem. The more a school spends, the more we think it cares. But not all problems can be solved with money. As Thoreau wrote in Walden:

“Those things for which the most money is demanded are never the things which the student most wants. Tuition, for instance, is an important item in the term bill, while for the far more valuable education which he gets by associating with the most cultivated of his contemporaries no charge is made.”

Money is an easy metric by which to judge success, but how can we measure community? Maybe community isn’t something we can measure; maybe it’s something we can only do.

Remembering Red Burns

I’d like to take a moment and remember Red Burns, co-founder of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. She died last month. 

In her opening remarks to new students she outlines her hopes for them. They read like commandments for what we are trying to do at Switchboard: “That you make visible what, without you, might never have been seen. That you are not seduced by speed and power. That you don’t see the world as a market, but rather a place that people live in — you are designing for people, not machines.”

Let’s just say that this is not the prevailing mantra of the start-up world. 

Red’s name should be as familiar to us as Steve Jobs’. But had it not been for a friend of mine, I never would have known about her.

I went to Columbia Journalism School at the same time my friend Greg Borenstein started ITP. I’d make my way down to his building during the rare moments I could steal away from the Upper West Side. I’m not sure if it was like “Kindergarden for adults.” To me, it was what I hoped the future should look like. J-school was thinking and writing and words. ITP was thinking and action and stupendous failure and delight. And sometimes fire, spray foam, and miniature chairs. I’d find any excuse to stop by.

One time I was asked to wear knit gloves and assume a downward dog yoga pose. I looked up and the pressure from my hands had created a painting on the screen. During one of their bi-annual shows I donned a pair of glass headphones. The music came from live crickets housed inside.  That was the year ping pong balls played instruments And Greg built Face Fight in which opponents struggle for control over the line of a digital drawing tool. The open loft was a riot of art supplies, Arduinos, soldering irons. I seem to remember trash bags full of cotton bunting. I once gained an audience with Clay Shirky but was too distracted by the resemblance of his office to a hardware store to fully pay attention. 

If ever you succumb to a moment of pessimism about technology, peruse the projects from past ITP shows. 

All of this came about because of Red, whose presence seems to guide every effort at ITP. It is worth printing all of her remarks, taken from ITPer Margaret Stewart’s fantastic remembrance in Wired.

From Red Burns’ Opening Remarks to New Students

What I want you to know:

That there is a difference between the mundane and the inspired.

That the biggest danger is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge.

That any human organization must inevitably juggle internal contradictions — the imperatives of efficiency and the countervailing human trade-offs.

That the inherent preferences in organizations are efficiency, clarity, certainty, and perfection.

That human beings are ambiguous, uncertain, and imperfect.

That how you balance and integrate these contradictory characteristics is difficult.

That imagination, not calculation, is the “difference” that makes the difference.

That there is constant juggling between the inherent contradictions of a management imperative of efficiency and the human reality of ambiguity and uncertainty.

That you are a new kind of professional — comfortable with analytical and creative modes of learning.

That there is a knowledge shift from static knowledge to a dynamic searching paradigm.

That creativity is not the game preserve of artists, but an intrinsic feature of all human activity.

That in any creative endeavor you will be discomfited and that is part of learning.

That there is a difference between long term success and short term flash.

That there is a complex connection between social and technological trends. It is virtually impossible to unravel except by hindsight.

That you ask yourself what you want and then you work backwards.

In order to problem solve and observe, you ought to know how to: analyze, probe, question, hypothesize, synthesize, select, measure, communicate, imagine, initiate, reason, create.

That organizations are really systems of cooperative activities and their coordination requires something intangible and personal that is largely a matter of relationships.

What I hope for you:

That you combine that edgy mixture of self-confidence and doubt.

That you have enough self-confidence to try new things.

That you have enough self doubt to question.

That you think of technology as a verb, not a noun; it is subtle but important difference.

That you remember the issues are usually not technical.

That you create opportunities to improvise.

That you provoke it. That you expect it.

That you make visible what, without you, might never have been seen.

That you communicate emotion.

That you create images that might take a writer ten pages to write.

That you observe, imagine and create.

That you look for the question, not the solution.

That you are not seduced by speed and power.

That you don’t see the world as a market, but rather a place that people live in — you are designing for people, not machines.

That you have a stake in magic and mystery and art.

That sometimes we fall back on Rousseau and separate mind from body.

That you understand the value of pictures, words, and critical thinking.

That poetry drives you, not hardware.

That you are willing to risk, make mistakes, and learn from failure.

That you develop a practice founded in critical reflection.

That you build a bridge between theory and practice.

That you embrace the unexpected.

That you value serendipity.

That you reinvent and re-imagine.

That you listen. That you ask questions. That you speculate and experiment.

That you play. That you are spontaneous. That you collaborate.

That you welcome students from other parts of the world and understand we don’t live in a monolithic world.

That each day is magic for you.

That you turn your thinking upside down.

That you make whole pieces out of disparate parts.

That you find what makes the difference.

That your curiosity knows no bounds.

That you understand what looks easy is hard.

That you imagine and re-imagine.

That you develop a moral compass.

That you welcome loners, cellists, and poets.

That you are flexible. That you are open.

That you can laugh at yourself. That you are kind.

That you consider why natural phenomena seduce us.

That you engage and have a wonderful time.

That this will be two years for you to expand — take advantage of it.

Appolinaire said: — Come to the edge, — It’s too high, — Come to the edge, — We might fall, — Come to the edge, — And he pushed them and they flew.

Social Media and Communities of Faith

After recentreports that the Catholic Church is offering indulgences to anyone who follows Pope Francis on Twitter, we thought it would be a good time to discuss the role of social media in communities of faith.

Andrew Brown at The Guardian writes,

Is there anything intrinsically more ridiculous in following a devotion on Twitter than in the flesh, or on television?

The answer has to be no. The whole point of electronic communication is that it has effects in the physical world. That makes it real so far as I am concerned. If a love affair can be nourished in letters, it can be nourished, too, in email, or even, for very time-pressed lovers, in tweets.

There is truth in this. “The whole point of electronic communication is that it has effects in the physical world.” Yes. (Though many seem to forget this.) But there is a difference between a Twitter follower and an in-person member of a congregation. There is something decidedly more real about the latter (if only in the “keep it real” sense of the word). No one would deny that online sermons are a useful tool for churches, but are they a replacement for them?

If a church abandons its physical presence entirely and moves online, then surely it loses what makes it special as a community in a world that is increasingly online-only. "Wherever two or three gather in my name, there am I with them," might apply to Twitter as well as the physical world, sure, but…

As communities of faith use social media to engage their communities, they should ensure that the tools they use are actually “social.” That is, any given social medium should promote the agápē, the caritas, the love that Paul wrote about in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. It should connect people to one another in a meaningful way.

Twitter and online sermons can only be a part of this, just as sermons are only a part of a congregation’s activity. What about the church choir? Community service? Congregation picnics, barbecues, and bean suppers?

Group action is at least as important to community as group discussion is. Dominant social media don’t necessarily preclude group action, but they certainly don’t emphasize it—especially on an individual-to-individual level. A religious leader can organize an event over Facebook, but she can’t use social media to nurture personal connections between members of her community as easily as she can in person—and we want to change that.