A pig, a photo, grapes, and our life's purpose

Hi there friends,

I had the most Switchboard-y weekend this week. Allow me to share? It’s kind of epic. 

Did you know there is a Switchboard for Portland farmers to connect with customers wanting to buy locally raised sustainable meat? There is! The Portland Meat Collective Switchboard was started by Camas Davis, a force of nature.

Back in September, William posted an Ask for a Pig.

He was immediately contacted by farmers and ended up going with one he found from Payne Family Farms in Carlton, OR. And then William did what we hope every Asker will do on Switchboard: he posted a success:

These successes make us inexpressibly happy at Switchboard Headquarters. So happy, in fact, that I Tweeted about it:

In response, William invited me to the grand display of his success: a pig roast to celebrate his family’s housewarming (and, unofficially, 30th birthday). How could I refuse? 

I was greeted by their cat, Dante. This happened to be the last sunny day in Portland. Dante found a good way to spend it: 

I met Wiliam’s dad, Daniel, who has roasted about a dozen pigs. He started out by doing pig roasts for his church and his town’s non-profits.

I asked Daniel why pig roasts build community so well. “People are fascinated,” he said. “It gets back to something pretty basic. It’s primal.” This is how we’ve been gathering together for years. Around a fire, with an animal, eating with our hands. All that’s changed is that we use rubber gloves and mops a basters.

The six hours of slow roasting paid off. It was delicious.

Also: there was homemade pie—blueberry, pumpkin, and apple—courtesy of Rosanna.

It’s a glorious fall day, I’m milling around with a multigenerational bunch of friends and neighbors and who do I run into but Ethan Rafal.

Backstory: one of the reasons we started Switchboard at Reed was very much because, if you can believe it, there was no place for students and alumni to post about their Kickstarter campaigns and ask for the community’s support. One of the earliest such campaigns was Ethan’s 2012 photography project documenting post 9/11 war and homeland decay called Shock and Awe (book out this fall!). This was that post, one of the first Kickstarter Asks.

We pledged to fund every Kickstarter campaign. A few months after it ended I got this photo in the mail (of Ethan’s grandmother) which now hangs in my office. I’d never met Ethan, but seeing how Switchboard could be used to support a community I care about, manifest in this photo, was a daily inspiration.

And then there he was, in William’s back yard in his snazzy pink converse. Both of our eyes lit up. “I know you!” And that’s what it felt like. I knew him, despite never meeting him in person. He’s been one of our best supporters on Switchboard, always reaching out to Reedies in the Bay asking for housing or opportunities in the arts.

It happened that earlier this week there was this other ridiculously great post on Reed Switchboard from a faculty member, Sarah. She had a bumper crop of grapes in her back yard and posted this Offer for Grapes. And conveniently, she lived not far from the pig roast. 

I asked Ethan and a few other folks if they wanted to go on an adventure and off we went. Sarah was out of town but here was her big-hearted text. Imagine a world where people open up their back yards to one another to share fruit (as I learned, that already happens in Portland, naturally): 

We resorted to crazy tactics to get at the bounty:

I brought my portion of grapes into work. And then I logged a success (as did Martha, from our team):

The sun was setting, we were covered in concord grape juice in clothes saturated with meat smoke and remnants of whipped cream on our chins. It was Dionysian.

Ethan gave me $2.50 for bus fare and that was the only time money changed hands that day.

Last week I spoke at a panel on the sharing economy. I was on stage with with an employee of AirBnB. I felt a bit out of place. Long before AirBnB there were independent bed and breakfasts across the country. My mom ran one out of my childhood home. And although we’d receive notes in the guest book along the lines of, “Thank you for sharing your home,” for my mom it was, “Thank you for sharing your money. We we can now pay our mortgage.” She never continued a relationship with a single guest.

It seems there are transactional economies with monetary exchange, and there’s sharing (full stop), an economy of gift giving built from the simple, primal, inexhaustible, currency-free activities of communities giving, receiving, and reciprocating. In my mind, there is a gulf that separates the two. It perplexes me that we lack the discernment to recognize the difference. As Lewis Hyde put it, “It is the cardinal difference between gift and commodity exchange that a gift establish a feeling-bond between two people, while the sale of a commodity leaves no necessary connection…a gift makes a connection.”

We at Switchboard are often asked what our product “does.” “What’s the value proposition? What would people have to share? How is this different from a Facebook group?” This question is one of the hardest to answer. What it “does” is a reflection of the hearts of the people who use it, and the connections they make there. A web is formed from Camas to William to the Payne family to Rosanna to Daniel to Dante to Ethan to Ethan’s grandmother to Sarah to my fellow grape pickers to Martha to me. I’m not Facebook friends with a single one of these people, nor have I the desire to be. These types of webs aren’t built or maintained there. This web is different. It was built by kindness, generosity, and grace, and constructed within the practically invisible doorframe of Switchboard. The value proposition of this doorframe is our belief that sharing and receiving these necessary gifts is our reason for being alive.

Switchboard Hearts: Reflections

What a trip this has been! In just four short weeks, we visited Chicago, Oberlin, and New York City; threw four different parties; met individually with close to 20 people; and talked with more than a hundred. We met current students, recent grads, older alumni, wheelwomen, Switchboard operators, school administrators, and community managers. We made old friends and new ones. Veteran Switchboarders and Switchboarders-to-be hosted us, fed us, and shared their stories.

In one month, across the span of the midwest and northeast, we met with these hundred or so users, supporters, and friends—members of the Switchboard family. Whenever you step out of your office and into your community, when you open your ears to your users and build on your relationships with friends and customers, you are bound to learn something. It turns out you learn a lot, perhaps more than you know at the time. We wanted to share a few of our favorite lessons with all of you.

We learned that Switchboard is something people can believe in. It isn’t every day that you ask your users to let you buy them coffee and they come knocking down your door with their success stories, their feedback, and their overwhelming support. More than a few people who told us that they “loved Switchboard and would be happy to do whatever they can to help.” It might be because, as one user said “It’s not always about achieving the task [of your ask or offer] but about connecting with people.” Or it could be because Switchboard, as one young alumni put it, “helped [them] be less afraid about life.” But for all of the praise our users had for us, we can return it twicefold. We are so lucky to be able to say that our users are some of the most thoughtful, brave, generous and optimistic people we know. Across the board, the Switchboard family is a family of doers, builders, and helpers—every single one of them.

Our customers have told us that Switchboard is special because it can be integrated into almost everything they do. They love it because Switchboard lets their community define success for themselves. And they embrace Switchboard because they understand that most good things emerge from strong relationships. Whether these are the relationships between students and professors, older alumni and recent grads, peers sharing with peers, or between people anywhere that share your passions and experiences, these relationships are what build communities. We are immensely grateful to have found partners in academic administrators and in individual community leaders who completely believe in what we do.

From our mentors we have learned that there will never be a substitute for the human touch. In spite of membership numbers in the millions, companies like Etsy, Kickstarter, and Meetup continue to support their users with dedicated community managers every day. After talking with our friends, we can confirm that maintaining a high quality of community involves talking directly with people, listening to what they need, and showing appreciation for their contributions. At Switchboard we are human first. It’s in our writing, it’s in our customer support, it’s in the way we appreciate our users, and it’s in the standards of care and connection we set for all of our communities. And we have yet to be let down. Care begets care. Generosity leads to generosity. Be more human than company, and you won’t have a user-base, but a family.

If every Switchboard is greater than the sum of its parts, then Switchboard the company, the dream, is greater than the sum of each of our individual communities. We are nothing but for you. Here at HQ we are trying to build a house, and you have made it a home. And what a bustling and productive home it is! The Switchboard Hearts tour may have come to an end, but you fill our hearts constantly. The parties are over, but we want to carry the spirit of celebration and of appreciation through every year. If you are in Portland, I invite you to reach out and join me for a cup of coffee. Send us your thoughts, your hopes. Send us a postcard, a love letter, or list of ways we can improve (you can reach us here). A home is a place with an open door. We’d love it if you stopped in to say hi!

Switchboard Goes to NYC to Engage Oberlin Alumni

Last week’s Oberlin Switchboard party was something special. We not only had an incredible turnout, a great location, and free flowing beer and food, but were also joined by Switchboard’s CEO, Mara Zepeda. After falling in love with Oberlin during my campus visit, I was confident that a gathering of Obies would impress her as much as they had impressed me. And sure enough, more than 25 Obies joined us at the lower east side’s Hill & Dale for pitchers of beer, fresh oysters and celebration and nearly knocked our socks off with how awesome they all were.

With over 40 years between the oldest and the youngest alumni, the range of experience and interest in the room was almost dizzying. There were Japanese cooks and restaurateurs, international publishers, real estate agents, programmers, radio journalists, political organizers, entrepreneurs and even the future president of the United States. There were experienced Switchboard askers and offerers, success loggers, helpful commenters and total newbies. Our happy hour celebration perfectly encapsulated the dream of Switchboard, to bring members of the Oberlin community, all ages, interests, skills, and experiences, together in one space to share and connect.

The overwhelming consensus seems to be that Obies don’t just aspire, they do. From talking to them in person and from watching them connect on Switchboard, I have come to add another important quality to their reputation. Obies are unbelievably helpful. In the last week alone I met so many warm, generous and active alumni and a couple of cases really stood out:

Kristen ‘04 asked the Switchboard for help with her new fashion company and was directed to Oberlin’s own small business accelerator, Launch U. Switchboard helping Obies help Obies start companies! I love it.

I met another young Obie at the happy hour who had chimed into the now famous “law school post” to share her insight, taking the opportunity to add her voice to the 16+ person conversation about the merits (or demerits) of law school. Just going to show that every bit of help helps!

During the week, I met with Evan ‘14 who found his current internship at Columbia’s School of Journalism through the father of another Obie. We absolutely love when parents can be part of the network.

I also met with Naomi ‘14, who joined forces with two other alumni to create a web development collective, and who have been building things for Obies (like your homepage!).

The Oberlin Switchboard may have only been around for a few short months but the Oberlin community gets it like it was what they were born to do. From its first breath, the Switchboard has been a thriving hub for compassion and connection across generations, time-zones and disciplines. We couldn’t have been more grateful to cap our Switchboard Hearts tour with a final party for the Oberlin community!

A Visit to the American Museum of Natural History

Greetings from New York! I had an awesome success recently and I wanted to share.

A few days ago on the Switchboard for Reed College, Nisa (a 2014 grad) posted this offer: 

It turns out that employees of the AMNH get 20 free vouchers a month to give away. Crazy, right? I was in town for a conference and so my husband Andrew (2002) and I reached out to Nisa for tickets. Within minutes, they were waiting for us at the will call window.

Andrew had never been to one of my favorite exhibits, the Hall of North American Mammals. That was our first stop. (I am indebted to the influence of photographer Joseph O. Holmes whose 2005 series shot at the AMNH is delightful).

Nisa was a biology major. After graduation she learned of this job through another important network in her life: her rugby team. She works in the museum’s cryogenic lab. Her job involves cutting off very small pieces of frozen tissue (of, say, a lizard’s tail) and sending them in vials to researchers. She hopes to study neuroscience in the future. We got an insider’s view of the place. Nisa pointed out the fossils on the museum’s walls…

and we talked a lot about dinosaurs.

I was struck by how donors to the museum have doubled up on sponsoring certain dioramas. A thing can exist in the world that can be so awesome that people petition to recognize its awesomeness again. You can see what I mean here: the original donors, and then the 2011 donors tacked on. 

We headed to Dive 75, quite possibly the only dive bar on the Upper West Side, where Nisa shared the story her remarkable Turkish immigrant family. I won’t go into it, but I bet if you stop by here and say you know Nisa, the proprietor will be very glad to serve you. And then I logged a success, only to realize that I was in fact the third person to do so in less than a week.

What never ceases to amaze me about Switchboard is how, every day, I’m surprised by people’s imagination. Who would have thought a simple “Offer” button would lead to such a memorable day, a new friendship, and such meaningful engagement for a new alumna wanting to stay connected to her community? It’s a success I won’t soon forget.  

(PS: Nisa posted an Ask of her own a while back looking for contacts in neuroscience. For our Reed community readers: if you know of someone, please lend a hand!)

Switchboard Hearts New York Reedies!

This weekend we invited Reedies in New York City to join us a for a drink to celebrate the Reed Switchboard and all of its awesomeness. I wasn’t sure how many people would come to a Saturday evening gathering in NYC, where there are always a million things competing for one’s attention, but Saturday’s event turned out to be a complete success. The circle continued to widen as one by one Reedies found their way to the back room. At final count, we had taken up all the available seats. Switchboard grabbed the first round of drinks and the evening gave way to easy conversation while the DJ played, by happy coincidence, everyone’s favorite 90’s hits.

Among the attendees were writers, world travelers, activists, contra dancers, german speakers, new grads, co-opers, trivia masters, international students, community organizers, and many more. From the eldest to the youngest, our graduation dates spanned more than 20 years. Like any good gathering, the circle was constantly shifting into new configurations of people and conversations. “At one point I was overwhelmed but in the best way” said Vlad ‘14, a recent international alumnus looking for art history work in the city.

Vlad was one of handful of recent grads who came to celebrate and also to commiserate. There was a lot of talk about Reed experiences, the joys of being finished, and what to do next. One ‘14 alumna shared her post-grad anxiety, “I just graduated and I have no idea what I want to do except not go back to school, and I wish Reed would hold my hand.” Reed Switchboard is exactly that hand, bringing together Reedies across generations to help each other explore their many interests through conversation and connection. If this gathering was a sort of dinner party for 13, then Reed Switchboard is a dinner party for 3500 and counting.

Over the course of the night, we dreamed up all sorts of exciting ways to use Reed Switchboard, including: finding a new trivia team, exploring options other than grad school, applying an art history degree in the “real world,” throwing a potluck, sharing a couch, teaching an obscure programing language, or finding a roommate.

All it takes is a simple ask or offer to continue the evening’s conversations, as one ‘13 alumna hoped we would. “I think it’s good for New York alumni to have a casual way to connect that’s not an official alumni association thing, a little more relaxed,” another recent grad shared. As a complement to more directed activities, it’s those kinds of “unofficial” interactions that can lead to relationships that can lead to friendship, mentorship, connection, and ultimately, to a stronger community.

That wraps up our official Reed gatherings for the Switchboard Hearts tour. It’s been incredible meeting so many passionate, intelligent and generous Reedies over the course of our travels. We are lucky to have so many enthusiastic and thoughtful supporters, from our early days as a grassroots project, to the present as a thriving community-place, and into the future. Here’s to you. We couldn’t do it without you!

Next up, we’re hosting a happy hour for the Oberlin alumni community in New York that promises to be epic. Stay tuned.

Soda Bar photo by Nichol A &  Renn Fayre Photo by Mara Zepeda

Switchboard Hearts New York City

This week the Switchboard Hearts tour landed in the Big Apple. While we’re here we wanted to meet up with some of our users from the Oberlin, Reed and Willamette Switchboards to say hello and hear about what they’re up to in the Big City.

It must be true that New York attracts a special kind of motivated person because all four of the folks I met this week are complete powerhouses. Our College Switchboards are driven by people who pursue their curiosity with fierce dedication and for whom the idea of asking for help and offering back is second nature. Here are two highlights: 

Brooke - Willamette ‘02

There aren’t many Willamette Switchboard members out here in New York but I’m glad I got to meet up with Brooke because she’s a veritable super-cool-person. We got together over sushi and she blew me away with an account of her time since graduation.

She graduated from Willamette University with a degree in art history and since then has taught English in Costa Rica, worked on a number of films, gone to culinary school, earned a M.S. in communications at Columbia and about a million other things. She now works for a company that coordinates international students at U.S. universities and gets to travel all over the world for work. Oh and on top of that she is the new president of the Willamette NY alumni chapter and is starting a company producing allergen-free hygiene products. Wow!Hero status!

By Mara Zepeda’s (our CEO) conservative estimate, “it will take a decade of experimenting with everything you are passionate about to carve out the life you want.” Switchboard at schools is all about helping connect students and alumni with the resources they need to experiment with and pursue their passions. Brooke couldn’t have paid us a better compliment when she said that what she loves about Switchboard is that it “accomplishes what it sets out to do.” And we couldn’t have asked for a better role model than Brooke.

She’s happy to connect with Bearcats who are interested in or on their way to New York but she has yet to hear from anyone looking to connect. We hope that Switchboard will help more recent grads find their way to Brooke so she can inspire them as much as she’s inspired us! 

Nikki  - Reed ‘12

Nikki just gets it. As a natural connector, story collector and community creature, it’s not surprising that Nikki has been one of Reed Switchboard’s most active users from the beginning. The funny thing is that a lot of her own posts have been “near misses.” In spite of that, each of her posts has been fruitful in unexpected ways, like someone reaching out for help with their crowd funding campaign after seeing her ask for funding. “It’s not always about achieving the task, but about connecting with people” say Nikki of her many Switchboard successes 

She is currently pursuing a PhD in art history in part because she missed the academic community and collaboration she found at Reed. In between graduation and beginning her program, she looked to Switchboard to connect with that community. “I love Switchboard because it began as grassroots project (not top-down) and because I love being able to see everyone’s stories.” 

Nikki looks forward to the day she is making offers instead of asks. “That’s the dream,” she says, “of course, I’ll probably also always be asking because I’m naturally curious and love talking to people. But it would be so satisfying to offer something back because I’ve received so much. I’d love to pay it forward” We are so lucky to have Nikki onboard making Reed Switchboard an awesome place and we’re looking forward to the exciting offers she’ll make!