Alex is smart. Listen to Alex. :-) Gah, I love this group!
On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 5:57 PM, Alex Hillman <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm gonna flip this around for a second and describe a different scenario: > multiple of times a month we have someone show up with clear "business" > intentions...and that's really that they just wants to pitch everyone on > their startup. They're here with *business* intention (at least in their > mind), but they're going to be a disruption. We rarely have to tell them > flat out "no" but instead we tell them what our expectations are, and > invite them step up to those expectations. Some people head elsewhere, to > be another coworking space's problems. Others step up to that high bar, and > become great community members. > > See what I'm getting at? That kind of behavior maps across all kinds of > sectors. There's bad actors everywhere. Some are worse than others, but it > really depends a lot on the person/people, their cultural expectations, and > what *they *understand is acceptable. > > Now, politics *is* interesting in a different way, and the last 18 months > (and even more recent 6 months) have given me a strong taste of that in a > new way. In the wake of our last election, I was met with BOTH sides of the > conversation. > > I had people telling me (mostly in private) how thankful they were to have > a community of likeminded people to turn to during a confusing, difficult > political situation. We had members organize amongst themselves to protest. > We had members collaborate on forming PACs. Organize fundraising (I think > we collectively raised over $10k during the holidays across a few different > efforts). > > In a lot of ways, it was super inspiring to watch people become active > citizens in the context of our community. > > I *also* had people telling me (mostly in private) that they felt like > politics had become the dominant narrative, and they were frustrated by it. > They missed the other conversations, or found it harder to find signal > through the noise. It wasn't even *"that person has views that I disagree > with"* (that did happen a few times, but that's called being an adult) it > was more *"can we talk about something other than politics?"* > > I talked with those folks about ways to boost the signal on non-political > topics. In most cases, they were pretty quick to recognize that the best > way to boost signal is *always* to *create more signal. *Do more of the > stuff you want to see more of, talk about more of that stuff, and *that* > becomes > the dominant narrative. > > Another way I'd look at this is that if a single group with ANY interest > (politics, startups, whatever it might be) is able to come in and > permanently disrupt your community, then maybe you have work to do on > making your community more resilient. Or give your community more credit > for being resilient. Or both. > > -Alex > > > > > ------------------ > *The #1 mistake in community building is doing it by yourself.* > Better Coworkers: http://indyhall.org > Weekly Coworking Tips: http://coworkingweekly.com > My Audiobook: https://theindyhallway.com/ten > > On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Eric Datanagan <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hello Folks, >> Anyone have experience with allowing political groups to become members. >> Politics can be a very touchy subject which I could forsee potentially >> disturbing or upsetting community members. The focus of our coworking >> community is growing, sharing, and networking with business, not politics. >> I'm curious how others may have or would handled this. >> >> Cheers! >> >> -- >> Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com >> --- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Coworking" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > -- > Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Coworking" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Visit this forum on the web at http://discuss.coworking.com --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Coworking" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
