Why Events Don't Build Communities & Networks

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Until conveners and organizers discover what it means to design gatherings
for building communities and networks, they naively believe speaker or
entertainment based events can do so. They don't because they can't. People
congregate with familiar people talking about familiar things. The worst
scenario is when people don't interact with each other at all because
they're all passively listening to or watching others talk or entertain.

Existing connections don't deepen and new connections don't emerge.  This
only happens when gatherings are specifically structured to make these
possible. This happens when we invite people to name new conversations and
invite others present into them. It happens when we have network weavers
present actively connecting people who don't know each other, making rich
introductions and inviting connecting conversations. It takes a whole
different kind of social architecture.

 

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