Produced by People & Company
Hosted by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huynh, Whitney Ogutu, Mia Quagliarello, Maggie Zhang, Marjorie Anderson & Kai Elmer Sotto
A Silent Book Club meeting is exactly what you’d expect groups gather to read their books in silence in local bookstores, cafés or bars.
Silent Book Club offers a space to dispense the small talk, a relief to many introverts. In our conversation with Laura Gluhanich, the co-founder of Silent Book Club, we dive into the importance of creating a welcoming space in all senses of the word, both physically and online.
Read MorePei-Ru Ko is the founder and Jovida Ross is the executive director of Real Food Real Stories, a nonprofit on a mission to humanize the food system. Guided by a belief that food and story connect us, they host free monthly gatherings, annual story slams, and a podcast. Local chefs, cookbook authors, and food entrepreneurs gather to share their personal stories and motivations for why they do what they do. In this episode, we learn about the power of generous listening, how food plays a role in community-building, and what it’s like to transition leadership of a community.
Read MoreIn this short episode, Kevin reads the recent newsletter we sent addressing anti-racist actions our small team is taking.
We're sharing this letter with you here because we want you to know that we will be shifting who we interview on our podcast to feature more stories about extraordinary Black community leaders, and we are bringing on a new podcast correspondent to be a part of this effort.
Read MoreGiving circles are a simple but powerful community-building format. Groups of people get together to pool their money, then direct it towards issues they collectively care about–think Queer Youth Fund or the African American Giving Circle.
Today, we’ve put together an episode with two experts that will share what it takes to start and sustain a giving circle.
Read MoreKuik Shiao-Yin has devoted her life to building up the social and emotional capital of the young nation of Singapore. She was nominated and served two stints in Parliament along with co-founding The Thought Collective, a group of social businesses that spans a school, restaurants, and a civic center.
In this episode, we discuss weaving the fabric of a diverse nation together at the grassroots and governmental level.
Read MoreAundy Crenshaw is the COO/CMO/CFO of Dirtybird Records, a house music label with a rabid following. Home to "America’s Best DJ" Claude VonStroke and a roster of equally addictive DJs, Dirtybird has translated a community’s passion for music into events that have the best vibes and make fans want to keep coming back.
In this episode, Aundy explains how Dirtybird cultivates a community that feels like a family, both within the label and with its fans, all with a small team and budget.
Read MoreAfter an early career in grassroots climate organizing, Casper earned masters degrees in Divinity and Public Policy from Harvard. While there, he started a reading community around the Harry Potter texts, that has grown to more than 70 chapters and millions of podcast listeners around the world.
In this episode, we will go deep on two things Casper knows a lot about: rituals and communal reading.
Read MoreTim Courtney was a key part of a monumental shift at LEGO that opened the private company up to their fans all around the world. For seven years, Tim was the steward behind LEGO IDEAS, a crowdsourcing platform that allows superfans to submit and vote on new ideas they want LEGO to bring to market.
Curious about creative, meaningful ways companies can collaborate with their customer communities online? Look no further than Tim.
Read MoreToday we're interviewing Dr. Gbemisola Boyede, the founder of Ask The Paediatricians, an online medical education community that can offer all of us some much-needed inspiration in the time of COVID-19.
What stuck out from our conversation with Dr. Gbemi was how natural her community-building instincts were. No matter if your community gathers online or off, the secret to community building isn't about management, it's about creating leaders.
Read MoreToday we're interviewing Kelsa Trom, Head of Programming at NEW INC. NEW INC is the first museum-led "cultural incubator." The New Museum here in New York City opened the program in 2013 as a home artists, activists, futurists and technologists.
In this episode, we ask Kelsa about the work she and her team prioritize to bind and support the members in the space.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Nitika Chopra, organizer of Chronicon, a conference that brings together hundreds of people with chronic illnesses.
In this interview, we'll learn more about Nitika's journey and how she went about designing the specifics of Chronicon–from the space to food—to make sure folks with chronic illnesses felt honored.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Scott Amenta, co-founder of the COS Tech Network, a community of people working as Chiefs of Staff in companies around the world. The COS Tech Network started in 2016 when Scott found himself as a Chief of Staff, a role that quite is new in techland, and, for Scott, felt somewhat undefined.
Tune in to learn more about how Scott got COS Tech Network off the ground, and what tools the extremely organized group uses to communicate, collaborate, and connect.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Erin Wayne, or @Aureylian as she’s known on the internet. Six years ago, Erin was brought on as the first pure community hire at Twitch.
We’ll dig into the story of how Erin came to work at Twitch, her early projects there, and two remarkable community programs she’s led: Twitch ambassadors and meetups.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Catt Small, a product designer, game maker, developer and–most importantly for today’s podcast–one of the organizers of the Game Developers of Color Expo (GDOC).
On the podcast we’ll hear more from Catt about why she and her collaborators started GDOC in the first place AND she’ll share her secrets about how they’ve been successful with finding sponsors.
Read MoreWe're interrupting our regular broadcast for a holiday spectacular!
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Lennon Flowers and Carla Fernandez, co-founders of The Dinner Party, a worldwide community of 20- and 30-somethings who have each experienced the loss of a loved one.
The Dinner Party tables are regularly meeting in nearly 100 cities around the world, from Milwaukee to Tel Aviv. Most of their 275 tables gather at a host’s house over a potluck. To attend, everyone involved must fill out an application, which the team at HQ reviews by hand, carefully matching each person to a table near them.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Jay Herratti, the Executive Director of TEDx. TED gave its audience the chance to co-create with them through TEDx, volunteer hosted events of TED like talks that happen in communities around the world.
In our interview, we talk to Jay about the origin of TEDx and how the organization has evolved the support it offers TEDx organizers over the last 10 years.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Rafe Offer, CEO of Sofar Sounds (Sofar is an acronym for "Songs from a Room").
In our interview, we talk to Rafe about the origin of Sofar and how community members around the world host these gigs, and how Sofar went from hobby to a full-fledged business.
Read MoreToday we’re talking to Camille Ricketts, the superstar Head of Marketing for Notion. Notion is an all-in-one workspace for note-taking, project management and task management. Most importantly, Notion is modular. People can remix and reuse the templates they offer to create their own powerful tools.
Since Camille started as Head of Marketing, she and her team have invested in Notion superusers, swelling their ranks and meetup numbers in the name of educating even more Notion-curious people about what the platform is capable of. Tune in for the full story.
Read MoreJeff Kirschner kickstarted a community of people around the world who are picking up the trash on our streets, parks, beaches, and more. They call themselves Litterati.
Some of the members of the Litterati community pick up hundreds, even thousands, of pieces of trash EACH DAY. To date, the cumulative impact is remarkable: 145,000+ people in the Litterati community have picked up 4.2 million pieces of trash.
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