Get Together

The Dinner Party is a worldwide community of 20- and 30-somethings who have each experienced the loss of a loved one. “We know what it’s like to lose someone and we aren’t afraid to talk about it,” their website states. Before the pandemic more than 400 Dinner Party tables were regularly meeting in nearly 100 cities around the world. Carla and Lennon share in this episode how they have through the...

“If there's drama in your life, you don't want to talk about it. It’s hush, hush. But that's not the way you heal. It's been detrimental to our communities. So when people–especially a lot of black women—saw that representation on camera it just touched them in a way that just exploded.” - Kibi Anderson Many of us may know “Red Table Talk” as the TV show that Jada Smith, her daughter Willow, and m...

“You don't have to have any talent. You just have to come out. I design things that would work for someone who was a lawyer or a school teacher.” - Charlie Todd In August 2001, Charlie Todd moved to New York City with an interest in acting and comedy. He didn’t have immediate access to a stage, so he started creating in public spaces by staging undercover performances.  Charlie documented his firs...

You can tune into the original episode on the Masters of Community podcast. Special thanks to David and his team for giving us access to the audio to share directly with our listeners. Check out their podcasts!

“I'm fairly introverted which I find a lot of people are surprised by given the number of events that I've run over the years. I don't actually like attending events where I don't have a fairly structured role to play. I think to some extent being the organizer of the event gave me a role and job responsibilities. It helped me as an introvert feel more comfortable.” - Joe Robinson By day, Joe Robi...

“We need people to see the power they have in themselves to make a very small change that can compound over time.” -  Nate Nichols  Nate Nichols and Steffi Behringer are life and business partners and the founders of Allyship & Action. The Allyship & Action Summits took the advertising community by storm these past few months.  Like many others, their creative agency, Pallete Group , faced challen...

“We really lean all the way in for our community so they can feel that they're working with somebody and not working for us.” - Jonathan Carey Atlas Obscura is one of the few community-driven travel platforms.   The site focuses on the hard-to-find wonders and oddities of the world, from a church with Frederic Chopin’s heart in Poland to an abandoned Eurostar train covered in graffiti in France, t...

“Community means there's a reason why these people are here, irrespective of the platform.” - Nadia Eghbal If you haven’t heard of Substack, you will soon. The company is just three years old and growing quickly.  The co-founders came together to see if they could solve a problem: helping writers earn a living directly from their readers. When readers pay writers directly, the founders realized, w...

“We know that there is a tomorrow and we want to be able to prepare our girls and our community for what that tomorrow looks like. Not only prepare them for it, but make sure that they have a hand in building it. ” - Isis Miller Throughout her biotech engineering career, Kimberly Bryant was often the only black female in the room. Kimberly’s experience wasn’t rare. In fact, it’s the norm. Black wo...

“Community is not transactional by nature. Humans seek to connect on a deeper level. They're looking for validation or for support or for something bigger than themselves. Now that community is such a buzzword. Everyone wants it and they want it quickly. We have more levers than ever, and they work. But when you growth hack with incentives, what you gain in volume, you erode in authenticity.” - La...

“When you work in community, you get to be the person who thinks about the customer all day long, who thinks about people, who thinks about how they connect.” - Cindy Au Cindy Au set out for a career in academia but soon found herself as employee #9 at Kickstarter. Back then, the community team would review and help write each project submitted to the site. Later as their VP of Community, she over...

“Ask your community: What they want to see out of the company to make them feel supported? I don't do anything until I talk to the community or reach out to them or say, ‘What do you want to see next? And then I make that a part of my plan.’” - Shana Sumers HER Social App is the largest social community and dating app for LGBTQ+ womxn and queer people. Unlike other dating apps that tend to end the...

“When you learn in community, your brain grows so much faster than it would on its own.” -  Berna Anat Berna brings hype to an otherwise “hella male, hella stale, and hella pale” financial space. She creates videos, writing, and hosts talks that encourage, support and celebrate those of us who struggle with personal finances.  This work is personal for Berna. Growing up a first-gen child of Filipi...

In this behind-the-scenes interview, Dee Reddy of Intercom asks Bailey why the team at People & Company focuses on communities and how the teams has shifted coaching organizations to harness the power of community in a time of pandemic.  You can tune into the original episode on Intercom's website. Some key insights that Intercom noted: There’s a lot businesses can learn about community from grass...

“Hi, Bree, it’s Mariah. Mariah Carey...Please tell the fans thank you.” In 1999, 16-year-old Bree Nguyen was hired by her idol, Mariah Carey, to do something urgent: get Mariah on Total Request Live (TRL).  Why hire a 16-year-old fan? Bree figured out one thing that music executives were unclear how to venture into: internet fandom. If you’ve read our book, you may have already heard a snippet of...

“We lack language for describing the ache when we crave for companionate emotional connection, for that friend bond. Whether it's an ache for a single close friend or a group of friends. I gave it is ‘platonic longing.’” - Kat Vellos  Kat Vellos is a user experience designer who uses her trade to help people connect authentically.  After moving to the Bay Area 6 years ago, Kat for the first time f...

“Every party needs a host. Every team needs a coach. It's no different online than it is in our real world communities.” - Lindsay Russell At Facebook, Lindsay Russell was a part of the team that used data to identify, validate and supercharge the company’s biggest community building investments to date.   In their research on what makes a Facebook group active, even vibrant, Lindsay. and her team...

“It's important that people realize that extraordinary women are not just the heroes of the past, but they are around us every day today. They are already part of our communities. We just need to look a little deeper and more carefully, but they are already there.” - Elena Favilli Elena Favilli found herself at the center of an all too familiar story of women in the startup world. She was in Silic...

“I think that there's just some stubborn part of me that wants benevolence towards strangers to be more accepted and widespread. That's my underlying mission.” - Ivan Cash Ivan Cash is an interactive artist and filmmaker whose work celebrates and inspires connections among strangers. He has received high accolades for his work (Forbes 30 Under 30, Cannes Lions Shortlist, exhibitions in V&A Museum...

“Every piece that's knit is 20 to 30 hours of somebody thinking about climate. And then every person who sees that piece thinks about it and hopefully talks about it...It's activism, but sort of a cozy activism, a “craftivism,” that's not too threatening to people and permeates conversations and dialogue about climate change.” - Justin Connelly and Emily McNeil  Knitters have been doing temperatur...

“Mom, Dad, Uncle, Auntie, Grandfather, Grandmother: We need to talk. You may not have grown up around people who are Black, but I have. Black people are a fundamental part of my life: they are my friends, my classmates and teammates, my roommates, my family. Today, I’m scared for them.” - Letters for Black Lives In 2016, Philando Castile, a 32-year-old black man in Minnesota, was shot by a police...

“If you're going to lead an organization, it's likely that more of your time and energy is going into building an engine and less of your time and energy is going into facilitating connection between people. It's really important for community leaders to recognize if they want to lead an organization or if they want to facilitate connection.” -- Ankit Shah Motivated by a sense of nostalgia during...

“It's not that introverts don't want to talk to people. They really value quality conversation over talking to big quantities of people. [Silent Book Clubs] appeal because you can get that little bit of conversation about something that you're interested in. You don't have to come up with small talk. That appeals to the type of person that appreciates that mix, and I think most people are kind of...

“I always believe that when you present yourself in that deeply vulnerable, authentic, personal place, almost always people meet you there.” - Pei-Ru Ko  When Pei-Ru Ko was recovering from an autoimmune condition, she spent a lot of time at farmers markets in the Bay Area and grew close to local food producers. Relishing the relationships she built with them, she saw the opportunity to bridge a ga...

The excerpt below was originally sent out via our Get Together newsletter . You see the original post here , and sign up to receive the newsletter going forward here. Our small team is working on what long term changes we make to take a more anti-racist stance and start dismantling white supremacy that we have been complicit with in the past.  Below are a few immediate People & Company commitments...