Community Building Tree Workshop at Impact HUB Tokyo
What does it actually take to build and run a community? One evening at Impact HUB Tokyo where people who do it lay out the work and the skills behind it, together. Free.
Running a community looks simple from the outside: pick a topic, invite people, keep showing up. Anyone who has done it knows where the real work hides.
Why do some events fill up and others don't?
What makes a newcomer come back a second time?
How do you keep a group alive once the first wave of enthusiasm has passed?
When members start running things themselves, what did you do to make that happen?
And how much of all this is luck, and how much is something you can learn?
On this evening, people who build and run communities in Tokyo work that out together. We lay out what the job involves week to week, name the skills behind each part, and see how those skills build up, from someone running their first meetup to someone who has held a community together for years. The result is what we call a skill tree: a picture of one area of work, drawn by the people who do it, that shows where you stand and what to work on next.
We're running it with Impact HUB Tokyo (https://hubtokyo.com/), whose community team has been doing this work for years and will be in the room.
How the evening runs
We start from what you actually do, not from a textbook. Everyone puts their tasks on the board, we group them, then we dig into each group for the skills it needs and how a beginner and an experienced community builder differ on each one. We refine until the room agrees with the picture. You leave with the tree and a clear view of where you are on it. We publish the result on https://professions.skillforests.com/ so other community builders can use it too, with everyone in the room credited.
More about the method: https://docs.skillforests.com/books/skillforests-method-guide
Who it's for
Anyone who runs or helps run a community of any kind: a meetup, a coworking member group, a Discord server, an alumni network, a newsletter with readers who talk back, an open-source project, a company's customer community. Whether you started last month or have been at it for a decade, the tree is only accurate when both perspectives are in the room.
When and where
Wednesday 4 November, 18:30–21:00
Impact HUB Tokyo (https://hubtokyo.com/), Meguro
Free, in English and Japanese. The cafe is closed in the evening, so bring your own drink.
Run by Skillforests, a Tokyo startup that builds skill trees for professions with the people who work in them. Later in November we're doing the same for UX designers at the HUB, over several evenings: see our calendar at https://luma.com/skillforests
Questions?
Join our Discord and ask: https://discord.gg/MS3fek5EEp