Welcome to this special episode of Product Momentum, where four ITX leaders share their hands-on experience establishing (Upstate Product Meetup) and growing (Upstate UX Meetup, to nearly 600 members!) two Rochester-area communities of practice (CoP).

Perhaps it was the recent conversations with Petra Wille and Jared Spool that inspired the idea for this up-close look at communities of practice. Or maybe we’re just eager to spread the word about our communities and support our colleagues. And, of course, it could be that we’re ramping up to host our upcoming Product + Design Conference, where the primary focus is always on bringing our communities together for learning and sharing knowledge.

Whatever the reason, the underlying theme of today’s episode is this: work as a designer or product manager is challenging enough; none of us should feel we need to go it alone. So spend a few minutes with ITX CoP leaders Paul Gebel (VP of Delivery), Christina Halladay (Director of UX Design), Sean Murray (Director of Product Management), and Brian Loughner (Lead UX Designer) and catch their advice about how to find (or start from scratch) your own Product or UX community of practice.

5 Tips for Building + Growing a Community of Practice

1. The community is about the members – first, foremost, always. The first question organizers should ask, Brian advises, is ‘What are you interested in?’ or, better yet, ‘what do you care about?’ Organizers should focus on serving their community, not their own agendas.
2. Don’t be afraid to fail. Accept the fact that not everything will work out as you expect, Sean says. “That’s totally okay. As CoP leaders, our job is not to direct the community; it’s to facilitate the effort on their behalf based on the direction our members say they want to go.”
3. CoP Size Doesn’t Matter. The CoP you launch or join doesn’t have to be large. “Upstate Product Meetup’s first gathering was like five people,” Sean says. “But it worked because the people who attended were there to talk about what they were doing as product managers – a topic we all shared and wanted to talk about.”
4. Balance in-person and virtual events. When you first get going, start with in-person events, Brian says. Then, as your community matures, you can mix in virtual events to ease some of the logistical challenges.
5. Provide a safe, inclusive environment. Attendees, especially first-timers, will be anxious. You can help relieve some of that social anxiety by doing the little things: provide directions and signage to help folks find your location, supply name tags and markers, show excitement about greeting your guests and introducing them to others, and stay positive.

Communities of practice offer opportunities beyond honing your craft. Sure, you’ll have lots of opportunity to learn and to give back to others. But maybe the greatest discovery you’ll make is how to create real human experiences that foster enduring relationships among your community.

The bottom line is this: Come with an open mind. Expect to make a connection. And remember: you have to play if you want to win.

You can also watch our conversation with Paul, Christina, Sean, and Brian on the Product Momentum YouTube channel!

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Paul Gebel [00:00:01] Hey, folks, we got a special episode for you today. You’re going to hear a couple familiar voices co-hosts that we’ve had in the past. Today I’m joined by Sean Murray, product manager here at ITX, Christina Halliday, director of UX design, and Brian Loughner a UX lead here at it as well. And I invited each of them because they’re all leaders in their respective communities of practice. They organize events here locally in Rochester, virtually and regionally as conferences. And they’ve had a lot of experiences. The conversation was really broad reaching no easy way to put it into a nutshell other than come with an open mind, expect to make a connection and you got to play to win, to develop this shared experience called a community of practice. But I’ll leave the rest of that for the conversation you’re about to enjoy. So, let’s get after it.

Paul Gebel [00:00:46] Hey, everybody. Welcome to the show. We got a special edition episode this morning. I gathered up a few of our co-hosts and friends of the podcast, and leaders of communities of practice in the area. And before we jump in, I just wanted to give a chance for them to introduce themselves to you and we’ll jump right into a really fun conversation, I think, to have today. So, Christina, why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself and what you do here?

Christina Halladay [00:01:11] Thanks, Paul. Hi, everyone. I’ve got a UX background. I’ve been in a design leadership role for a while now, and I’ve been involved in establishing a couple of internal community practices here at it. One related to UX design, one around accessibility. And fun fact I was one of the founders of our ITX conference many years ago.

Paul Gebel [00:01:30] Yeah. And Christina Halliday is also the co-host of which episode on the podcast?

Christina Halladay [00:01:35] The one with Jared Spool.

Paul Gebel [00:01:37] Lof lots of good tie ins. Back to Jared and communities of practice. Sean why don’t you tell us a bit about yourself.

Sean Murray [00:01:44] Hey, I’m Sean Murray. I run the upstate product meetup here in upstate New York. It’s really it’s a community that connects people that are passionate about building better products and really enjoyed starting it up.  We’ve only been in practice for about a year. We’ve learned a lot from what Brian and Christina do, and we’re looking to continue to grow. And we’re currently working with ITX clients on just building awesome products. That’s what we do.

Paul Gebel [00:02:11] Brian, last but not least, tell us a bit about what you do and who you’ve been inspired by in communities of practice related areas.

Brain Loughner [00:02:18] In the UX field. So, I kind of co-created that UX conference with Christine that many, many years ago, and I was once a member of a upstate UX meetup. And now I’m an organizer. So pretty regularly a couple at least once and for to help organize event and to bring UX like-minded people in the area in the greater Rochester area together.

Paul Gebel [00:02:37] Amazing. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with you guys. I think the conversation at hand is not a new one. As far as I could find in research, I think the idea of communities of practice or 30 years old-ish started in the late 80s, early 90s and kind of became formalized as a, you know, a way for common ideas in a repertoire of, you know, artifacts and templates and ideas and processes to get to get shared amongst like-minded professionals. But it really, you know, if you look at the way that it’s been talked about, it really hockey sticked up in terms of usage and implementation in especially technology related fields.

So I’m, I’m curious how we can think about this in especially product management and user experience design communities. How can we help build bridges to one another? I think a lot of this is very much related to where we are in a post-pandemic world. People are still relearning how to figure out how to work with each other in new modalities and new geographies, whether remote or hybrid or whatnot. So, I think what the idea that I had for wanting to get us together is to talk about what defines a community of practice in 2024 and ahead. And I think the way that you all have been really leaders in your own respective communities of practice is something that I really want to give a chance to, to share and spotlight some of the lessons that we’ve learned, maybe mistakes we’ve made along the way, and things that other people can take to build communities of practice in their organizations, in their regional geographies, in their virtual and remote networks.

So, Brian, I’m going to take the honor of the first question over to you, sir. And I just wanted to pick your brain to get us started. The idea of a community of practice usually doesn’t evolve from thin air. Usually, it’s deliberate. It has a bunch of professionals with some kind of goal, and it turns from this ambiguous, amorphous, abstract idea into something concrete and usable. But that takes work. And I’m curious for your thoughts on what is that work look like, what had it? How do people take these ideas and turn them into reality?

Brian Loughner [00:04:48] Great question, Paul. And you know, there’s a lot of frameworks of life cycles of communities, and there’s really no one answer to go from informal to defined goals. I think a couple fundamental ones are grow maturity time. You know, as you said, they all kind of start as a very informal event. Oftentimes social networking, you know, meeting up in networking. But over time, the more often you do that, the more interactive, more time you do that. Relationships form, trust develops, and it goes from a regular or informal meeting to something that happens more frequent. It eventually becomes more organized. There has to be there eventually becomes structure. And eventually you get into like activities, skill development, innovation. But it starts with, you know, the first question you ask is like, what are you interested in? But a better question is, what do you care about? And to get to those other questions, you kind of have to build that relationship. So it just takes. Growth in maturity of people coming together.

Paul Gebel [00:05:48] Yeah. Wenger talks a lot about it in the book named Community of Practice. I think it’s 1999. When it came out, about this kind of duality of two words reification and participation and reification, meaning the idea of taking something abstract and making it concrete and participation, meaning you gotta play to win. Like you have to be involved if you’re gonna make a successful community of practice. I think that that goes right to the heart of what you’re talking about. Sean, I’m curious for your thoughts next on how the pandemic specifically, but even more broadly than just, you know, the post-pandemic world. There’s a lot of expectation about what we can accomplish remotely, virtually in hybrid context. How can we ensure that in in this world of sort of living virtually, remotely, hybridly, that we’re getting people into a place where they can have a real experience that actually feels like a community of practice that isn’t just yet another online learning or social network tool, but something that is distinct and meaningful that we could call a community of practice. What does that mean to you?

Sean Murray [00:06:59] So I think, I think to answer the first question around, like, how has the how has the pandemic really changed the way that we want to we want to do these things? I think because the pandemic has influenced the growth of remote work. I think we’re seeing more people who sit in front of a screen all day, right, or for a large portion of their day, and that’s actually their main communication tool outside of maybe their regular home or social life. I think these communities of practice are an opportunity to get back out into the world and have real conversations with people and conversations that aren’t centered around a deadline or project status. Right. Really, about growing the way that you execute your job. So I think that’s really what the pandemic has changed. It’s actually a draw to a live community of practice. Right. There are I think there are opportunities or, you know, great opportunities there. Brian, you were talking about an example earlier, an online community, a practice that’s really effective. I think depending on the maturity of your community of practice. Brian mentioned maturity earlier as well. Maturity of your practice could drive how easy it is to establish an online community practice versus a live community practice. I think, at least in my experience, it’s been effective to start with a live community practice and then work into potentially work into. All right, hey, we’re actually gonna have a digital event this week. You know, this week, this year planning something like that.

Christina Halladay [00:08:22] And does it depend what someone’s looking forward to. Right. Because people could be looking for different things when they’re finding a community of practice. Right. Like, you know, I think when we were looking at thinking about learning new best practices or training, I think we’ve seen that done pretty well online when it comes to actually forming real human connections, which is where I think you’re going with this, Sean. Right. Like, I want to meet people like me and make connections, and maybe it’s job opportunities like that might be more something that’s better primed for, like an in-person setting. So that’s an interesting thing to think about, too.

Sean Murray [00:08:56] Yeah, I’m also a little biased. You know, with children at home, I’m steps away building a Hot Wheels track at any time. So, an opportunity to get away from, you know, an opportunity to get away from where I spend most of my time. Yeah, but do what I do, but not necessarily where I do what I do is what is what really draws me, draws me to a community of practice. I also think that the more mature your community of practice is, the more spontaneous community of practice can be. I think initially when you’re starting out, as you’re building those initial connections, you’re probably kind of stuck to like a hard schedule with like stream notice. Right? So, I believe my first, the first three times that I ran the upstate product meetup, it was like three months ahead, like, hey, we’re going to meet on this date at this place, right? And give people that notice and then keep kind of hammering that note via different social channels, right? I think, you know, with the maturity of like the UX meetup that, that you and Brian are a part of. You know, I think it’s probably easier for you guys to just say, like, hey, this Thursday we’re going to meet, right? And we’re going to meet at this place. Show up if you can, right. I don’t think that my community practice is at that level yet, but I think that that’s where you could get to that also would help drive other venues like online or you know.

Christina Halladay [00:10:14] I was just going to say, Brian, what kind of I think there’s been learnings that we’ve established over time. There’s been kind of expectations set with the group now. And I know for you something that you an idea you brought to the table was sharing pictures of the events that we’ve had to kind of give people a preview of what they’re like and make them feel comfortable and welcome and kind of entice them. And I think that’s I think that’s worked pretty well, actually.

Brian Loughner [00:10:39] I have no stats on that to back it up, but I found that with some of these things online, you’re not really sure what to expect, setting some expectation of what it looks like, who’s going to be there really helps people feel more welcoming to actually go out there. So, it is a little uncomfortable, but I always say, hey, might have to take a photo in during the social event and people are always in thrilled to have it. And it does help it grow, for sure.

Paul Gebel [00:11:03] Yeah, I think you guys are alluding to something that I found a lot in prepping for this conversation. I think, you know, analytics specifically are I’m going to maybe make an unpopular opinion here, but I think analytics are the opposite of community. If all we’re doing is taking the temperature and surveying and checking in, that’s going to kill the feeling of community, because all people are going to sense is that I’m being measured for some outcome. And if I don’t get that and it’s not a real community, I think one of the things that came through in in Wenger’s work that I was reading, as well as Petra Willie’s book, came through very strongly in her research, as well as the idea that a community of practice is a is an act of negotiating meaning. And the idea of these artifacts. Right. The photograph of we were all here at this place in time and we had an experience together that that kind of that is the community part of the community of practice.

And I think, yeah, there’s an analogy that I think works. It’s a little bit quirky, but I’ll, I’ll try it out and see how it fits. The idea of the QWERTY keyboard. Right. Nobody often thinks about the history of the QWERTY keyboard, or that it came from people getting keys jammed in manual typewriters and laying out a structure of glyphs in a way that, you know, didn’t often have place next to each other in words. So, the keys would have less frequency of getting jammed in typewriters. So, there’s this idea of carrying this artifact forward, and it’s just easier to learn the QWERTY layout than it is to redesign a whole new keyboard, even though other people have tried over the years. But I think that’s an apt metaphor for a community of practice, because there are things that we carry forward and learning to appreciate where we’ve come from is part of that act of negotiated meaning that comes from just the experience of being part of a group of people who are doing the same thing as you. I don’t know that that kind of struck me as profound as I was kind of thinking through. This isn’t just event management. We’re not just giving people a drink ticket and hoping they show up to a networking event. It’s really about producing this shared experience that we’re all kind of going through. And the more temperature and taking we do and navel gazing, you know, the less community we’re going to be build. And the more conversations we have and shared experiences we kind of document and create a little bit of a folklore, the better of a community we’re going to have.

Paul Gebel [00:14:22] Everyone just want to take a quick break in today’s conversation to share some exciting news about it. Is upcoming product and design conference taking place Thursday and Friday, June 27th and 28th right here in Rochester, New York. It’s going to be held at the Memorial Art Gallery, and it’s going to be spread over two days. Day one, featuring a half day design and product workshop series with and a seeing John Hagerty, Ryan Rumsey and Patricia Reiners. Day two is going to be a fantastic day of keynotes headed up by John Maeda, VP of design and AI at Microsoft, Denise Tillis, coauthor of the new book Product Operations. And Ryan Rumsey, CEO of Second Wave Dive and author of Business Thinking for designers. Sprinkled in throughout the day of keynotes will have the option to choose your own adventure. You can sit in on some live recordings of podcasts. You can network with some fantastic product and design professionals throughout the day or catch one of. Three fireside chats, discussing some of the important themes and topics in our space that we’ll be touching on throughout the day. To reserve a seat for you and a friend, or maybe treat your whole team to two amazing days of learning and networking. You can head on over to it.com/conference 2024. That’s ITX.com/Conference2024. Looking forward to seeing you there. And let’s get back to the show.

Christina Halladay [00:15:41] And I think it’s about priorities too, right? Like Sean, you mentioned you have a family. I have a family. If someone’s going to get me to come to a professional work-related event, like I’m, I need a reason to be there. Right. And I think that that helps too, to be able to, you know, give people motivation to come somewhere. What’s the value they’re going to get out of it. What’s it going to be like? Are they going to have a good time? Are they going to meet some interesting people? Are they going to learn something new? I think especially, you know, post-pandemic people are a little more critical with how they spend their time. Something for us to think about as we’re organizing things, you know, what are people getting when they when they come to this event?

Brian Loughner [00:16:21] One thing to add to that is that so you’re spot on. One thing I’ve learned from kind of taking the temperature of the room is that not everyone is looking for the same thing. So yeah. Time of the day frequency. Yes. That not always the same. But there are a lot of, you know, Venn diagram overlapping parts that you kind of want to just, you know, put a, put a toothpick in and, and really hone in on those because there are some, you know, because it’s domain, because it’s, community of practice. Like there are definitely some universal overlaps.

Christina Halladay [00:16:50] We should ask, right. What do you want to get out of this?

Sean Murray [00:16:53] Yeah, I think we’re getting to the great the great spot because episode 125 of the podcast that Petra is really about why: why should you do community practice. And we’re talking we’re really talking about like, how do you actually do it, right? How do you get it started? Right? Christina, you talked about, well, valuing their time. How do we get people to understand this is going to be valuable, right. How do we get people to show up and talk? So I think there have been Paul, you talked about drink tickets. That’s one way to loosen the lips, right. There’s, I think if we’re going to make it valuable for peoples time is there’s there are ways to say there are ways to get people in with an idea of what they’re going to talk about, which will make them more comfortable, which will make them more approachable, which will make them more willing to participate in conversations or even start to drive the conversation. Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, you’re going to be more comfortable talking about something that everybody is ready to talk about. I’m looking to move my next community of practice to execute the way that your last community of practice went where you had a speaker that started a topic and then there was a group meet up afterwards. Right. That provides that will that really can disarm a lot of people in terms of like, all right, I’ve got I have a lot of topics I want to talk about, but I don’t know everybody else. What I like about. Right. And having that, having a speaker lead the conversation, which could just be a community member talking about a topic that they’re passionate about or a project that they’re working on, right. Or a more formal, kind of more formal, you know, product, product or UX leader speaking that’s going to drive that drive a future conversation right now.

Brian Loughner [00:16:29] In just one small point in there. So how we got there really quickly was started with social events. We started with the one topic you’re interested in, how can you get value out of this? A pro tip is do not do it digitally. People will not fill it out online afterwards. QR code don’t do it. If you’re in person, just print out a couple copies, get some pens, let’s call. They’ll 26 responses. And I like what people are, what people want to get. Like what? What’s going to get them out of   their place, out of their home in, you know, to come to this. So, we’ve learned from that. So, we have UX and learns. So we have an expert come in, either present a topic or start a topic and turn it to like a fire chat around side table.

Paul Gebel [00:19:16]  I’m going to ask you to play devil’s advocate against the point you just made and ask a very specific question that I’m sure people are thinking about. Is it is it possible for a community to exist in a purely digital format, or does that create an oxymoron? Is there such a thing as a virtual community of practice?

Brian Loughner [00:19:36] I would say yes. I think that there are some things you obviously don’t get from being digital. There are some successful ones. You know, we mentioned earlier, Jared Spool Leadership of Awesomeness is it’s a great community. They have a really cool format where there’s lectures, Q and A’s. You know, there’s a whole community message board where people are really being active and really get around it. So, I think it is possible, but I do think the I think it’s possible. Yeah, I do.

Christina Halladay [00:20:07] I think it has to be.

Sean Murray [00:20:08] You know, it’s that’s possible. Hard to start. Right. Unless you’re really awesome. Like Jared is, where you have a following. Just sounds like a difficult way to start.

Christina Halladay [00:20:08] Oh with Discord and Slack and everything these days. Is it that difficult to find your people?

Sean Murray [00:20:25] Think that’s fair, right? Because the community does not have to be large, right? Community can 3 to 4 people. Right? I know our first product meetup was like five people. Right. And it worked because, you know, the people were there to talk about what they were doing as product managers. So yeah, I think maybe, you know, maybe my personal bias about really liking the in person, the in-person meetup is, is shining through a bit.

Paul Gebel [00:20:25] But yeah, I think, you know, we can kind of tie this back to some general business trends larger than just a community of practice, organizing or conversation. But the idea that, you know, if the if the 2010s were defined by growth at all costs, it seems like the way the 2020s are shaping up is like do more with less as like a theme of the decade, at least as far as we can tell right now. So doing more with less, I think, is right on brand with that idea of, you know, if you’ve got five people who are interested in getting better, that’s a worthwhile conversation. Not everything has to be millions or, you know, double digit growth, percentages and, and vanity metric. So that’s where I think getting back to the idea of, of negotiated meaning like this, this is valuable for us. So we’re going to do it.

And having that agreement amongst each other, I think it’s really it’s really cool to have a group of people that aren’t just in it for purely capitalistic, purely, you know, earnings, shareholder, you know, all, all the things that that have been kind of the Silicon Valley culture of the past 20 to 25 years, kind of getting back to we’re practitioners, we’re artisans, we’re creatives, and we have these common pain points. And other people have solved problems in new and interesting ways that we can learn from. And I think that’s really the heart and soul of what we’re talking about. It’s not about how big it is or not about how far the reach is or how slick the marketing is around it. It’s about helping people get better at what we’re all doing together.

Sean Murray [00:22:23] When I hear you say do more with less, because March Madness going on right now, I think of Jim Valvano saying, ‘Survive and Advance’. So that’s it’s a little bit more dystopian view. One thing that I was able to benefit from in my community practice was that there was an established UX community practice. Right. So you, Brian and Christina, you already had events. You already had a lot, a large amount of people coming and. I really was just filling a gap that I noticed, right? What was some of the inspiration for starting the UX community of practice? Like where did that, how did it really originate?

Christina Halladay [00:22:59I’ll let you take that one, Brian.

Brian Loughner [00:20:56] Cool. Yeah. Well, although I’ve been kind of an organizer for the past two or 3 or 4 years, it was something that was kind of passed down. There was another community member who started it, kicked it off, and it was a lot of work kind of getting that together and, you know, talking about growing and evolving. You know, it was tight. He didn’t have time for it anymore. So, he vacated the space and other community members came in and filled in the gaps. So, it would be unfair to say that we started this from scratch, just kind of carry along the torch, but it’s definitely evolved quite a bit, quite a bit since the initial founding.

Sean Murray [00:23:00] One of the reasons I ask that was because, Christina, you were talking about how a community practice could be a small amount of people, right? So maybe if you’re if you’re listening to this and you’re wondering like, oh, this sounds like something that I want to be a part of, this sounds like something I either want to join or start. Yeah, I think it’s an opportunity to realize, like, hey, maybe you actually are already in a community of practice. You just haven’t defined it as that yet. Who you are. Maybe it is the people that you work with on a daily basis. You do want to meet outside of you want to meet outside of your normal hours on and just work together on how you are executing. I think that we want one of the goals of our one of the goals of us talking today is to get people, get people involved. Right? So recognize, hey, maybe you’re already in one try to find, you know, using Meetup or using some other tools. Try to find a local community to join. But I think one of the things that I didn’t know, didn’t realize before I started up, you know, I knew that there was I knew that the gap existed, but I didn’t realize that I was already in one with the people that I work with on a daily basis. Right? People that were on my teams just working with, working with different clients.

Christina Halladay [00:24:41] Good point.

Paul Gebel [00:24:44] We just have time for another question or two, and I’m curious to hear if this next question perspectives from each of the three of you. As far as you know, you’ve all alluded to the fact that you’re moderators, facilitators, organizers, central in some way to the communities that you’re involved in. And with that responsibility comes the need for creating psychological safety, creating it, creating space where people can feel safe to show up as themselves. And I think a lot of the, you know, the codes of conduct around conferences and networking have been really helpful to think about. But, you know, besides sort of just the safety toolkit  that an organizer should consider on the more maybe positive, proactive side of that conversation, how do we allow the message to be shared that a community exists without sounding like we’re recruiting or hard selling somebody into, you know, a pitch to, you know, to create a sense of FOMO that they need to join. So I’ll, I’ll leave it a little bit open ended, and you can take it where, where you’d like and maybe starting a. Christina, what comes to mind when you’re thinking of, you know, the role of the organization organizer and then the role of the participant finding that right fit of a community to be involved in.

Christina Halladay [00:25:59] That’s a great thing to think about. I think one of the interesting and more powerful things about community of practice is when they are grassroots and kind of self-sustaining and informed by the people that are in them. I mean, that’s kind of the point, right? It’s for the members. There really shouldn’t be some agenda that’s sort of dictated by you know, one person. This is this should be more organic than that. So I think as an organizer, you know, it’s there’s work involved to understand who are these people and what are their preferences and what are they looking to get out of this and, and involve them in that process? I think that’s the best thing you can do, is just kind of open it up to the group and have the group form it together, you know?

Paul Gebel [00:26:43] Sean, what about you? What comes to mind when you think about the role of the organizer, or making the message available to those who might be looking or might not even be looking, but share the there’s this thing is available to them and it might be a fit to consider.

Sean Murray [00:26:58] I think one of the biggest things the organizer needs to have is a lack of fear. Yeah, if you’re prepared to like, maybe nobody shows up to this one, right? I mean, it’s a little.

Christina Halladay [00:27:08] All the drink tickets for you.

Sean Murray [00:27:09] All the drink tickets. You know, that’s one of the reasons I don’t have a career in sales is because I don’t. I really hate being told no, and I can’t take it. But when I started, the upstate product meetup, I was prepared for no one to show up to the first one. So, I think I was willing to willing to put myself out there, willing to kind of just see if it worked. So, I think you have to be prepared to get prepared for failure, and you have to prepare to learn from that failure. How can you just kind of keep moving forward? So, the facilitator has to be driven, driven to make the community grow.

Brian Loughner [00:25:46] Yeah. Those are like a lot of very good strategic ones. I’ll try to add some very tactical ones to like for the some of them:  like have name tags, make sure people can know who people are when it allows people to interact with each other a little bit better. If you are going to a public place, get a sign that says like who you are. It’s often people when they come in there, they want to know where they’re going. They’re feeling they don’t know anyone. Have like a home beacon. Let them know where the where the all the things be excited. I mean, you know, excitement is, you know, infectious. So like, you know, be excited about people being there. A good tactical tip is be purposeful on remembering people’s names as an organizer. Like they keep saying, hey, how you know, remembering their name. Doing those things help people. Couple other things is that if you are in a bit more of a group of icebreakers, mini-icebreakers that can help with the conversation when this, especially when this is kind of in an immature or just starting off getting, you know, getting people there to the actual physical community. Those are some things that I found helped. But also, we mentioned before the photos expectations of like, what is that look like? You know, that type of thing. You know, these people aren’t normal in and like happy to be there too. So those are some more tactical things I guess that.

Paul Gebel [00:29:07] Yeah, I love where you guys took that. Each, I think, really called out an area that I was hoping we could get to. I think the last thing that I’ll share, maybe before we do, you know, one last round robin of quick hits on lessons learned. I think my biggest suggestion is related to Sean and the excitement that you mentioned Brian. But, you know, even stepping out a little bit further, zooming out a little bit further, is the organizer sets the tone. It is related to excitement, but it’s also related to safety and boundaries. And you know what’s acceptable behavior and what will, you know, be, you know, result in a warning and maybe, you know, prevention from being invited back further.

So, I think we do live in a world where, you know, toxicity exists, trolls exist. Hopefully these communities are built in a way that the grassroots organic nature is sort of an immune system to the community that prevents that from happening. But we do have to be real that if and when those moments happen, it’s really the organizers responsibility to kind of protect the group and, and make sure that people still feel safe to show up. I think just in a in a more positive tone, though, just showing up and setting the tone of, you know, I’ll share. When product managers get together, oftentimes it turns into a therapy. In fact, I think, you know, the plural noun of like, you know, a murder of crows, a therapy of product managers. I might make a play for that, like Oxford English Dictionary word of the year. But you know, when when product people get together, there is this trope of oftentimes we just start talking about all the responsibility and none of the authority, and woe is me, no decisions.

And it can get negative. And I think setting the tone of like we do have we’re adults, we’re professionals, we have it. And it’s, it’s on us to make our, our careers and our communities grow, that we have a vision for them to grow. And I think some of that, you know, woe, woe is me attitude that that just comes from leadership showing up and setting the tone and being a positive factor in, in how communities get built. So we just got a couple minutes left here. I want to just open the floor to see if there’s anything that you all are hoping to share that we didn’t get a chance to in, in the course of our conversation today. What what’s on your minds is something that people can take away. Maybe go read as an external resource that you found inspiration from in prepping for today, or just an anecdote of like a cool lesson you learned in your experience with communities of practice? Brian, I’ll start with you and go back around the room.

Brian Loughner [00:31:49] Of course. Yeah, I think the big takeaway I would say is, you know, get out there and try it. What I’ve learned from the people and from a couple aspects, you know, just the social, anecdotal, storytelling, sharing kind of thing versus the more informal or the more formal like learning training, like making me a better person slash designer has been great and those things you can’t always get from kind of being comfort and growth can’t coexist. So, you know, getting out there and doing it, just do it. It’ll make you a better person, better, better at your job. You know, all those things.

Paul Gebel [00:32:25] Hurt and growth can’t coexist. Quote of the pod.

Brian Loughner [00:32:29] Right now.

Christina Halladay [00:30:26] I love it.

Paul Gebel [00:32:31] Sean, beat that.

Sean Murray [00:32:33] So I think one of the biggest lessons learned that I had was we talked about the role of the facilitator. And as the facilitator, one of the things that I was worried about was how do I drive the conversation? Use the people that are part of your community to help make the community better. They are also responsible, right, for getting more out of the getting more out of the sessions. Right? So, get their ideas on format. Get their ideas on topics right. And don’t make it your responsibility to be the sole driver. Right. Use your community to get ideas on what should happen next.

Christina Halladay [00:33:09] To say something that hasn’t already been said, I guess I would just say a reflection. A reflection of mine is that it’s a small world. It’s a small community, you know. Take that for what you will. You know, when I think of that, I think, you know, if you’re intimidated, there’s bound to be some connection with someone. When you show up somewhere, you might have common interest, somebody that, you know, together. Maybe you work somewhere, you went to the same college, like whatever it is. There’s definitely so many connections to make among humans. So put yourself out there. It’s a small world, and you never know what kind of impact you could have to and how it could help you out later, help somebody else out later, give back that type of thing. Yeah, that’s what I would say.

Paul Gebel [00:33:53] Yeah. And I would, I would, I would go a step further and say come expecting that to happen. Like the more open minded you are, the more connections you’ll be able to make with people. I’ll share, you know, a brief, anonymized anecdote. I didn’t have permission to share names or places, but just, you know, in the spirit of what you were just talking about, Christina, the last meetup that we had here, I met somebody whose creative work I’d been following for more than a decade. And they were, you know, in a different city than I was. And I, you know, just never thought that I would get a chance to meet, let alone experience their work. But randomly, they showed up to our product management meetup and, you know, not only got to meet them, but, you know, was invited to view their work and, and kind of get, a behind the scenes peek. And I’m not saying that that happens every single meetup, but I think it’s emblematic of that idea that, like, we have a lot more in common than we do different.

And if you come expecting to make a connection, you’re probably going to find something real. And that’ll become part shared negotiation. They’ll become part of the folklore of the group. And it’s something that you can like, look back for and really find, find value in. And it’s not that’s not going to show up on an analytics dashboard or, or an NPS survey. That’s just something that you have to you have to participate. You got to play to win, and you have to come with an open mind and expect to make those connections. Otherwise it’s we’re just going to be sharing PowerPoint templates of, you know, how to make a presentation go smoother, which is, you know, could have been an email. Right. But if a, if a community of practice could have been an email, then, then we’re probably doing something wrong. So yeah, I really appreciated the conversation today. You guys are amazing leaders in your communities of practice, and I know that those who are listening are going to take something valuable away. So really grateful for the time today. This is I learned a lot just listening to you think through these things and I appreciate the conversation. Cheers.

Guests [00:35:56] Thanks, Paul

Paul Gebel [00:35:59] Well, that’s it for today. In line with our goals of transparency and listening, we really want to hear from you. Sean and I are committed to reading every piece of feedback that we get. So please leave a comment or a rating wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Not only does it help us continue to improve, but it also helps the show climb up the rankings so that we can help other listeners move, touch, and inspire the world just like you’re doing. Thanks, everyone. We’ll see you next episode.