Building community — no matter your end goal — depends on gratitude and reciprocity. We’re also participating in a round of #thankitforward inside TheCR Network, and I wanted to share how we a running a fun little exercise for our members with all of you. Maybe it will work in your community too!
I made a post where I encouraged members to @mention three fellow members who they want to acknowledge with gratitude for some interaction or support they received in 2017. If members were stuck on who to thank, I encouraged them to think about:
- Who is someone who helped you through a challenge? Who responded to your questions? Who volunteered to jump on a call to help you out?
- Who inspired you? Did they share their work in the forums or share a case study on call that helped influence your work?
- Who was a regular, friendly face you could count on? Who contributed to your sense of community and belonging here?
I opened it up for wider participation by encouraging members to jump in even if they have not yet been mentioned themselves. Then I kicked it off with my own participation to get it rolling and model how it works.
Here’s the best part: You don’t have to wait to be tagged yourself to jump in and tag colleagues, community members or friends you want to thank. Just jump right in and join the fun!
- @Ted Hopton – Thank you for driving programming and participation around platform assessments AND for sharing back what you learned at Connect 2017. And thanks for your kind words when I needed them most earlier this year.
- @Patty McEnaney – You make TheCR Network such a brighter place. I appreciate the way you acknowledge what member share both personally and professionally. And you inspire me to never answer “How are you?” with fine or good ever again. And I really appreciate the way you are pushing cohort conversations to the next level. It makes a difference.
- @Kelly Schott – We could have never got the cohorts up and running without you. You make the work seem effortless and I appreciate you knowing where the right content is and who needs to see it!
I think many of you can appreciate that it takes HUGE restraint for me to only list three. This is an incomplete list on my end, but it will have to do.
Members who were tagged were prompted to participate which then prompted other members to jump in and so on. And of course, superusers are coming in and joining the fun without prompts because superusers are amazing! It’s a fun thread to watch unfold because it’s modeling gratuitous behaviors and I’m getting to see all the ways members influence each other throughout the year — some interactions and acts of support I had no idea happened!
