Someone who pays attention to how a newcomer enters a room. A person who can explain the thinking behind a workshop that gave everyone a way to contribute. Community building offers questions worth exploring with people who care about how groups work, over a one-to-one coffee with a SEYA Source.
Your group might be a team, a professional community, or a gathering you are planning yourself. You might be deciding how to begin, what to invite people into, or how to understand a habit that has developed over time.
SEYA’s beta includes Taylor Harrington on community building, experience design and mentoring community builders; Mikki Hoffman on community culture and workshop facilitation; Ruthie Berber on community-led growth, management and hosting; and Amora Miller on curating rooms, facilitating conversations and follow-up. Emily Chertow also brings community building as a subject.
A Source is someone worth meeting for their perspective, knowledge, taste, craft, stories, experience, or personality. These are possible subjects for a session, a bookable conversation. The gathering or group you discuss is your own; your SEYA meeting is time with one person to explore it.
These subjects come from people joining SEYA’s beta. They describe possible conversations; individual session details and availability will be confirmed during the beta.
Giving people a reason to take part
Begin with the people you hope to bring together and what they might want to do. Perhaps they share a professional question, care about a neighborhood, or want somewhere to discuss work they are making.
A conversation with a community builder can examine that starting point. Who have you already spoken with? What do they ask about? What would participating involve for them? Bring observations from actual exchanges, if you have them.
A question to bring
“These are the people I have in mind. What would you want to understand about them before deciding what to invite them into?”
Taylor’s subjects include mentoring community builders, while Emily’s include community building and creativity. Read their sessions to see which perspective fits the question you are carrying.
The experience of arriving
A person planning a gathering has a picture of what will happen. Someone arriving for the first time sees it from a different position. They may be wondering where to go, how to join a conversation, or what is expected of them.
Amora’s subjects around curating rooms and facilitating conversations, and Ruthie’s work with experience design and hosting, provide ways to explore those details. You could walk through the arrival from the participant’s point of view.
A question to bring
“If you arrived knowing only the person who invited you, what would you want to understand in the first few minutes?”
Bring the invitation and a simple outline of what you are planning. Discuss the size, setting and purpose. A dinner you are arranging, a small professional gathering and a company workshop will each need their own choices.
Designing a workshop around participation
Mikki’s subjects include designing and facilitating company workshops, experience design and design thinking. If you are preparing a workshop, you could bring the question the group needs to explore and the outline you have so far.
Talk about what people will be asked to do. How will they understand the task? When will they have time to think? What will happen to their contributions? You might spend the conversation on one activity or on the transition between discussion and a decision.
A question to bring
“This is what I want the group to explore. What would you look at to understand whether the activity helps them do that?”
The subject is the design of your workshop. A café session can give you room to discuss its structure and choices; facilitating the workshop itself is a separate undertaking.
The culture that forms through everyday habits
You may already have a group and want to understand how it feels to take part. Some people speak readily, certain questions come up repeatedly, and habits form around how decisions are made or how newcomers are welcomed.
Mikki brings building community culture, and Ruthie brings people management. A conversation could examine a particular pattern you have noticed and the context around it.
A question to bring
“This keeps happening in our group. What would you ask before deciding how to respond?”
Describe observable moments and protect the privacy of the people involved. A simplified example can be enough to explore a pattern. Leave room for the Source to ask what you may be missing from someone else’s point of view.
What happens after people leave
Amora includes follow-up among her subjects. You could talk about what you want to carry forward after a gathering and how you would invite people to take another step.
Perhaps someone offered an idea you want to return to. Perhaps you want feedback on what participants experienced, or a clear way to share what was discussed. Bring the actual purpose of the follow-up into the conversation.
A question to bring
“What would be a useful reason to contact people after this, and what would I ask them to do?”
Ruthie’s community-led growth and executive buy-in subjects offer another direction when you need to explain community work inside an organization. You could discuss what you have observed, which questions leadership is asking, and how to describe the work accurately.
Questions people ask
What community-building topics could I explore with a Source?
Subjects in the beta include community culture, mentoring community builders, hosting, workshop facilitation, experience design, follow-up and community-led growth. Choose a Source whose published session fits your group and question.
Can I discuss a company workshop over coffee?
Mikki lists workshop design and facilitation among her subjects. A session can focus on the outline, an activity or a specific facilitation question. Check the scope and agree what material to bring.
What if I am planning something small?
A small gathering can still raise interesting questions about invitations, arrival and participation. Taylor also lists small-apartment party planning among her subjects. Describe what you are planning and look for a session that fits.
Is a SEYA session a group event?
A SEYA session is a conversation with a Source. For this subject, you might meet one person over coffee to discuss a group, workshop or gathering you are organizing yourself.
Bring the group you care about into the conversation
Choose a person whose approach interests you and describe one moment you would like to understand better. A conversation can begin with something as specific as an invitation, an opening question, or the way someone is welcomed.
SEYA curates purposeful face-to-face conversations with remarkable people in the city’s most vibrant coffee shops. Discover someone remarkable, see the subjects you could explore together, and meet over coffee in a trusted local place.
Explore SEYA with a community or gathering question you would like to bring to coffee.