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Get Together

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A show about ordinary people building extraordinary communities. "Get Together" is hosted by the team at People & Company and our correspondents Mia Quagliarello, Maggie Zhang, Marjorie Anderson, and Whitney Ogutu.

Connecting designers across Africa during COVID-19 🇰🇪 Lewis Kang'ethe, The Fearless Community

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 43:19

“Let's bring designers together and first talk about your wellbeing. Then let's talk about the next steps forward for you as a designer.” -  Lewis Kang'etheLewis Kang'ethe was first championed as a community leader in primary school when his teacher asked him to spearhead the mathematics club. When the teacher asks, the answer is either, “yes or yes.” Now, Lewis works as a product designer in Kenya. When he’s looking for jobs outside of Africa he often gets asked the question, “are you qualified?” Lewis started the African chapter of The Fearless Community so that designers in Africa can tell their stories. It’s a place for designers like Lewis to find work and a network. Members from around the world convene in local Slack channels and attend video podcast series with veteran designers. When COVID-19 became a threat, they launched the #StayConnected series first to talk about their wellbeing and then, the next steps forward for their members as designers. Lewis takes a “servant” leadership approach to his role as community lead in Africa. We talked with him about the attention to details when connecting people across cultures and how the community has adjusted to online meetups.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:You can’t fake the funk.Getting started. Reaching out to potential members on portfolio websites.Bridging the gap. Connecting people across cultures.Virtual meetups. Leaning into playfulness and fun of being a designer.Servant leadership. Building with and in service of the community members.👋🏻 Say hi to Lewis Kang'ethe and learn more about The Fearless Community.✨ Thank you to Whitney Ogutu, “Get Together” correspondent, for bringing the story to us.📄 See the full transcriptThis podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we work with organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider as strategy partners, bringing confidence to how they’re building communities. Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Growing a community one town hall at a time 💰 Claire Wasserman, Ladies Get Paid

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 39:07

“The email that I would receive after every single town hall was, ‘I thought I was the only one.’” - Claire WassermanBy 2016, Claire Wasserman was fed up with men not taking her seriously in the workplace. For years, she’d internalized this marginalization as somehow her fault or her problem to struggle through alone. It was time for that to change.With a friend, Claire brought together 100 women in a town-hall style event to talk about money and power in the workplace. Out of those conversations, Claire saw the potential for something much bigger.After that first town hall, she created a Slack group which grew to 6,000 women in the first year. Half a year later, that Slack group had more than 20,000 members from all 50 states. Claire quit her job, incorporated a business, and hit the road hosting town halls around the country.  Today, Ladies Get Paid has helped more than 75,000 women believe in and advocate for their worth, including a young Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. Town hall discussions, conferences, workshops, webinars and more took place across the country before the pandemic, and those sessions have transformed into webinars and more since COVID arrived.How did Claire get such a massive community and business off the ground? Tune in for the full story.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Can’t fake the funk. Why this work matters to Claire.Origin story. In 2016, Claire hosted a town hall in NYC offering an intimate and vulnerable space to talk about money.Town halls. Claire’s tour across America and learning the dynamics of different cities.Moderation. Creating community guidelines and an ecosystem where there is no need for moderation.Writing the “Ladies Get Paid” book. Centering the book around stories of real women.Lawsuit. How Ladies Get Paid was sued and lobbied elected officials to change laws.👋🏻Say hi to Claire and learn more about Ladies Get Paid.📄See the full transcriptThis podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we work with organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider as strategy partners, bringing confidence to how they’re building communities. Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Building real bonds amongst diverse groups of strangers 💖 Sophie Mona Pagès, LVRSNFRNDS

Get Together

  • 1.5K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 48:56

“Society is losing something when we don’t share our weirdness with one another. You're losing something when you have someone at your table and they don't share what makes them different. One of the purposes I have in life is to create spaces where people will share what is interesting about them, and why they are different.” - Sophie Mona PagèsAs a Moroccan immigrant growing up in France, Sophie Mona Pagès grew up feeling a bit “weird” in her complex identity. She craved a space infused with diversity, inclusion, intimacy, modernity, and beauty. Instead of waiting for such a space to appear, she created LVRSNFRNDS herself. The 20 attendees at the first event in East London were people Sophie found on dating apps who she “would be happy to spend an evening with.” She asked them to fill out a form if they wanted to attend, spend 15 minutes with her on a call, and gathered fun facts about each attendee to spark conversations. The group was diverse across identities and ages, and meaningful relationships were sparked. The night was a success. Today LVRSNFRNDS gathers people around the world, to fight loneliness and enable meaningful connections of all kinds. Hand-selected members have access to events where they’re asked to contribute their voice to conversations on intimacy and relationships.In March 2020, the community traded bars for virtual rooms. We’ll talk with Sophie about developing a playbook that captures shared values, facilitating online conversations, and why this work matters to her.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Origin story. Finding the first 20 people.Can’t fake the funk. “I grew up feeling weird.”Going virtual. People showing up and supercharging the why--support.Facilitating online. Empowering members to step up as hosts.Building playbooks with members. Acknowledging that people mess up and creating a response for when that happens.👋🏻Say hi to Sophie Mona Pagès and learn more about LVRSNFRNDS.✨Thank you to Marjorie, “Get Together” correspondent,  for bringing us this story.📄See the full transcriptThis podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Connecting over the food & family we love 🍲 Sarah Leung, Woks of Life

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • about 4 years ago
  • 41:41

“As the community grows and people come back, they start wanting to know more about us and where we're coming from. We wanted to make that really clear--the origin of all of these recipes and of our family.” - Sarah LeungThe Woks of Life has opened the door for many families to connect over the food and memories they love. The Leung family, Bill and Judy, and daughters Sarah and Kaitlin started the blog to document their favorite Chinese dishes and family memories in 2013. Food has been a central part of their family's heritage. Sarah’s grandpa was a chef in the New York Catskills and Sarah’s dad, Bill, worked with him in the restaurants.Today, their blog is recognized as an authority for Chinese cooking and has sparked a robust online community. They developed their beloved editorial lens by capturing sincere experiences and rich memories with food as Chinese Americans. We talk with Sarah of how her family found their voice and supercharged others to share theirs too.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Origin story. Sarah and her sister realized they weren’t eating the food of their childhood without their parents around.Role modeling conversations. Attaching memories to recipes.Spark of community. Realizing that the blog was bigger than just their family.Creating an editorial lens. Capturing the breadth of experience people have with Chinese cuisine.Responding to feedback. Keeping the blog “living and breathing” and always improving.👋🏻Say hi to Sarah and learn more about The Woks of Life.✨Say hi to Maggie Zhang, “Get Together” correspondent.📄See the full transcript This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

How a movement took over LinkedIn 🗺Anna McAfee, #LinkedInLocal

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 50:32

“Leadership is actually the first few followers, not the crazy first person to stand up on stage.” - Anna McAfeeIn May 2017, Anna McAfee put up a simple post on LinkedIn to see if anyone living in her hometown of Coffs Coast, Australia wanted to get together. She had just returned after years of living abroad and wanted to “get to know the people behind the profiles” in her area. Anna included the hashtag #LinkedInLocal. Fifteen people made it out to the first Coffs Coast event, but the online response was what would change Anna’s life. Three strangers—Alexandra Galviz in London, Manu Goswami in NYC, and Erik Eklund in Brussels—raised their hand to also host a #LinkedInLocal in their city. No one could predict what happened next.Host requests started pouring in from around the world. The founding team was soon hosting after-hours trainings six nights a week to help new cities ramp up. For two years, Anna and her co-creators led, mentored, and managed the #LinkedInLocal global community. At its height, #LinkedInLocal had more than 1,000 hosts and had rallied over 300,000 humans, in 650+ cities across 92 countries. Anna & co. fostered this community without formal support from LinkedIn. She walked a fine line between an unexpected, organic community and the priorities of the platform. In 2019, Anna stepped away and she recently co-authored a book about her experience: How a Hashtag Changed the World.We talked with her about creating a host community and the friction that can appear when an organic community erupts on a major platform.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Anna defines personal why. Searching for belonging in her local community, Anna used the tool she knew best--LinkedIn.Identify the “who” of #LinkedInLocal. The power of a network of hyper-local communities.Balancing inclusion and exclusion. #LinkedInLocal’s first core value: diversity.Cultivating your identity. Building an organic community within the guidelines of a major brand.Support leaders. Anna played the role of connector--making connections within the host communities, helping hosts help themself.👋🏻Say hi to Anna and grab a copy of her book.✨Thank you to Mia Quagliarello, “Get Together” correspondent, for spotlighting Anna’s story with us.📄See the full transcript This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

LIVE Interview! “Going Virtual” 👩🏻‍💻 Carla Fernandez & Mary Horn, The Dinner Party

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 24:20

“We're not going to give up in-person gatherings, but at the same time, virtual tables have been so meaningful. Post-COVID probably will be a ‘both and’ community.” - Carla FernandezIn November, we hosted a live interview with Carla Fernandez and Mary Horn in front of an intimate audience. For both women, their work with The Dinner Party is personal.  “We know what it’s like to lose someone and we aren’t afraid to talk about it,” their website states.When COVID-19 arrived in March, Carla, Mary, and the team “frantically put together some programming.” They stood up a calendar of events, including yoga and journaling, that Dinner Parties could tune into from around the world. But when they turned to their community and asked, “what do you need more of?” the answer grounded them in their founding purpose. “They weren't as interested in these one-way teaching experiences,” Carla told us. “What they really wanted was connections and homies that they could talk to about what was going on in their life.” People can go to a yoga class any hour of the day, seven days a week. At the outset of COVID-19, there were a lot of organizations providing those spaces (thankfully!). What Dinner Partiers didn't have was someone that they could talk to about their grief. Since that realization, they have launched the Buddy Program, connected affinity groups, and added 70 new tables to their community.  In our live interview, we talked with them about finding an activity that was purposeful, participatory, and offered the peer support people come to The Dinner Party for. We have plans to host another live interview soon! Stay in the loop by subscribing to our newsletter.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Origin story. Why Mary comes to the table. (We first heard Carla’s back when we talked with her and co-founder, Lennon Flowers, on a previous episode of the podcast.)Listening to community needs. Asking questions that revealed next steps. Purposeful & participatory shared activity. How The Dinner Party launched the Buddy Program and transitioned the tables online. Paying attention to hand-raisers. How the team supercharged and supported affinity groups that popped up around shared experiences and identities.Looking to the future. A post-COVID world with the best of virtual and IRL gatherings.👋🏻Say hi to Mary and Carla + learn more about The Dinner Party.📄See the notes from our live event!This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack, and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Room for reimagining masculinity 🤝Onyango Otieno, Nyumbani

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 37:13

Note: we will discuss sexual assault in this episode and advise our listeners to practice discretion in tuning in.“Everybody's story is valid. The fact that people feel they cannot speak up about their own pain is my motivator.” - Onyango OtienoAt twenty years old, Onyango Otieno was the victim of sexual assault and found he had no where to turn. In Kenya, as in many other societies, the patriarchal structure turns a blind eye to the sexual experiences of men. Men are socially conditioned to hold in their pain.   Because of his background as a storyteller, Onyango instead began writing about his experience. In sharing his story on Facebook and Twitter, he found “some kind of liberation.”Onyango continued exploring African masculinity and advocating for mental health, and eventually put up a post sharing that he was starting a WhatsApp-based mental health support group.Over 200 people raised their hands to join him there. Onyango put these folks into two groups and offered some basic community guidelines that allowed members to define the space the way they wanted. Today they call these groups Nyumbani, which is Swahili for “home.”We talked with Onyango about structuring a community support group starting with community guidelines and his personal self-care as he leads people to unpack trauma. Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Sending a signal. Onyango sent a call for men who wanted to join a support group.Watering hole. Gathering on WhatsApp and creating community guidelines.Healing circles. A participatory shared activity where men share stories of sexual assault, often for the first time.Self-care. Onyango’s practices to check in with his emotions.👋🏻Say hi to Onyango (onyangohome@gmail.com) and learn more about Nyumbani✨Say hi to Whitney Ogutu, “Get Together” correspondent.📄See the full transcript.This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Meet Whitney Ogutu 🎙“Get Together” Podcast Correspondent

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 16:32

“Listeners should expect refreshing and new voices from me. The plan is to put Africa on the map.” - Whitney OgutuIn the middle of July, we announced that we were searching for a new podcast correspondent to  help us expand the stories we tell. We had an incredible response to the program–117 applications! We decided in the end to bring on not just one, but two correspondents: Marjorie Anderson and Whitney Ogutu.We’ve been training Marjorie and Whitney over the past few months on our editorial voice, how to do outreach, how to interview, and to edit, and we’re excited to share that they've recorded their interviews. In advance of hearing her first episode, today we will introduce you to the cerebral, sincere, kind-hearted Whitney Ogutu who comes to us from Nairobi, Kenya. Whitney leads Community Engagement and Programs at Mettā Nairobi, a community, and innovation hub that supports startups, entrepreneurs and innovators. She is an investor in people and their potential, which she traces back to her first memories of local chamas, a Kenyan community format for brainstorming and taking actions on local problems.Over the next few months, Whitney will be sharing stories of community leaders on the podcast but first we wanted to share hers. 👋🏻Say hi to Whitney on Twitter.This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Instigating grassroots culture change 🧩 Steve Garguilo, Cultivate

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 53:26

“There's strategic value in giving up some control when you're a leader at a company and you want new ideas to emerge.” - Steve GarguiloEarly in his career, Steve did the (seemingly) impossible—he led a grassroots transformation of the culture of Johnson & Johnson, the fifth largest company in the world. Frustrated by the pace and challenges of big company culture, Steve decided to do something he’d done in college: host a TEDx.  He hosted a casual TEDx event at a bar and invited employees within Johnson & Johnson to share their research, wild ideas, and learn from one another. Within an hour and a half of posting the event internally, 90 people had signed up. Soon employees at other offices around the world wanted to host their own. By the time Steve was done, 23,000 people at Johnson & Johnson had engaged in a TEDx and he had a new title: “Head of Instigation at Johnson & Johnson.”Today Steve continues this work shifting big company cultures from the ground up. As a partner at Cultivate, he’s taking the transformative work he did at Johnson & Johnson to other organizations. He co-authored Surge: Your Guide to Put Any Idea into Action which captures the two-decade on the quest to find better ways to take action on our ideas.We talk with Steve about how he pinpointed fellow changemakers within Johnson & Johnson and supercharged their ideas using the TEDx format. Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Start with “why.” Aligning behind a shared purpose.Do something together. The steps Steve took to host the first TEDx at J&J.Metrics of success. Shiny eyes and goosebump moments.Pinpointing cultivators. Finding other people that have energy to spark change.Leading authentically. Being the person that you want more of in the world.👋🏻Say hi to Steve and learn more about Cultivate.📄See the full transcript and annotate insights.This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Role modeling honesty ❣️ Kibi Anderson, Red Table Talk

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 58:27

“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 AndersonMany of us may know “Red Table Talk” as the TV show that Jada Smith, her daughter Willow, and mother Adrienne host. What you may not know is that Red Table Talk sparked thriving grassroots communities of viewers. Women in cities around the world started their own “Red Table Talks”—literally dressing their own tables with red tablecloths and gathering with strangers to experience the honest conversations that the Smiths role model on the show for themselves. Kibi Anderson is an award-winning Emmy producer and the former president of Red Table Talk. She was first a fan, drawn in by the raw conversations. We talk with her about the grassroots community that formed around the show and how she used her business savvy and inherent passion for community building to supercharge their efforts.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Can’t fake the funk. Kibi’s shares how she grew up in community.Role modeling difficult conversations. How Red Table Talk maintains the integrity of initial conversation.Supporting an existing community. How Kibi and her team acknowledged, supported, and supercharged the leaders of their community.Building with. Experimenting on then launching new tools and content with your community members.Celebrating. Bringing “OG” members close to the RTT team and creating private, special content for their most passionate members.Hurdles. The challenges of not owning a channel (Facebook) and thus not being able to communicate seamlessly with the community.👋🏻Say hi to Kibi Anderson and learn more about Red Table Talk.📄NEW! See the full transcript and leave thoughts, learnings, and insights in the comments plus respond to others. This podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

BONUS! Kevin's interview on Masters of Community with David Spinks

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 01:07:39

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!

Crowdsourcing the world’s hidden wonders 🌎Jonathan Carey, Atlas Obscura

Get Together

  • 1.4K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 46:08

“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 CareyAtlas 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, to the Ottoman Bird Palaces (yes, ornate mansions for birds!) hiding in Istanbul. All of the 20,000+ discoveries are sourced by their community and published in partnership with “A.O.” staff editors.Jonathan Carey is Associate Places Editor and Community Headmaster at Atlas Obscura, editing the places people submit and jumping into the forums to encourage conversation. He has developed an eye for spotting what suits the “A.O.” voice and can guide community submissions to the site so they fit the Atlas Obscura lens.In this episode we talk with Jonathan about capturing and supercharging contributors enthusiasm by designing around natural instincts and treating contributors like staff members.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:From user to team member. How Jonathan first got involved with Atlas Obscura.Why Atlas Obscura exists. An outlet for people who want to share what naturally excites them.“Build with.” Noticing the interests and desires of community members to help build the community up even stronger.Feedback loop. Creating guardrails for submission and keeping contributors in the loop as if they were staff writers.“That’s so AO.” Spotting the people most excited about what the platform has to offer through the depth and nuance of how they communicate.Hand-raiser stories. A superuser writes a book of the adventures they chronicled and how an email from a 7th grader sparked an art and writing prompts series at the beginning of quarantine.👋🏻Say hi to Jonathan and learn more about Atlas Obscura.📄See the full transcriptThis podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.

Training and connecting the coders of the future 👾 Isis Miller, Black Girls CODE

Get Together

  • 1.3K views
  • over 4 years ago
  • 46:35

“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 MillerThroughout 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 women make up less than 0.5% of the leadership roles in tech. As Kimberly watched her young daughter Kai grow a budding interest in gaming and coding, but with no spaces to explore or develop those interests alongside people that looked like her, Kimberly decided to take charge. Kimberly and her colleagues at Genentech put together a six-week coding curriculum for girls of color in 2011, conducting the first educational series in a basement of a college prep institution in San Francisco. In a few years, the operation transformed from a basement experiment into a global non-profit with 15 chapters supported by volunteers under the name Black Girls CODE. Today we interview Isis Miller, who joined the organization earlier this year just before COVID-19 struck. We’ll talk to Isis about how Black Girls CODE has gone virtual with online workshops and career panels that reach out to 1,000 students per week and what a meaningful partnership with Black Girls CODE means.Highlights, inspiration, & key learnings:Defining a holistic “why.” Learning to code is only part of the Black Girls CODE experience. People engage because it’s a space for girls to be inspired, motivated, and build confidence in addition to coding skills.Developing a community ecosystem. Programming engages not only girls who want to learn to code but also guardians, those that support them.Going digital. Zoom tricks that have kept Black Girls CODE true to their “why.”Honoring the moment. How Isis has created space to honor joy and trauma in grieving.Partnerships. Entering into a partnership is about building with–creating value that is not possible in one organization on their own.👋🏻Say hi to Isis on twitter learn more about Black Girls CODE on their website.📄See the full transcriptThis podcast was created by the team at People & Company. 🔥Say hi! We would love to get to know you.We published GET TOGETHER📙, a handbook on community-building. And we help organizations like Nike, Porsche, Substack and Surfrider make smart bets with their community-building investments.Hit subscribe🎙 and head over to our website to learn about the work we do with passionate, community-centered organizations.