A lack of inspiration – Ideas for Community Sessions: Use Case Demos
A common question I get asked is ‘what type of things should I be doing in my community sessions?’. I thought it would be an idea to write out a selection of ideas that can be applied to most communities regardless of what they focus on as a source of inspiration. They might work for you, they might not – they might just inspire you to do something similar but different instead. Whatever you use this for, hopefully you find it interesting! I’ll try and do a few of these as I think of them, but I’m always open to learning new ideas so feel free to share your own!
Use Case Demos
What is it?
This is the traditional transactional form of knowledge exchange – someone tells us a story. That story is generally about something relevant to your community’s domain and something that they’ve themselves seen or done. One or two or a group of community members take the floor and tell a story about something they’ve done that they’re proud of, or even a mistake they’ve made and learned from, and share it with the wider community so that they might learn from their experiences.
What’s good about it?
This form of learning partnership is one of the most genuine and human means of learning that your community can do together. This has been something that humans and some of the more cunning monkeys have been doing for many thousands of generations – indeed, this form of knowledge retention is part of the reason that as a species we have succeeded. We learn from each other’s experiences, and we grow together because of it.
As a community leader, these types of sessions are important as they forge bonds between members of the community – when I learn something from someone, they become a node in my network. I know that if I have an idea or need help in that particular area in the future, that I know the person who has expertise in that area and might be able to help support me. Over time, this network expands and becomes richer and more valuable, and therefore it helps expand the community’s collective memory and capability.
How do I do it?
Generate Ideas: Ask your community members to add offers or requests for use cases they know about or would like to learn about to your community backlog. Ask them to add their names if they feel like they can deliver a session on that particular use case or topic. Then arrange to add them into your regular session cadence.
Retention: Depending on how you choose to meet, there are ways in which you can make these use case sessions more valuable beyond the community session. I would encourage presenters to have a list of resources that can be shared and retained by those listening, but also by the community itself. If you maintain a virtual backlog board, I always recommend attaching those resources to the session’s card on the board for future reference. That way if in six or twelve or eighteen months’ time when I vaguely remember an idea that I heard in your session and want to go back and find more information on it, I know where to go to find what I’m looking for
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