Tell me about your vision.
My vision for the world, I would say,
is that the future, I believe, is in niche communities.
One of the challenges we saw during the pandemic
was disconnection, disconnection from family,
disconnection from friends, and something
that happened during the last two decades
has been this internet ability to connect with people
all over the world.
And while Facebook might have served us in my space
before that, those are now the communities for everyone.
And as a community strategist, I really
believe in niche communities where I have a problem.
I'm going to go right to where the community, where
that problem can be solved and not have to ask 1,000 people
on Facebook or look through several Facebook groups
to figure it out, because I can find the people that I really
want to connect with to help me solve a problem, whatever
that is.
Wow, that is very detailed.
Can you tell me more about that?
I think I'm very intrigued by it.
I want to see what you do with it,
because I work in strategy environment.
So I would love your thoughts.
Tell me more about that.
Sure.
I think a lot of the time, we have a lot of education
problems in the world and trying to upskill and learn
as technology changes, especially with more and more AI
creeping into our lives every day.
And we're trying to figure out how to solve these problems
and how to upskill ourselves.
But digital courses and online e-learning
have a very low success rate for adults
and a lot of other people as well, like different age groups.
And that's because I believe a lot of the time,
we don't want to learn alone.
It's hard.
It's not fun.
But what makes learning, education, and developing
skills, personal skills, socialization skills, empathy,
compassion, generosity, all of these important skills
that we need to have in life that we don't really
get taught in school or anything like that to be a human,
these are the kinds of things that we
can work on with other people inside a community.
That community could be in person.
That community could be online.
It could be both of those things.
And the experience I had as a community member
of an online community helped change my life.
And that was why I decided to start becoming a community
builder and helping other community builders develop
a strategy and a structure so that they can launch
an online community that's going to not just be successful
and help other people solve their problems,
but is also going to bring them revenue and a business model
that's going to help them continue
in doing their ideal work and the work
that they want to do in life.
Is it very similar to the school platform or a lot of times
with courses, people have groups at the same time
and Facebook groups.
Is that something similar or is it something entirely
different than I think?
I'm just describing a general sense
of what the possibilities could be for community
without talking about any technological specifics
at this point.
As somebody I'm trying to be platform agnostic,
there's tons of technology out there
that bring people together and help people learn and help
people develop skills and build relationships.
I think those are all wonderful.
The challenge is people are complex.
So no matter how many funnels and emails and all
of these things that you have to cultivate connection
through digital methods, it's not the same as somebody
who's talking to you in a room or if you are in a conference
and there's that person, the greeter at the door that says,
hey, we're so glad to have you.
Here's where the restrooms are.
Feel free to get some coffee.
We don't have that online person.
And that's what community managers and community
professionals do.
As we continue to grow again with this AI
and all of these automated things,
we lose the humanness of humans.
So I really feel like bringing humanity back
into the digital world is really important
because it's going to be hard to determine who's real, who's
not, who am I sharing my information with,
how am I going to feel safe online,
how am I going to feel like I can connect with people
when I don't even know where you're at or who you are
and what you're doing in the world
and all that kind of stuff.
So all of those things come into play.
That being all said, the community platform
that I'm familiar with and use most often is Mighty Networks.
I don't know if you're familiar with Mighty Networks.
I am not.
I've never heard of it.
OK, that's the community platform
that I've been working on with clients over the last four
years.
Let me see right here.
And I'll edit this segment.
I just want to see if this is, because I
was looking at your website, the link you send us.
Yeah, I just typed it in the chat
in case you misheard my saying it.
But I don't necessarily, I did not build the platform.
That is obviously somebody else's platform, not my own.
OK, that makes a lot of sense.
Sweet.
I was a little confused when, yeah, that
clarifies quite a bit.
Awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't build things online.
I just help, except for relationships.
Awesome.
Well, Deb, thank you for sharing that.
My next question for you, and I think
you already went into that, is what is your why?
What gets you out of bed every morning?
Yeah, I think that the why is a complicated question
a lot of times.
It's usually very personal.
I have struggled to feel like a lot of people
feel like they belong where they grew up, where they are now,
where they are in life, where they work.
A lot of times, I felt disconnected
with the communities that I initially were part of.
And I learned to develop and connect and ask
to see what else is out there.
And so thankfully, there's a platform called Meetup.
And Meetup has been around for over a decade.
And their mission is that, is to bring people together,
you connect it online so that you can connect offline.
And those kinds of whys are the reason why I do what I do,
is to help those community builders who
are creating safe spaces for people all around the world
and designing programs that are going to help them upskill
and level up.
I'm helping them with structure and figuring out
what the purpose of their programs are,
how they're impactful.
A lot of people have these struggles with,
I know I have this big vision, but I
don't know how to clarify it.
So a lot of the work I do as a strategist
is to ask these questions, the challenging questions.
I think that's just my nature in my background,
because I used to be a former journalist
and ask a lot of questions and was told by my editor
if I didn't ask enough questions to go back and ask
more questions.
So I think just all of those things
make up the reason that I just found my purpose.
And it took a really long time.
I did a lot of other jobs and a lot
of other aspects of my life.
But ultimately, I think it was that feeling
that I got around feeling when I found people that I felt
like I belonged, like my tribe or my group of people that
got me.
And when I met those people, I was like, oh,
this is what it is.
And then when I was able to help other people design
those programs, and then they were able to say,
Deb, you've helped me create these amazing,
put this together and helped me piece it all
into something that makes sense.
That is really what I get lit up about,
of just being able to help an individual who I know
is going to impact hundreds and thousands of people
with their programs and courses and online coaching.
Thank you for sharing that.
Sure.
Then what is your goal for being on the show?
For the show today, I think just to get more people aware
of the idea of niche communities and saying,
you know what, if you feel like you're not
belonging in the place that you are, or you're feeling like,
man, I just wish I had my core group of friends.
I think everybody's familiar with the show Friends,
because it's pretty much a global phenomenon
at this point.
But I think a lot of people wanted that,
like a group of friends, that we all got each other
and that we all could hang out and be ourselves.
And there's a lot of people that have never had that experience.
And so I think that is the message
that I would like to get out the most, is just,
there are places for you.
Whatever you like, believe me, whatever you like,
there is a group that likes that thing, minus cults.
We're not going to talk about cults, but yeah.
Positive things are possible.
So I think that the challenges we've had of loneliness,
because loneliness has risen.
There's been studies that have come out post-pandemic
that have said that we are even more lonely than before.
And I think that is because so many people are feeling
disconnected from their purpose, their life, their work,
their family, all of these other things
that help them ground into who they are.
I also think society tells us who we should be.
And so a lot of the times it's upon us
to find our own path in our own way and then come to these.
And sometimes that works before community,
and sometimes that works during community,
and sometimes you find people later in life,
and all of the other things.
But it's out there.
Communities that support you are out there.
Thank you for sharing that.
And everyone is going to be listening to this.
If you're lonely, if you feel something,
you're missing friends, I think you
should go check out the platform.
It's called Mighty Works.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It's Mighty Networks, actually.
Mighty Networks.
Let me.
Yeah.
Yeah, if you go to Mighty Networks
and then you have backslash find,
it's like Mighty Networks.
I'll put it in the chat.
Yeah.
It's search for a Mighty Network.
Yeah, it's just fine.
Because then you can actually just put a keyword in
and it'll bring up all of these different communities.
They just started a podcast.
The founder, Gina, she just started a podcast.
So they have a lot of hosts that are starting
new communities all the time.
And that's been exciting.
I've credit Mighty Networks for just creating
an amazing platform that allows so many features and functions,
live streaming, creating unlimited amounts of groups,
designing programs, allowing hosts
to design the experience, whether it's
a paid, private, or secret community.
And yeah, this is just a way that you could look
in that search bar.
You could say basket weaving.
I don't know, you might find a basket weaving.
You could try that.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision
and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.