Building asynchronous relationships
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Ways to Intentionally Build Asynchronous Communities
- Having set rituals can support with creating community. For example, having daily check-ins / check-outs for a team working remotely; having acknowledgements and celebrations be a regular part of the communications.
- Norming Terms: Important to support all team members in understanding any jargon / terms that the community uses. For example, if a team has specific uses for different emojis, it can be helpful to create a guide of what those mean for when new members join the team.
- Have as much communication in public channels as possible as opposed to primarily using direct messages.
- Have clear, shared, participant-generated agreements that are consistently communicated and and referred back to.
- Have topic threads to organize conversations.
- Most horizontal communities benefit from designated leaders to prompt / respond to questions, and pose conversation starters.
How to select the platform / tools to use:
- Meet people where they're at. Important to use the tools / platforms that are most accessible to most folks in the community. Even if it means using a facebook group.
- When there's disagreement about which tools to use, invest the human energy to create alignment on a tool.
The Value of Synchronous
- Complexity best communicated synchronously. E.g. sending a voice / video note to communicate a nuanced message. Or having phone call checkins (with, for example, supervisors).
- Some tasks best accomplished synchronously, like coding together.
- In-person gatherings are incredibly valuable and can enhance asynchronous interactions later on. In-person gatherings allows folks' full humanity to be shared.