Creating equitable hybrid communities By Hugh Lashbrooke Head of Community Education at Automattic
B
y this stage, we’ve probably all heard of “hybrid events” - it has, after all, become a bit of a buzzword in the community industry of late - so how do hybrid communities differ from events? There’s a fair amount of nuance to it, but broadly speaking hybrid communities have a more holistic focus as they incorporate all interactions of the community, not just the singular events. As something of a summary, a hybrid community facilitates valuable online connections strengthened by in-person interactions. The impetus is on the connections formed rather than the format of the interactions themselves. This places significantly more emphasis on the quality of relationships rather than how people meet or where they connect.
Connecting online & offline spaces
One of the things that hybrid communities are much more well-suited towards is creating spaces that promote inclusion and equity in real, tangible ways. With the emphasis on creating connections and using in-person events as a vehicle to strengthen those connections, barriers are reduced for people from under-represented groups to become more deeply involved. So...let’s look at some ways we can create more equitable environments.
Creating Equity
There are three focus areas here - if you keep them all in mind and really put in the work to get them right then you’ll find you’re well on the way to fostering a community that actively encourages all people to join.
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COMMUNITY LEADERS
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Tools
In this context, I’m using “tools” to refer to the platforms and software you use for your community to connect. While I would always favour open-source options over others (you can read my post on how to build a robust community platform on WordPress), I don’t want to be prescriptive here. What I will say is that you need to be providing accessible platforms for collaboration and connection. Here are some considerations to keep in mind when selecting your community platform(s): • Live interactions • Asynchronous conversations • Accessibility • Localisation • Multimedia • Documentation • Open-source licencing
Training
Community education has become quite a hot topic of late - I’ve seen many communities focus on providing structured training for their community members, and I couldn’t be more excited about it. My work focus right now is building a learning platform for the WordPress community, so this is something that’s really top of mind for me and I can really feel and see the intense urgency of this kind of work. Learning together creates a sense of community that is incredibly tough to match in any other way. I would go so far as to say that being part of a learning cohort, even remotely, binds people together more than any regular in-person event can. In addition to that deeper sense of community that is created, remote learning gives more people
the chance to join in, which allows for greater diversity amongst participants and allows all community members to upskill in the same way and at the same time. As a community builder, your job here is to create practical content that teaches your community new skills.
Teamwork
Building tools and creating relevant training for your community is all well and good (definitely good), but if you’re doing it on your own and not collaborating with your community itself then you’re missing a key ingredient. Working with your community and recruiting a team of people who can work alongside you is of inestimable value. This needs to be done with care and must include documentation, onboarding, defined tasks, appropriate access levels, and any other consideration that allows you to effectively share the keys to your community with other people. It’s a fair bit of work to implement effectively, but I can promise that you’ll never regret it. You need to collaborate with your community to facilitate interactions.
Rethinking in-person events
So we’ve looked at what a hybrid community is and how you can build equality into your community model, but we haven’t really touched on the other aspect of hybrid communities - namely, in-person events. What do in-person events look like for a hybrid community? Broadly speaking, the model for in-person events within hybrid communities is that they will involve collaborative discussions that flow from online interactions. This
